Newspapers praise Govt’s overhaul of the Online Safety Bill

Newspapers have welcomed the Government’s revision of the Online Safety Bill to focus it on protecting children rather than risking free speech.

Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan promised in September that free speech concerns over the Bill would be addressed, including controversial wording relating to the restriction of legal content deemed ‘harmful’ to adults, which will now be deleted.

Earlier this week, The Christian Institute welcomed the Government’s removal of the ‘legal but harmful’ provisions and an offence relating to ‘harmful communications’ from the Bill.

‘Vital protections’

In an editorial, The Times called the changes “both welcome and overdue. A crass and blundering assault on free speech has been narrowly avoided.

“Aside from in extreme instances, which should be illegal already, harm is an inherently subjective concept.”

The newspaper added that the Culture Secretary’s shift towards protecting young people is “vital territory to tackle, as highlighted by the notorious and upsetting case of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old girl who took her own life after consuming a huge amount of content dominated by themes of self-harm and suicide”.

The Daily Mail agreed, saying that critics of the Bill’s removal of ‘legal but harmful’ provisions are “wrong”. In its editorial it said the amendment is instead “a pragmatic way of giving much-needed protection to the young and vulnerable while protecting free speech”.

‘Incitement to hatred’

The Bill continues to aim to force pornography websites to implement strict age verification systems to stop under-18s from viewing explicit content. It also makes ‘cyberflashing’ a criminal offence, with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison, and measures will be introduced to protect people from being abused online by anonymous trolls.

The Institute’s Simon Calvert welcomed the changes, describing them as a “good faith attempt” to respond to free speech concerns.

But in a meeting with the Secretary of State he asked her to ensure that content expressing mainstream Christian views on marriage, sexual ethics and gender would not “fall foul of the new filtering provisions”.