According to today’s Sun and the i newspaper, the Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan will shortly bring back the Online Safety Bill, but without the hated ‘legal but harmful’ clause. Here’s how the i reports it:
i understands Ms Donelan is seeking to balance the protection of children with freedom of speech concerns.
As a result, she is scrapping sweeping “legal but harmful” rules which required social media companies to address content that is not illegal but is dangerous – such as that promoting suicide or self-harm.
The rules would have meant social media sites, such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, were responsible for dealing with this content for both adults and children.
But, amid criticism that it would have led to a widespread attack on freedom of speech by companies hoping to avoid hefty fines, i understands the new laws will only apply to material targeted at children.
That’s great news. The Free Speech Union has been campaigning against the ‘legal but harmful’ clause in the Bill ever since it was published. (See this piece by me in Conservative Home, for instance.) Of course, the Bill has many other shortcomings, but this change alone will be a huge improvement. Well done to all those FSU members and supporters who took advantage of our campaigning tool to email their MP to ask them to highlight the problems with the Bill, particularly the ‘legal but harmful’ clause. Let’s hope Michelle Donelan goes further and transforms it into a piece of legislation focused on protecting children from online harm, not adults.
You can read a report on Guido Fawkes about this excellent news here.
Stop Press: You can see a panel discussion by various experts about the shortcomings of the Online Safety Bill at the Battle of Ideas last month here.
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Expect a u-turn on this shortly, and sacking Braverman.
Without this ‘new’ legislation, we already have had years of people being arrested for tweeting that men are men, and women are women amongst many other thought-crimes. The Enrichers, the Invaders, the Gender-mentally-ill, the Climate-fascists, the Rona-tards, the Vaccinazis etc etc are already protected species off limits to criticism. Tweet at your own peril.
In the EU they will soon criminalise online criticism of Government as ‘anti Democratic’ and ‘anti Western’ disinformation. We are not quite there yet – but not that far behind in reality.
Already happened in Germany.
Germany: Dangerous Misinformation = Freedom of Expression
The German lawyer Markus Haintz sued the German Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, for having stated that Covid vaccinations are” free of side effects, free of charge, and could save the lives others”.
And guess what – Mr. Haintz lost the lawsuit with reference to “freedom of expression”. The court considered these dangerous and untrue statements as “free speech” of the defendant and justifies this as follows: “With his statement, the defendant [Karl Lauterbach] rather takes a stand in the political battle of opinions. Neutrality takes it here – as specified – just as little for itself as a confidence in the objectivity of his statement.”
In short: the German Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, is a corrupt crackhead, and the German judiciary has absolutely no clue about ” speaking justice”.
Source
Cheers,
Dr. Simon Goddek
https://t.me/goddek
Scary. So my own lying eyes that the Stabbinations do nothing except kill, injure and empoisoned, are wrong, and can be ‘trumped’ by some half wit vaccinazi politician who is paid by Pharma? Wow. I guess the ‘lessons’ and ‘never again’ from the 1930s and 40s is all theatre. I did read that the Nuremberg Code was signed in 1947 – apparently this is also useless in practice. Just photo ops and feel good messenging. Not one single politician even mentioned the NC here in the UK (nor any other rights, laws, constitution etc).
Ah, I see. Any government politician telling blatant lies is simply exercising the right to free speech.
Statements I might make pointing out any government lies can, if gov so wishes, be considered mis / dis information and lend me liable to prosecution.
It’s all very simple really isn’t it?
…unless you self-identify as a politician, then you’ll be covered to say what you want…
This just means that the judge has absolutely no clue about the issue and doesn’t want to be bothered with it. That’s pretty much the default position of German judges on anything.
https://twitter.com/suzseddon/status/1587989931007393793?s=48&t=wNwnD0uFGBocDU10M0ANDg
Have a look at this short piece from 1984 New Zealand.
“Protection of Children” is the problem.
I and my wife protect our children whilst not patronising them. It’s a tricky balance, a hard line to walk.
BUT I WILL NEVER TRUST THE GOVERNMENT WITH MY CHILDREN OR THEIR PROTECTION. THEY CAN ALL F*** OFF.
Sounds good. But obviously get ready for qualifying language that leaves a door open for future backsliding or outright U-turn.
It sounds good in so far as it’s less bad than it could have been, but as MAK points out in his post, the whole thing rests on yet another instance of the premise that it’s the state’s job or the job of someone other than the inidividual to keep us “safe” from everything, and it’s that thinking that enabled covid crapshow and is destroying our civilisation.
Exactly, tof.
But I’d add that the only “Civilisation” that I know anything about is the civilisation held within the four walls of my home.
Awful things have been and continue to be done in the name of “Civilisation”.
I owe “Civilisation” nothing, save not to be a burden upon it (whatever it is).
Well yes I agree. I suppose the “civilisation” I am thinking about is human beings finding a way to cooperate in a way that helps them more than it harms them. I suppose not many of us would want to go back to living in caves without control of fire.
Yes, of course, agree. “Sounds good” probably comes across as a little more enthusiastic than I might have intended. If it was up to me, I would get the state completely out of my life. Having to be thankful for these small, probably momentary mercies, is ultimately very depressing.
Since it’s become part of our wokey vocabulary I doubt it’s ever going away but even the label “hate speech” should also be removed from any document as binding as legislation. As of now I’ve yet to see anyone define such an ambiguous statement satisfactorily – and I suspect never will since it’s an impossible task. Anyone care to attempt it? (And one which doesn’t include the word, or use synonyms of “hate”? – or race for that matter, that surely comes under racism so its own ‘offence’).
Not suggesting racism should be encouraged either but it shouldn’t be illegal. If it were there’s plenty of anti-white racism in full normalised view.
A couple of possible examples of hate speech: –
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10294225/Its-time-punish-Britains-five-million-vaccine-refuseniks-says-ANDREW-NEIL.html
https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/04/piers-morgan-roasts-selfish-anti-vaxxers-in-scathing-takedown-15360212/
But I agree there shouldn’t be legislation to prevent people from expressing their opinions.
Haha, I see what you did there, but as we know.. those who shill for the industrial complexes of today are given carte blanche to attack [and hate on] those simply pointing out the dangers of such powerful institutions, the very same complexes they traditionally warned of themselves back when they had ethics and a spine – hence the labels.. Big Banking, Big Oil, Big Pharma.
The hypocrisy of the state protecting children is cringeworthy.
Parental controls have always been available on platforms that kids have access to anyway, should their parents wish to limit their children’s exposure to harmful online content. It is not the job of the state.
If the impetus for this bill is so strong, as it appears to be, with a newfound stigma attached to the government’s claimed obligation to “protect” children, why then did it not object to, for example, Pfizer’s sponsoring of Marvel to produce a comic strip that was effectively an advertisement for its product, specifically targeting the minds of children in a profoundly unbalanced way?
Why, if this bill to protect children is so important, did the government proactively embark on such insidious and costly campaigns to stoke fear into the hearts of CHILDREN through advertising campaigns that depicted Santa Claus on a ventilator, and implored CHILDREN not to “kill Granny”?
If these things don’t qualify as online harm, then I don’t know what does!
The spurious “dangerous misinformation” argument could be applied to children viewing online content as well… I foresee a wide net being cast here.
Government couldn’t give a F. about us, never mind our children. Anybody believing otherwise is away with the firkin fairies.
Not much let up in the aim to stick bloody needles full of poison into our children to “protect” them from a disease which carries zero risk. That’s proof if proof were needed.
See my reply to David. More proof.
If the state really cared about children, the scourge of Child Sexual Exploitation -CSE – and ineffective safeguarding would be thoroughly investigated and appropriate action taken. The state doesn’t give a fig.
The hypocrisy of those who sit in the House of Commons was clearly demonstrated during the afternoon of Thursday 30 June 2022.
The chamber looked full, many standing, for the debate ‘50 years of Pride in the U.K.’. The behaviour of most of the MPs was sickening and appalling. Noisy and near enough falling over each other in extolling self-congratulation of their support of Pride. A jolly good time they all had at the tax-payers expense.
Then – there was a mass exodus when the debate ended. Probably had important stuff to deal with…
Immediately following the ‘50 years of Pride in the U.K.’ debate was the adjournment debate.
The title of the adjournment debate?
‘Child sexual exploitation and safeguarding in Oldham’.
There was barely a handful of MPs interested enough to attend. The chamber near enough resembled the Marie Celeste.
Shameful, shameful priorities of those elected to serve the people. They do not give a toss!
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2022-06-30#undefined
edit: spelling
Thanks ellie.
Its classic ‘boiling the frog’ When the frog realised its being boiled, turn down the pan just a touch till he doesn’t notice, then turn it back up a bit more. The rhetoric is backing down, but I’d be surprised if it doesn’t make a sudden reappearance nearer to the vote..
I don’t trust any of the politicians anymore. These days they seem to actively do the opposite of what they say they’ll do. Usually, these apparent victories are no more than a distraction, whilst they get on and do the opposite.
That’s still no improvement as it’s still impossible to determine if someone accessing something on the internet is legally minor. Because of this, the only legal option is to treat everyone as legally minor by default, possibly with some scheme for collecting and safely(!) storing identity information to enable users to access content the government currently classifies as not suitable for minors for some reason. This is a law enabling principally unlimited censorship of any internet publication for the general public.
As an example even a founder or supporter of the free speech union might understand (which trumpets the irrelevant cosmetic change described in this article as important for victory): Let’s assume there’s a safe and effective vaccine (let’s call it Moderna mRNA jab) for an extremely dangerous disease (let’s call it Omicron BA.2.x.y) public health bodies in a certain country (let’s all it United Kingdom of Britain an Northern Ireland) recommend for everone aged six or older. As public health bodies recommend this, this obviously happens for public health reasons, ie, to improve the welfare and safety of everyone. Ergo: Any claim that the safe and effective vaccine has side effects, even harmless side effects, let alone dangerous ones, must be considered dangerous to minors and hence, such claims must neither be published nor discussed in places minors could access.
[Not holding my breath until the penny finally drops, though]
Germany has had universal censorship using the pretext of youth protection for almost a century now.
I wonder how long it will take for them to produce a false flag event which will ‘sadly’ require its reinstatement?
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New Wokingham Road,
Wokingham RG40 3BA
Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane
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Bracknell
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My last two posts have had 14 upticks and 7 down.
Whoo hoo I’m over the target.
Great news!
The Government “cares” so much about our children it PERMITTED gangs of Pakistani rapists to operate for decades …. as long as they only targeted poor white girls of course.
It “cares” so much about free speech that it uses every avenue possible to close it down.
This is just a minor victory, which will effectively be overturned by the EU. And that’s WHY they’re taking the clause out of the Online Harms Bill, because they expect the EU to do the job for them.