Children’s TV Baroness Tables Shock New Law That Could Jail Website Bosses
A beloved children’s TV presenter has tabled a radical members bill that could derail the British web as we know it.
On 7 September, Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Floella Benjamin introduced the Social Media Platforms (Ofcom Licensing) Bill in the House of Lords.
Benjamin, who presented albeit lovely Play School in the 1980s’, means well, but her law. sold as child protection, could mean that now whoever wants a social media platform or similar on the open web, will have to run it like the BBC and get an Ofcom licence
That’ll mean running a social media platform unlicensed will become a criminal offence. Failure to do so, will result in a fine in the magistrates’ court, up to two years inside, or a fine, or both, on indictment, and Ofcom can suspend or revoke the licence, then ask a court to make ISPs block the site in Britain.
This also affects any site where users can share content and interact, not just big tech providers.
The bill asks that content made available on its social media platform is “not materially harmful to users or to the public interest” that content made available on its social media platform does “not incite criminal conduct, violence, hatred or public disorder” and that systems are in place to “minimise the dissemination of materially false or misleading information.”
So regulator gets to decides if something is “harmful … to the public interest” and what is or not “materially false or misleading information?”
Luckily this is just a Lib Dem peer’s Private member’s bill which rarely has a chance of becoming law.
While this Benjamin’s Bill may seem extreme, the UK has pretty much become a digital fortress already.
The government is using the Online Safety Act, a mega law which polices the internet, to fine the American messaging platforms like 4Chan over non compliance including requirements to protect its users “from illegal content.”
The government has also announced a social media ban for under-16s, meaning everyone will need to pass through age-verification technology.
Alan D Miller, founder of the Together Declaration, which fights against government overreach, said on X that Social Media Platforms (Ofcom Licensing) “bill has very serious implications.”
“This would be linked to The Online Safety Act – already having a negative impact as a Censoring Tool : with many pulled own (including Together) for regular content.”
“The bill would also give Ofcom powers to suspend or revoke a platform’s licence where the platform “breaches its conditions”. As we have seen…soooo much of this is often extremely partisan; “mis-information,” he added.
Baroness Benjamin’s lifetime cause to protecting and educating children is undeniably noble, but we need to convince her that slapping a state-run style TV licencing model to the internet could break the web as we know it.