The online free-for-all isn't working. But the government's regulation proposals leave me uneasy | thearticle

For years now, the bosses of big tech firms have been masters of the universe. Top graduates wanted to work for them. Politicians wanted to be pictured with them. Everybody wanted to use

their services. But something has changed recently. After a string of scandals, big tech is increasingly viewed with suspicion, and politicians are pushing back accordingly. This week, the

UK government launched its Online Harms White Paper, bragging that it was unveiling ‘tough new measures to ensure the UK is the safest place in the world to be online.’ ‘The era of

self-regulation for online companies is over’ declared Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright. ‘We are forcing these firms to clean up their act once and for all’ promised Home Secretary Sajid

Javid. The proposals included a mandatory ‘duty of care’ for social media firms, a new independent regulator, and even making senior executives at social media firms personally liable for

harmful content on their platforms. All quite reasonable ideas on the surface. But the government’s macho language should have been the first warning sign that all was not well with the

proposals. A lot, too much, perhaps, will come down to the definition of what is harmful content. But who is it that defines what ‘harmful content’  is? A state appointed body doing so makes

me distinctly uncomfortable, even if it is ostensibly independent. We’ve had examples of this going wrong already – attempts to block content related to suicide ending up actually stopping

people accessing help, for instance. In the tricky digital sphere, attempts to do good can have unintended consequences. Going back to first principles, freedom of speech is a vital tenant

of a liberal, democratic society – that we limit at our peril. It is hard to welcome anything that is, at its core, an increase in state-sanctioned censorship. It would not be too difficult

for something published online that was unpalatable to the government to be branded fake news or harmful. We also need to see far more about how the regulator itself will be held to account

for its decision. Accountability works both ways. Despite these reservations, there can be little doubt that the current online free-for-all isn’t working. For many, the horrifying

live-streaming of the terrorist attack against mosques in Christchurch was the final straw. For others, it is how easy it is to access content relating to self-harm and suicide – brought to

the fore by the tragic suicide of Molly Russell in 2017, aged 14. Her parents attribute her death directly to content she had seen online. Then there is the growing presence of anti-vaxxers

online, leading to measles outbreaks, that Olivia Utley so rightly highlighted here. We know, too, that all sorts of radicalisation is taking place online, from recruitment of jihadists to

incitement of white supremacists, as well as child-abuse. That is even before we get into the realm of politically motivated fake news and the disruption that can cause. Despite all those

concerns, which are legitimate, freedom on the Internet is important and worth fighting for. it is fair to say, though, that the social networks themselves have done little to help

themselves in dealing with this. They’ve portrayed themselves as neutral online platforms, all the while profiting handsomely from content and communities that cause real-world harm. As

NSPCC CEO Peter Wanless put it: ‘For too long social networks have failed to prioritise children’s safety and left them exposed to grooming, abuse, and harmful content.’ The arrogant way

Facebook approached Parliamentary inquiries in the UK will have done little to endear them to politicians either. Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg’s recent conversion to data privacy is far too

little, far too late. Tech firms needed to engage properly in the discussion, publicly and early on, instead of just making excuses about why they couldn’t deal with problems on their

services. They pretended it was all too hard, which simply isn’t true. Among their grand ideas, these firms aim to launch satellites to bring the Internet to the world’s poorest people. They

can make sure their most vulnerable users are safe. They have not, and one can only assume that is because they didn’t want to. However, their bad behaviour has been, though, it should not

be met with a bad response. I do not for one moment believe that the British government is planning a wholesale assault on freedom of expression online. However, they are going to have to

use the current 12-week consultation period to clarify the kind of content they are targeting, and allay many of the concerns their proposals have raised.