The UK government has announced (yet) more additions to its expansive and controversial plan to regulate online content — aka the Online Safety Bill.
It says the latest package of measures to be added to the draft are intended to protect web users from anonymous trolling.
The Bill has far broader aims as a whole, comprising a sweeping content moderation regime targeted at explicitly illegal content but also ‘legal but harmful’ stuff — with a claimed focused of protecting children from a range of online harms, from cyberbullying and pro-suicide content to exposure to pornography.
Critics, meanwhile, say the legislation will kill free speech and isolate the UK, creating splinternet Britain, while also piling major legal risk and cost on doing digital business in the UK. (Unless you happen to be part of the club of ‘safety tech’ firms offering to sell services to help platforms with their compliance of course.)
In recent months, two parliamentary committees have scrutinized …
