TW: Self-harm and Suicide
As concerns grow that legislation promised in the Tory party's 2019 election plan to increase internet safety may be threatened, the UK government is coming under increasing fire from children's organizations for supposedly failing to shield young people from hazardous content online, as per The Guardian's report.
Sources close to the discussions told The Guardian that huge changes to the online safety bill would have been revealed to parliament this week by the culture secretary, Michelle Donelan.
LEESBURG, VIRGINIA - AUGUST 11: A young Afghan boy looks at a laptop in a computer classroom in the National Conference Center (NCC), which in recent months has been redesigned to temporarily house Afghan nationals on August 11, 2022 in Leesburg, Virginia.
Legal but Harmful Rules
Donelan, who has only been in office for a short while, has tried to balance enhancing kid safety online and to preserve freedom of speech. But recently, the so-called "legal but harmful" rules for adults have been pushed back, sparking disagreements within the government.
On Sunday, the Molly Rose Foundation was established after 14-year-old Molly Russell committed suicide after viewing harmful content online, and the UK's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) urged the government to take immediate action and not to weaken the bill.
Donelan was appointed by Rishi Sunak less than three weeks ago as the secretary of state for digital, culture, media, and sport.
However, officials have already warned that the online safety bill will soon expire from its parliamentary time and completely disappear if it is not ramped up onto the statute book by the spring.
Online safety advocates would consider such a lack of legislation a catastrophe and a major failure of the political system, according to The Guardian.
The Tories pledged to pass legislation to make the UK the world's safest country to be online in their 2019 manifesto as a response to tragedies like the Molly Russell case.
Why the Bill is Not Progressing
However, the complex nature of the issues surrounding online regulation and conflicting demands between the free speech and child safety campaigners, as well as the differing agendas of the past three prime ministers, have slowed the bill from progressing further.
The rules in the current draft bill would have made social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram subject to Ofcom regulation and potentially subject to multi-million-pound fines if they failed to shield users from content that was deemed to be "harmful" but not illegal, including content about suicide and self-harm.
One in three kids lies about their age to view adult content on social media, according to a recent Ofcom report. Therefore, under the proposed revisions, kids who were successful in pretending to be older would still have access to material deemed appropriate for adults but detrimental to minors.
Related Article: Ofcom, UK's Communications Regulator, Sets New Rules TikTok, Snapchat, Others Must Follow
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Written by Jace Dela Cruz
