U.K. Passes Online Safety Bill Restricting Social Media Content

The U.K. Online Safety Bill, which has been in development for years, is now able to turn into law. Nevertheless, there are mixed reactions.

It was originally intended to make social media firms accountable, but its scope has grown over time.

To be enforced by regulator Ofcom, it requires firms—small in addition to large—to remove illegal content and stop children from seeing harmful material. Nevertheless, the law has expanded over time to incorporate other offenses akin to cyberflashing, animal cruelty and fraud online.

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Michelle Donelan said, “Our commonsense strategy will bring a greater future to the British public by ensuring that online what’s prohibited offline stays illegal.” The plan puts the security of youngsters as its top priority, and helps us catch keyboard criminals to stop them from committing heinous crimes.

Firms that fail to comply could face fines of as much as £18 million or 10% of their global annual revenue, whichever is bigger—billions of kilos, within the case of the most important platforms.

Its final version won’t do much to ease concerns. Ofcom has the authority to offer notices requiring firms to scan messages for illegal materials.

Earlier within the month, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay made a public statement that appeared to indicate a slight retreat by the federal government.

When deciding whether or to not issue an notice [to scan for CSAM] Ofcom will work with the service to discover reasonable, technically feasible solutions to handle the kid sexual exploitation and abuse risk including drawing on evidence from a talented person’s report,” he said. Ofcom will work with the service to discover reasonable, technically feasible solutions that address child sexual exploitation and abuse risk. This includes drawing on evidence from a talented person’s report.

Several groups have welcomed the brand new bill. From Which?, an advocacy group for consumer protection, to charitable organizations akin to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

NSPCC CEO Sir Peter Wanless said, “Technology firms now have a chance to design safety into their products.”

Signal and WhatsApp won’t disappear from the U.K. soon, because of the recent decision of the federal government to calm down the necessities for firms that may break encryption.

Some rights groups are still not glad.

“While the UK government has admitted it’s impossible to securely scan all of our private messages, it has granted Ofcom the powers to force tech firms to achieve this in the long run,” says Open Rights Group campaigns manager James Baker.

The powers can be more appropriate for an authoritarian system, not democracy. They may also harm whistleblowers and journalists as well domestic abuse survivors, children and fogeys who try to secure their online communications from predators or stalkers.

Meanwhile, says the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “If the regulators claim their right to require the creation of dangerous backdoors in encrypted services, we expect encrypted messaging services to maintain their guarantees and withdraw from the UK, if that nation’s government compromises their ability to guard other users.”

The brand new requirement for scanning to be “technically feasible” allows Ofcom to kick the can of end-to-end encryption down the road—quite possibly, indefinitely.

But, says WhatsApp head Will Cathcart in a tweet, “The very fact stays that scanning everyone’s messages would destroy privacy as we comprehend it. It was true each last 12 months and today. #WhatsApp “won’t ever find a way to crack our encryption, and is vigilant against attempts at doing so.”