Online Safety Bill: Three new criminal offences to be added as government cracks down on revenge porn, hate crime and fraud
Under the new criminal offences added to the Online Safety Bill, people could face up to five years in prison for sending threatening communications to celebrities, MPs and other public figures...
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries confirmed the three criminal offences are to be included after reports from parliamentary committees warned the bill required strengthening and further clarity...
"This government said it would legislate to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while enshrining free speech, and that's exactly what we are going to do," Ms Dorries said.
The safest place in the world to be online? Safer than China? Hate is the problem here. In the eyes of many, even blunt criticism can be defined as hate. Look at zero tolerance notices plastered around NHS hospitals.
Hate could even be applied to the inadvertent use of words which suddenly became verboten last week. The word 'snowflake' as applied to an individual for example. It's not looking good.
9 comments:
I routinely call for Toni Blair to be arrested, charged, tried, convicted, sentenced, and hanged. Would that be illegal? If so, why?
I dislike the 'hate' crime idea intensely. It potentially privileges the attitude of the 'victim' over the intention of the speaker - and who can tell how some other person will choose to interpret what was said?
Better to stick to the existing definitions of criminal acts, like incitement, harassment, or threats - or civil penalties for defamation. Activities which can be judged by their content not the attitudes of the audience.
If hating has become problematic for some people, does the hate even have to be expressed to the hated person? What about saying to saying to person X that you hate person Y? That's not proposed now, of course, but it's how the Single Equality Act works. A person could report your off-colour joke even though they themselves do not have the "protected characteristic", and your employer would have to act.
That would, if it happens, be the end for freedom of speech.
Maybe the intention is to just dampen down some of the anti-authoritarian discourse that is around. Or maybe the idiots just haven't thought it through.
Is it hateful to just totally ignore someone?
DJ, thank you, you've saved me the trouble of typing!
With Dearieme here.
dearieme and James - I can't see it being tested in court - who would ever disagree apart from Tony himself? More seriously, testing it in court seems to depend on whether or not you become entangled with a litigious nutter.
DJ and Scrobs - that's it, it does privilege the attitude of the 'victim' and too readily assumes that there is a victim in the first place. Playground stuff, but from what we hear, schools already teach and enforce this kind of outlook.
Sam - I'm sure the intention is to dampen down anti-authoritarian discourse, but the criteria for what that is seem to have tightened considerably. Opposition to any official narrative seems to be a major criterion.
Doonhamer - it could be to some people.
"Three new criminal offences to be added as government cracks down on...fraud"
Fraud wasn't a criminal offence?
Who knew?
Anon - a very good point.
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