Donald Trump’s White House has accused Labour of censorship over its plans to promote “trusted” news online. The Telegraph has the story.
The US embassy in London said proposals to force tech giants to promote news from certain media outlets raised “serious” concerns about free speech.
It warned that a plan to give the Government influence over which news sources citizens see online “risks becoming a mechanism for viewpoint-based censorship”.
Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, has outlined proposals to force tech firms such as Google, Facebook and X to prominently display news from public-service broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
Ministers have not explained how media outlets would qualify as “trusted” under the scheme, which could also be extended to local and national newspapers.
The White House said the move would harm independent journalism and warned the effect on any outlets that did not receive “trusted” status was “not meaningfully different than outright removal”.
It said the US Government would “likely consider such a measure as facilitating censorship”, adding that any such measures could create a template for authoritarian regimes.
Ministers have refused to rule out requiring news publishers to submit to a state-backed regulator such as Impress, which was set up in the wake of the Leveson inquiry into phone hacking.
Andy Burnham previously called for a second phase of the inquiry, while he was joined on his by-election campaign by actors Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan, who are vocal supporters of the press reform group Hacked Off.
The US intervention suggests Labour risks fresh tensions with the Trump administration, which has previously attacked the UK over its approach to free speech and tighter regulation of tech giants.
The proposals form part of wider efforts to counteract a deluge of online misinformation and disinformation and to protect news publishers from a decline in traffic triggered by Google’s search changes and AI tools.
But any effort to tie prominence to tighter regulation has triggered fears that the Government would control what news people see online and be able to exert influence over the press.
The News Media Association – which represents titles including the Telegraph, the Times and the Guardian – said the proposed measures risked “narrowing the range of trusted voices available to people across the country”.
Officials have insisted that the measures would protect the plurality of news sources in the UK.
Worth reading in full.
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Agencies clearly not offering a balanced neutral stance now must include the BBC with its semi criminal cutting and pasting of Trump’s speech and all the many left wing biassed reports and articles rejecting balancing views. The USA should simply stop the BBC broadcasting in their territory, likewise LBC’s rabid rants. Just Stop the BBC. It is not trustworthy and wants to have a position of monitoring broadcasting globally.
Interesting that the heading focused on “White House Hits Out … ” rather than the loss of free speech in UK.
And was it not the Ambassador that commented, not White House hitting back?
Way too much attention on USA. There are so many other countries that could and should “hit back” … if brave enough.
Sir Keir […] pledges to ‘tread more lightly’ on lives of voters
No wonder the Labour party kicked him out.
The T promoting “trusted news”; what a novel idea!
Could also stand for tripe.
Get down the town square and start talking to each other again.
The harder these bstards squeeze the more people will leak out.
This shows the authoritarian instincts of so many in politics. That might explain why they are attracted to Socialism which can only operate at all through compulsion.
In addition to the principled objections to Labour’s proposals there are significant legal issues. Copyright for instance and liability for slander and libel.
When other media are forced to promote the official narrative who will bear the losses from depleting the value of those enterprises as readership dwindles.
If this gets pushed through I would like to see news items prefixed with a statement such as This item is from a provider approved by the UK Government’s News Regulator. If they’re not even permitted to link to non-approved providers they could perhaps instead link to a page saying something like You attempted to follow a link to a non-UK Government Approved news provider (with details). You could consider using an anonymising VPN.
Though I suspect the social media giants would rather do anything than promote anonymising VPNs.
The reason there is little hope is that there is very little that the state does to trample all over our freedoms that isn’t done completely in the open, very publicly.
It isn’t done behind our backs, secretly and nefariously. They tell us exactly what they are doing.
The conclusion is that the public either don’t care, are too stupid to understand the implications or are so utterly demoralised that they know there is little they can do about it. .
Those of the public who do despise the agenda and mischief of the MSM can do something – stop buying MSM products, stop paying their national TV licence propaganda tax and also never, ever vote for an establishment political party – they are all globalist, working against our freedoms and owned by the billionaire set and bankers.
Britain looking more and more like a tinpot little turd world dictatorship.
Sadly, all too true.
Certainly looks like it’s going that way to me.
Never underestimate the lengths to which the British establishment will go in their endeavours to polish a turd – glittering careers, index linked pensions and Cotswolds manor houses have been gained through the art of turd polishing.