{"id":1593,"date":"2019-04-10T00:25:14","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T08:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/netpolicy\/?p=1593"},"modified":"2019-04-10T01:42:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T09:42:21","slug":"uk_online-harms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/netpolicy\/2019\/04\/10\/uk_online-harms\/","title":{"rendered":"What we think about the UK government\u2019s \u2018Online Harms\u2019 white paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK government has just outlined <\/b>its plans<\/b><\/a> for sweeping new laws aimed at tackling illegal and harmful content and activity online, described by the government as \u2018the toughest internet laws in the world\u2019. While the UK proposal has some promising ideas for what the next generation of content regulation should look like, there are several aspects that would have a worrying impact on individuals\u2019 rights and the competitive ecosystem. Here we provide our preliminary assessment of the proposal, and offer some guidance on how it could be improved. <\/b><\/p>\n

According to the UK white paper, companies of all sizes would be under a \u2018duty of care\u2019 to protect their users from a broad class of so-called \u2018online harms\u2019, and a new independent regulator would be established to police them. <\/b>The proposal responds to legitimate public policy concerns around how platforms deal with illegal and harmful content online, as well as the general public demand for tech companies to \u2018do more\u2019. We understand that in many respects the current regulatory paradigm is not fit for purpose, and we support an exploration<\/a> of what codified content \u2018responsibility\u2019 might look like.<\/p>\n

The UK government\u2019s proposed regulatory architecture<\/i> (a duty of care overseen by an independent regulator) has some promising potential. It could shift focus to regulating systems and instilling procedural accountability, rather than a focus on individual pieces of content<\/a> and the liability\/no liability binary. If implemented properly, its principles-based approach could allow for scalability, fine tailoring, and future-proofing; features that are presently lacking in the European content regulation paradigm (see for instance the EU Copyright directive<\/a> and the EU Terrorist Content regulation<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Yet while the high-level architecture has promise, the UK government\u2019s vision for how this new regulatory model could be realised in practice contains serious flaws. These must be addressed if this proposal is to reduce rather than encourage online harms.<\/p>\n