I was going to write something on the subject of the Government’s proposed internet censorship policies (about which I would encourage people to object to during the consultation period) but the blogger Raedwald has done a far better job of this than I could. Therefore I would urge people to read the entirety of Raedwald’s piece over at his blog and vehemently object to a policy that will not be used to ‘keep people safe’ as the Government claims, but will be used to further clamp down on the right of Britons to speak freely.
Raedwald said:
A leader desperately clinging onto power and fearful of the whispers of the people will inevitably enact repressive measures to restrict free speech – and it’s therefore no surprise that the doomed May has gone down the Ceauscescu path with proposals contained in the Online Harms White Paper for widespread government censorship of the internet.
She is supported by her sinister Grand Vizier Sajid Javid and by Labour’s Noncefinder General, Tom Watson – whose credulity in giving his support to criminal fantasists who flung accusations of paedo assault against the wholly innocent matches only his deep Socialist support of any measures that restrict free speech and repress democratic freedom.
The way they’re going to do it is this. First they establish their ability to impose swingeing penalties on the online service providers – Facebook, Twitter, Google (the host of this blog). Then they task these firms with implementing government censorship requirements or risk even greater penalties. For blogs such as this, the duty will not be simply to remove censored content when notified but to act proactively to identify those blogs likely to offend the government and close them down in advance. With MPs whining like babies about people being rude about them, you can be sure they’ll include censorship of political criticism in a government-imposed list of censored blog content including (Chapter 7)
Guidance to companies to outline what activity and material constitutes hateful content, including that which is a hate crime, or where not necessarily illegal, content that may directly or indirectly cause harm to other users – for example, in some cases of bullying, or offensive material. (my underlining)
You can and should read the whole of Raedwald’s post via the link below.
http://raedwald.blogspot.com/2019/04/censorship-and-repression-mays.html
Raedwald is 100% correct in his assessment of these new internet regulations. They are likely to be drawn so broadly that almost anything that the government object to would then become criminalised. I predict that these new regulations will end up as being as capricious and unjust as the ‘hate crime’ and ‘hate speech’ laws have become with subjective ‘perceptions’ of ‘offence’ being used as justification for draconian criminal sentences on wrongthinkers. Imagine if you will how this sort of censorship law will be used by some of Britain’s most troublesome and often criticised politicians. It will not be used to deal with those who make credible threats of violence or threats to kill against politicians, laws against this sort of behaviour have existed since the 19th century, it will be used by the likes of David Lammy and Anna Soubry to punish those who make legitimate political criticisms of their statements and activities. These new restrictions should scare the life out of Britons. They would be bad enough when used by our current ‘conservative in name only’ government, but just imagine how bad it will be if someone like Jeremy Corbyn had the ability to imprison or censor anyone who criticised him? Britain does not need any more censorship, what we need is a British equivalent of the US First Amendment that guarantees the freedom of speech of British subjects even if that does upset the easily offended or those who do not want their worldview challenged in any way.
