Yes, the Online Safety Bill is the most Conservative law yet. Here’s why.

2 February 2022
UK policy
Photo by me - the Palace of Westminster from Portcullis House, June 2018

In the now three years (wtaf?) that the UK’s Online Safety Bill has been on my professional horizon, there has been one comment that I’ve heard from people across the board at every stage, from green paper to white paper to draft regulation to committee review to this very week.

That comment, however it’s worded, and whomever it comes from, goes a bit like this:

How is this a Conservative piece of legislation? I can’t believe this is a Conservative proposal. This is the most un-Conservative thing ever.

Nope. You’re wrong. Read More

World-leading internet diplomacy, or perhaps not

17 October 2021
UK policy
Image of a woman holding her finger to her mouth to indicate: be quiet

I‘m a fan of the Lawfare podcast’s “Arbiters of Truth” series. The latest episode  was on the Russian government’s recent moves against foreign social media providers. These moves have included forcing app stores to remove apps run by the political opposition, threatening to block social media sites which permit political dissent at ISP level, threatening to fine sites which do not take down politically contentious speech fast enough, and demanding that foreign companies designate an in-country representative to be arrested in the event of noncompliance.

Obviously that should sound familiar to you, because all of that and more is on the table here in the UK in our own approach to internet regulation. Read More