radiofree.asia

Category: Online Safety Bill

  • Here’s all the news the Tories would prefer you missed

    As Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine dominates the news cycle, it’s important that the public is aware of what else is going on. So, here’s a round up of the stories the Tories probably would prefer you not to hear about.

    #CovidIsNotOver

    On Twitter, #CovidIsNotOver has been trending. Little wonder – because coronavirus (Covid-19) hospital admissions are on the rise again. The Guardian reported on Thursday 10 March that:

    the latest government figures showed a sharp 46% rise in new recorded UK cases week on week – to 346,059 over the past week – and a 12% rise in hospitalisations to 8,950.

    Meanwhile, the number of people living with so-called long Covid continues to rise. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) puts the figure at 1.5 million people for January 2022. People protested outside parliament on 9 March over this:

    But you’d be forgiven for thinking the pandemic is over. Because so far, the government is doing nothing to address rising hospitalisations and cases. Nor has it increased long Covid research funding since July 2021.

    “Partygate”

    The Downing Street “partygate” scandal has still been bubbling away in the background. We now know that the Met Police has sent 80 people involved in it “questionnaires” – perfectly normal behaviour from the cops during a criminal investigation, of course. We wait to find out what the Met’s conclusion is.

    But the real story here is Johnson. Because before Russia invaded Ukraine, it looked like his time as PM would barely last until May’s local elections. But since then, some Tory MPs seem to think he’s safe. Factor in Keir Starmer backtracking on Labour’s calls for the PM to resign – and it could well be that Johnson and co have gotten away with it.

    Bills, bills, bills

    Meanwhile, the non-elected and privileged House of Lords has actually been doing some good of late. Because its members have repeatedly scuppered various bits of nasty government legislation. Overall, it’s actually inflicted the most defeats on a government since the 1970s. Some of these include:

    But not to be deterred, the government announced on 8 March it was making more changes to the Online Safety Bill. These include more rules surrounding social media, and a consultation on how advertising is regulated.

    Perpetual chaos

    And as if that all wasn’t enough – we’ve got more Tory government NHS reforms incoming; the Guardian revealed charities had once again been shopping foreign born homeless people to the Home Office; the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) poured scorn on a petition calling for the £20-a-week Universal Uplift to be given to legacy benefit claimants as back pay – oh, and alleged ‘culture’ secretary Nadine Dorries’s braying during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) had to be seen to be believed:

    Governments have always looked to conceal news that is detrimental to them. It was a Labour government spin doctor who said during the 9/11 terrorist attacks that it was a ‘good day to bury bad news‘. Since then, governments have continued to use that as an MO. So, while some news events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rightly take priority – we mustn’t take our eyes of the ball of what’s going on in the background.

    Featured image via the Telegraph – YouTube and The Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • The Guardian propped-up the Tories latest internet crackdown

    Boris Johnson’s Tory government is cracking down even further on our internet freedoms. It’s doing it under the guise of children accessing porn. Yet the ever-clueless Guardian propped their nonsense up anyway.

    Authoritarianism under the guise of child protection

    The Tory government wants Twitter and Reddit to introduce age checks for users. It says it’s because of the amount of porn on these sites. The government therefore wants Twitter and Reddit to force users to give them passport, driving licence, or bank details to prove their age. Obviously, at present, anyone can use these platforms over the age of 13. And sites like Twitter would have the option to remove porn altogether. But this would really impact sex workers.

    The planned rules will form part of the contentious Online Safety Bill. But the Tories plan to ‘protect’ children is little more than a smokescreen.

    Paul Bernal is a professor of IT law. On Wednesday 9 February, he tweeted about the Tories’ planned changes. Bernal called it a “slippery slope”. He said:

    The real idea is to make the whole internet subject not just to age checks but identity checks. It’s an authoritarian wet dream.

    He also said that it would affect people’s anonymity. And as Bernal noted:

    authorities can determine what content is and is not acceptable is a recipe for disaster.

    Furthermore:

    So, did the Guardian question the government’s reasons for this policy? Did it hell.

    The Guardian: shilling for the Tories?

    Writer Jim Waterson framed most of the article around the Tories wanting to stop children accessing porn. As he wrote:

    Ministers said that social networks “where a considerable quantity of pornographic material is accessible” will have to conform to the same age verification rules as other commercial pornography websites.

    Waterson also noted that:

    The proposed law will see individual British internet users required to hand over a form of identification – such as a passport, driving licence or credit card – to an age verification provider, which would then tell a website hosting porn that the user is over 18. Outlets that fail to prove they have robust age checks could be fined 10% of their global revenue by the media regulator Ofcom, or risk being blocked altogether by British internet service providers.

    He got quotes from people in the age verification business. And he did highlight the potential impact on sex workers and smaller websites. But not once did Waterson mention any of Bernal’s crucial points. Nor did he get comment from anyone with expertise in privacy or civil liberties issues.

    Tories: policing the internet

    As Bernal alluded to, the Tories’ proposed rules for Twitter and Reddit are really about control of the internet. The Canary previously wrote:

    As if censorship on the internet wasn’t bad enough already, the Online Safety Bill will just entrench and further it. It arms both the government and social media companies with extra tools. They could use these to even more actively crack-down on dissent, legitimate protest, and opposition.

    Now, the Tories’ using access to porn as an excuse to restrict Twitter and Reddit adds to this. Not only will this hit sex workers hard, but it also shows our freedoms on the internet are becoming more and more at risk. Now, more than ever, we need an independent critical media, not one happy to whitewash this government’s increasingly draconian plans.

    Featured image via the Telegraph – YouTube and Asvensson – Wikimedia 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • These are the 6 proposed laws that are leading us towards fascism

    The Tories are pushing laws that could turn the UK into a fascist state. We have to stand up to them before it’s too late.

    Video transcript

    We’re told that authoritarianism and fascism are things from the past. The media tells us they’re a problem that only happens outside of supposed Western democracies. And politicians make us believe we’re living in a shining example of one of them. But all that is a lie. Because the UK is rapidly descending into authoritarianism and corporate fascism. And our government is enabling it by changing the law. 

    Authoritarianism

    Let’s break this down. Authoritarianism is the concentration of power in the hands of a few people – where a government has power over the public, does what it wants, removes people’s basic freedoms and fails to act in the best interests of the majority. 

    So, what laws are the UK government changing that are increasingly authoritarian? 

    The Nationality and Borders Bill

    This nasty piece of legislation aims to make it even harder for refugees to try and seek help and safety in the UK – trashing international law in the process. The bill will criminalise refugees and stop them arriving in small boats – including measures to let border control staff do so-called ‘pushback’ techniques which puts refugees at risk of drowning. It will also let the government strip people of their UK citizenship without even telling them. This would include people of Indian, Bangladeshi and Jamaican heritage. 

    The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

     Do you enjoy going out to protest? Are you a fan of disrupting the system? Do you think there’s no better way to spend an afternoon than engaged in civil disobedience? Well, you’d best think again. Because the so-called ‘police bill’ was trying to stop most of that. It was going to clamp down on our right to protest with a serious risk that anyone on non-state sanctioned demos could end up in jail.  It took the unelected, privileged House of Lords to stop many of these aspects of the bill. But it might not be over yet: because the government still could add some of the nastiest anti-protest bits back in. Plus, the bill is also still really racist: targeting both the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller and Black communities with new laws and increases in police powers.

    The Elections Bill

    If you want to vote in an election, the Tories want you to have to show ID. This is because of voter fraud. Sounds fair, doesn’t it? Wrong. Because there are potentially millions of voters who might not have the right ID to vote – and voter fraud is a tiny issue with just a few hundred cases in recent years. Meanwhile, the Tories also want to change how the map of constituencies, the areas the UK is divided up into when we vote, looks: literally to help them get more MPs. And they just blocked a move to lower the voting age to 16 – knowing that younger people tend to be more left-wing. Donald Trump would be loving this shit. 

    Corporate fascism

    Let’s break this down further. Corporate fascism is a form of oppressive regime that removes civil liberties while handing corporations huge wealth from the public purse as well as giving them power and control over all of us. So, what laws are the UK government changing that are increasingly corporate fascist? 

    The Health and Care Bill

    If you’re old enough to remember British Rail, you’ll be old enough to remember the Tories intentionally making it shit so the public would happily let them privatise it. Well, that’s exactly what’s happening to our NHS – and has been for years. Except the Health and Care Bill is going to make it even easier. This is because the government is fiddling with who makes decisions about NHS services – like, for example, cancer treatment. The bill gives  the government more power and will let private companies be involved locally in these decisions. So, if a private cancer treatment service wanted to buy up your local oncology ward – it could soon have the power to do so. 

    The Online Safety Bill

    Big tech companies already have huge control over our lives. Twitter and Facebook routinely attack anyone who says things that go against the status quo. And now, the government wants them to crack down on our free speech even more. The Online Safety bill will fine companies like Twitter and Facebook if they allow people to put content on their sites the government doesn’t agree with and don’t follow the government’s “duty of care”. Plus, it aims to clamp down on end-to-end encryption. The Matrix just got real. 

    The Judicial Review and Courts Bill

    Private companies already have power over decisions that affect many of us: just look at who makes decisions about your benefits. And we all know the power the government holds and wants to in future. But now, it wants to remove some of our rights to challenge it and the companies that work on its behalf. For example, currently if a refugee is unhappy with a Home Office decision, they can get a tribunal to look at it. If they’re unhappy with its decision, they can appeal to a higher court. But now, the government wants to remove this right – leaving refugees with little right to appeal.

    The big picture

    All of these law changes form part of the Tories wider end-game. Society is shifting. When the pandemic hit, those in power saw it as an opportunity to firstly increase their stranglehold over our lives – but also to make the richest in society even richer. More power and control has been given to corporations, while the rest of us have seen our rights and civil liberties increasingly chipped-away. What all these law changes also do is feed into each other. So, for example, the government’s Nationality and Borders Bill is trying to stop so many refugees getting here. Then, the Judicial Review and Courts Bill will make it harder for any refugees that do make it to challenge government decisions over the way their cases are handled in the courts. And if you take to the streets to protest these decisions, you could be sent to jail because of the police bill.

    And as if there weren’t enough problems with these six pieces of law changes – you’ve then got to factor in the Tories’ majority in parliament. These deviants are constantly fiddling with the rules – to the point where it’s hard to keep up with what they’re changing. And with the Labour Party offering zero opposition, sometimes actively jumping into bed with the Tories – what the fuck are we supposed to do? 

    What are we supposed to do?

    Well – it’s time for radical resistance. I mean – the system is already criminalising people for sitting down in the road. So, if it wants to play hard-ball then we have to up our game, too. The time for organised, ‘A-to-B’ marches where everyone carries mass-printed banners on a lovely day-out and the organisers pay the police to let them protest is over. Done. Finished. We’ve got to stop playing the game by the system’s rules. And instead, we need to make the system unmanageable. We need to learn lessons from radical movements in the past to really change things in the present. From the Black Panthers, to the anti-Poll Tax movement via the anarcho-communists in 1930s fascist Spain – to current ones like the radical Kurdish and Zapatista movements, US Black Lives Matter, Kill the Bill and the Spanish communist village of Marinaleda. We need to trespass. Take direct action. Occupy property.  Watch the cops. Stop evictions. Fight deportations. Block infrastructure. And ultimately disrupt the system the Tories are part of.

    The Tories are turning the UK into an authoritarian, corporate fascist state right before our eyes. If we don’t stand up to them now, when? When our basic rights have gone? When our freedoms have been completely removed? When they have cemented themselves in power for decades to come? Enough is enough. This affects all of us. And all of us have to fight back. Now. 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Here’s all the fascist policies in the Tory pipeline for 2022

    A number of new authoritarian laws are in the Tory government pipeline this year. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill has already been a controversial proposal with hundreds of Kill the Bill demonstrations around the country. But it’s not the only new law that should be worrying us. In fact, there’s a whole raft of similarly repressive legislation in the works.

    Here’s a list of which bills are coming up and why they’re alarming.

    Online Safety Bill

    The Online Safety Bill is currently only in draft form, but there are already worries about free speech and government censorship.

    The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which wrote the bill, says:

    there are increasing levels of public concern about online content and activity which is lawful but potentially harmful. This type of activity can range from online bullying and abuse, to advocacy of self-harm, to spreading disinformation and misinformation. Whilst this behaviour may fall short of amounting to a criminal offence, it can have corrosive and damaging effects…

    In the same explanatory note, it goes on to say that providers of online services, like Twitter and Facebook, would be forced by the government to put more regulations in place for their users:

    The Bill is intended to make the services it regulates safer by placing responsibilities on the providers of those services in relation to content that is illegal or which, although legal, is harmful to children or adults.

    Civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch has written a report called The State of Free Speech Online which explains that:

    the Online Safety Bill in its current form is fundamentally flawed and destined to negatively impact fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of expression in the UK.

    Big Brother Watch has also built the Save Online Speech Coalition, made up of digital rights activists. Its statement insists:

    the Online Safety Bill will impose a two-tier system for freedom of expression, with extra restrictions for lawful speech, simply because it appears online.

    Any further restrictions on our right to free speech must be in line with UK law and decided on in a democratic, parliamentary process — not through the backdoor with a blank cheque handed to a state regulator and tech companies.

    Human Rights Act reforms

    In 2021, the government published a document which set out its intention to replace the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights. The consultation is still ongoing and has yet to reach the Houses of Parliament. Civil liberties organisations, unions, activists, and more have come together against this proposal in what could be the largest coalition of its kind in UK history.

    It includes the likes of Amnesty International UK, the British Association of Journalists, Disability Rights UK, Fair Vote UK, Mermaids, Netpol, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Southall Black Sisters, Stonewall, and many, many more.

    It’s telling that such a large and diverse number of groups have come together to organise against the government’s proposal. A statement from the coalition makes it clear that whilst the Human Rights Act can be improved:

    Any government that cares about freedom and justice should celebrate and protect these vital institutions and never demean or threaten them.

    The human rights group Liberty has called the plans for reform an

    unashamed power grab.

    Health and Care Bill

    The Health and Care Bill has passed through the House of Commons and is currently in the House of Lords. The Canary has produced extensive coverage of the bill and, once again, many campaigners have voiced their concerns.

    Back in the summer of 2021, Dr Julia Patterson of campaigning group Every Doctor explained how the bill wants to set up Integrated Care Systems (ICS) – and why that’s a problem:

    The way that this bill is restructuring the NHS is that it’s setting up things called integrated care boards in local areas who previously have held responsibility for the care of their local populations. And those care boards are going to be able to help private companies and members from private companies will be able to sit on the boards, they will be handling public money and making decisions about how that money is spent.

    Anti-privatisation campaigner Pascale Robinson of We Own It told us:

    This bill is hugely dangerous for our NHS. And many have argued that it will be the end of the NHS as we know it, because they are changing NHS structures in so many ways.

    Nationality and Borders Bill

    The Nationality and Borders Bill has also passed through the House of Commons and is currently in the House of Lords.

    Once again, the likes of Amnesty International UK have expressed grave concern at the content of the bill. The rights organisation said:

    The Government has introduced a raft of measures in a new piece of legislation that, if passed, will create significant obstacles and harms to people seeking asylum in the UK’s asylum system.

    Four barristers have also come together to warn that the bill will lead to challenges from international human rights and refugee treaties. This bill will allow the government to strip people of their citizenship, as well as allowing potentially lethal push-backs in the Channel. According to Scottish social justice secretary Shona Robison and her Welsh counterpart Jane Hutt:

    This legislation contains measures that will prevent migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, including the barbaric suggestions for ‘push-back’ exercises involving enforcement officials seeking to repel small boats.

    And as Channel Rescue previously told The Canary:

    The Nationality and Borders Bill will criminalise those assisting people making the crossing, even if there is no gain for those assisting.

    Once again, this government has opened itself up to challenges on the basis of human rights, global conventions around refugees, and the stripping of civil liberties.

    Elections Bill

    The Elections Bill has also passed through the House of Commons and is currently in the House of Lords. As The Canary’s Curtis Daly explains, the bill attempts to push through barriers to voting by requiring voter ID:

    At its heart this is a civil liberties issue. In a society in which wealth and power grants you more access and democracy is fading away, the last thing we should be doing is adding more barriers for voters.

    Once again, a coalition of campaigners, trade unions, and rights groups have come together to warn of the dangers of this bill:

    This Bill represents an attack on the UK’s proud democratic tradition and on some of our most fundamental rights.

    The independence of the regulatory body, the Electoral Commission, is also under threat. The Electoral Reform Society and Fair Vote UK have both criticised the bill for presenting barriers to democracy and making it harder for people to vote.

    Judicial Review and Courts Bill

    The Judicial Review and Courts Bill is currently being read in the House of Commons. The right to judicial review is an important part of the justice system, and this bill plans to strip that back. Even Conservative MP David Davis, among other MPs from across the aisle, has criticised the plans:

    The government plans to restrict the use of judicial review in an obvious attempt to avoid accountability. Such attempts to consolidate power are profoundly un-conservative and forget that, in a society governed by the rule of law, the government does not always get its way.

    The effectiveness of rule of law is another conversation. However, the judicial review mechansim is one of the essential tools we all have to hold governments and government bodies to account.

    Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

    The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, with its attacks on our right to protest, has had the most vocal opposition to it, with Kill the Bill protests taking place across the country.

    As Kill the Bill coalition explain:

    There is no version of this bill that is tolerable. Whilst we support the many efforts to stop this bill passing through parliament, we also call on all groups and organisations to stand unified in demanding nothing less than a complete rejection of the bill.

    While many people celebrated when the House of Lords rejected some of the most draconian amendments to the bill, it is still a fundamental attack on our right to protest. In fact, much of the bill is unchanged from the original legislation people took to the streets to oppose in March 2021. 

    Moreover, the bill is not just about protest. It is also a fundamentally racist bill. The bill will criminalise the lives of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. Other provisions include a pilot scheme for serious violence prevention orders and the introduction of secure schools. These will be used to target already marginalised communities by an institutionally racist police force. 

    Taken together

    On their own, each of these pieces of legislation is deeply worrying. Taken together, they tell us that this is not a slide into fascism but an arrival. The fact that so many campaign groups, trade unions, charities, and rights organisations are coming together in coalition over this range of bills shows you just how repressive these proposals are.

    It also means it’s more important than ever for independent media to be allied with the activists, campaigners, and communities.

    Moreover, as The Canary’s Steve Topple argues:

    The time for organised, ‘A-to-B’ marches where everyone carries mass-printed banners on a lovely day-out and the organisers pay the police to let them protest is over. Done. Finished. We’ve got to stop playing the game by the system’s rules. And instead, we need to make the system unmanageable.

    Polite protest, petitions, and the like are not going to make a difference here. This is a government looking to strip citizenship, remove avenues for legal review, introduce further barriers to voting, further privatise healthcare, weaken human rights protections, threaten free speech – and, on top of all that, criminalise our right to protest about any of it!

    We need to work across communities, we need to be able to organise, and we need to be able to resist in whatever ways we are able. That can be through rights organisations, but it must also be on the streets, vocally, and in whatever form people are able to express themselves.

    Featured image via Flickr/Alisdare Hickson, cropped to 770×403 pixels, licensed under CC BY SA 2.0

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Online Safety Bill has ‘substantive weaknesses’ in current form, NSPCC warns

    The Government’s plans to regulate social media risk falling significantly short when it comes to protecting children from online abuse, a new report from the NSPCC says.

    The children’s charity said it believes there are major shortfalls in the draft Online Safety Bill currently being examined by MPs and peers, and the Government risks failing to meet its ambition to make the internet safe for children.

    It comes as the NSPCC published new figures which show a 78% increase in police reports of child sexual abuse offences involving an online element in the last four years, which it says shows how important strong regulation is.

    According to figures obtained by the charity, the number of online child sexual offences has risen from 5,458 in 2016/17 to 9,736 in 2020/21.

    Major gaps

    The charity’s report urges the Government to significantly strengthen its draft legislation in a number of areas, warning it currently does not do enough to stop abuse spreading between apps or to disrupt behaviour that facilitates abuse.

    The report also warns there are still major gaps in the draft Bill’s child safety duty which would exclude some potentially harmful sites from liability, that it fails to hold senior managers at tech firms accountable and that it should commit to introducing a statutory user advocate for children.

    The NSPCC said that unless changes are made to the Bill in order to better acknowledge the broad range of child abuse and how it takes place online, it will not be able to tackle the scale and extent of abuse effectively. Sir Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said:

    Children should be able to explore the online world safely. But, instead, we are witnessing a dramatic and hugely troubling growth in the scale of online abuse.”

    The Government has a once-in-a-generation chance to deliver a robust but proportionate regulatory regime that can truly protect children from horrendous online harms.

    But, as it stands, there are substantive weaknesses in its plans which cannot be overlooked.

    Push for regulation

    In response to its findings, the NSPCC has also relaunched its Wild West Web campaign – which first began in 2018 and pushed for social media regulation – and is calling on supporters to contact the Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, to ask home to prioritise children in the Online Safety Bill.

    On the issue, a Government spokesperson said:

    Our new laws will be the most comprehensive in the world in protecting children online.

    Social media companies will need to remove child abuse content and prevent young people from being groomed or exposed to harmful material such as pornography or self-harm images.

    Failing firms will face hefty fines or have their sites blocked, and we will have the power to make senior managers criminally liable for failing to protect children.”

    Wanless continued:

    The draft Bill fails to prevent inherently avoidable abuse or reflect the magnitude and complexity of online risks to children.

    The Bill is at a crucial point in pre-legislative scrutiny and now is the time for the Government to be ambitious to protect children and families from preventable abuse.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Online Safety Bill passes Senate with amendments

    The controversial Online Safety Bill has passed the Senate and will become law after a late-night session which saw the major parties unite to wave through a number of amendments.

    Late on Tuesday night the Online Safety Bill, which hands significant new powers to the eSafety Commissioner to order the removal of content and blocking of sites that don’t comply, was approved by the Senate with bipartisan support.

    Labor and the Coalition teamed up to pass a number of amendments, including to require an annual report on the Commissioner’s use of the new powers and a new internal review scheme, and to reject others.

    The bill now needs to be returned to the lower house, likely this week, as a formality, before it comes into effect in six months.

    Communications Minister Paul Fletcher with eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant

    The bill was rejected by the Greens, which labelled it “utterly undercooked”, and a number of Labor Senators rose to express concerns around the major powers being handed to a single individual, the impact on encryption and on groups such as sex workers, despite ultimately supporting it.

    A number of amendments were successfully moved, including that “serious harm to a person’s mental health” does not include “mere ordinary emotional reactions”, to require the Commissioner to report annually on the use of the new powers, the establishment of an advisory committee and the development of an internal review scheme.

    Some of the amendments that were voted down by the Senate included one that carved out sex education and harm reduction content from the scheme, another that required digital platforms to not unnecessarily remove content and for a compulsory independent review of the act.

    The Online Safety Bill extends the online takedown scheme to Australian adults, allowing the eSafety Commissioner to issue removal notices for content they deem to constitute online abuse, image-based abuse and harmful online content, with a 24 hour time limit.

    It also requires the quick blocking of websites hosting “abhorrent violent and terrorist content”, increases the maximum jail sentence for using a digital platform to menace and harass to five years, and allows the Commissioner to demand that content deemed to be rated R18+ and higher be removed from digital platforms.

    Communications minister Paul Fletcher said the scheme “gives new protections for Australian adults subjected to seriously harmful cyber abuse”.

    In an opinion piece for InnovationAus, Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg said it is about protecting people from abuse online.

    “What I want to see is a scheme that is ultimately going to protect people from cyberbullying and image abuse in a way which balances out the privacy concerns which are understandable and legitimately,” Senator Bragg said.

    But there are numerous critiques of the new scheme, particularly around its impact on the adult industry, on freedom of speech, and that it may lead to the censorship of online content.

    There are also concerns around the “rushed” nature of the bill’s passage through Parliament.

    After unveiling draft legislation in December, the government opened submissions on it during the Summer break, and received over 400. But just 10 days later it was introduced to Parliament, and quickly referred to a Senate committee for inquiry.

    Stakeholders were then given only three working days to make a submission to the committee, which quickly gave the legislation the green light.

    Labor said that it would ultimately be supporting the bill but that it is “not happy about the way it has been delivered”, echoing many concerns of the wider community.

    The post Online Safety Bill passes Senate with amendments appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Online Safety Bill is a way forward online

    It’s been widely said the tech companies are the railroads or oil companies of the 21st century. These companies wield enormous power. They have done much good, but they have the potential to do much harm.

    It’s why the Online Safety Bill is an important piece of legislation currently before the Senate. It’s a very welcome initiative. It brings to bear a simple, single framework for online safety.

    Setting out the basic online safety expectations and arming the eSafety Commissioner with power to effectively ensure people are protected should be broadly welcomed.

    The fact is people are being bullied and abused often under the cover of anonymity. There’s nowhere else in our society where you can, under the cover of darkness, pretend to be someone else and attack people.

    So it’s important we look to increase penalties for the use of a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence, from three to five years.

    Over the past few months, the Morrison Government has introduced world-leading media bargaining code legislation. Australia has led the world in trying to ensure publishers and public interest journalists are paid for their work.

    Just as large tech companies cannot threaten a country, nor can they have more power than any other non-state actor in the world today where they can bully and defeat a country.

    As a government we’ve been prepared to intervene to ensure consumers are protected. I am not in favour of regulation for regulation’s sake but there is much content on social media which already contravenes our laws.

    As I said in the Senate chamber, social media really has become the wild west.What we need to do is balance civil liberties against the desire to protect people and these are judgements that should be exercised by a minister and they should be disallowable.

    Australia’s eSafety Commissioner was the first dedicated online safety regulator to be established in the world and acts as a safety net for when online services fail to keep Australians safe online.

    The Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, is doing a great job but the framework of having the minister set the regulation is an important one.

    Ultimately, we want to have a system where Australia is not a backwater. We want to see technology used but we also want to make sure people are protected.

    We don’t want to see people bullied and harassed online, we don’t want to see people attacked under the cover of anonymity.

    We have laws in New South Wales against anti-incitement and defamation, so social media should not provide a back door to breaking the law.

    What I want to see is a scheme that is ultimately going to protect people from cyberbullying and image abuse in a way which balances out the privacy concerns which are understandable and legitimately held.

    Australia had a big win with the media bargaining code. We now need to build on that.

    This government has a great record of being prepared to intervene where there’s consumer detriment or broader community detriment in relation to tech companies.

    We should use this opportunity to lead the world again.

    The post Online Safety Bill is a way forward online appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Labor ‘not happy’ about supporting Online Safety Bill

    The Online Safety Bill will pass Parliament after Labor offered its support for the controversial legislation despite being “not happy” about the way it has been delivered, and the Greens labelling it “utterly undercooked”.

    The legislation was briefly debated in the Senate this week and will likely pass the upper house next week, with the support of Labor after the Opposition negotiated a numer of amendments with the government.

    The Online Safety Bill extends the online content takedown scheme to Australian adults, allowing for the issuing of removal notices for content deemed to be rated as R18+ and higher, and to order the sites and apps to be blocked if they don’t comply.

    Communications minister Paul Fletcher has said the bill “gives new protections for Australian adults subjected to seriously harmful cyber abuse” and “widens” the powers of the eSafety Commissioner.

    The draft legislation was unveiled in December last year, with a consultation process following which many dubbed “rushed”. Submissions on the draft legislation were open during the Summer break, with more than 400 received.

    Despite this, the legislation was introduced to the power house just 10 days later, where it was quickly referred to a senate committee for inquiry. Stakeholders were only given three working days to make a submission to this inquiry, with the legislation eventually given the green light.

    Communications Minister Paul Fletcher with eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant

    There are significant concerns around the impact of the new powers on the adult industry, the investment of huge powers in a single individual in the eSafety Commissioner and the potential for it to further undermine encryption.

    Despite these concerns, the Online Safety Bill was broadly supported in the Senate by Coalition and Labor Senators on Wednesday afternoon.

    The Greens moved an amendment to have the bill withdrawn, and said they would eventually vote against the legislation.

    The government will move an amendment to its own legislation with the support of Labor, introducing increased reporting requirements for the eSafety Commissioner on how the new powers are utilised, and a new internal review mechanism for these decisions.

    Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg spoke in support of the Online Safety Bill, linking it to the news media bargaining code passed by Parliament earlier this year.

    “What it really does is bring to bear a simple, single framework for online safety. I think setting out the basic online safety expectations and arming the eSafety Commissioner with the power to effectively ensure that people are protected will be broadly welcomed,” Senator Bragg said.

    “What we don’t want to see is people being bullied and harassed online. We’re balancing civil liberties against the desire to protect people, and these are judgements that should be exercised by a minister and they should be disallowable, and that is the intention.”

    A number of Labor Senators raised concerns about the legislation and the process behind its legislation, but the Opposition will eventually vote in support of it.

    Labor Senator Louise Pratt said that the rushed process behind the legislation had “significantly undermined confidence” in it, and that the Opposition shared many of the concerns about its substance too.

    “There’s an important balance to be found here around free speech and protections against certain types of speech. We’re concerned this bill represents a significant increase in the eSafety Commissioner’s discretion to remove material without commensurate checks and balances,” Senator Pratt said.

    The Senator also said that the new powers could be used to “stifle” debate and free speech if placed in the wrong hands, and that the government’s amendments did not go far enough.

    Labor Senator Nita Green summed up the party’s position on the bill, saying they would be supporting it but weren’t happy about that.

    “While Labor will be supporting this bill we’re certainly not happy with how it is being delivered,” Senator Green said. “There’s a lot we don’t know about how this bill will be implemented.”

    Greens Senators called on the government to completely redraft the bill in order to take into account concerns around the use of the National Classification Code, the potential for the powers to be used against lawful online content creators, the inadequate rights for review and inadequate transparency.

    The Greens will also move amendments requiring an independent review of the Act in two years time, and that reasonable steps are taken to ensure the material being taken down is not removed unnecessarily, and for the impact on freedom of expression to be minimised.

    Greens Senator Nick McKim raised concerns that the legislation will lead to an increase in the use of automation and AI by big tech companies to remove potentially offending content.

    “The use of AI and algorithms in similar circumstances in places like the US has been extremely controversial to say the least, and we are concerned that the use of those technologies could lead to disproportionate outcomes like blanket bans, even if that is not the intent of the Commissioner,” Senator McKim said.

    “This chamber should have taken the time to make sure we get it right and we avoid to the greatest extent possible any unintended consequences flowing from this legislation. The Australian Greens are disappointed that this chamber has not been given that opportunity.”

    Fellow Greens Senator Jordan Steele-John also slammed the handling of the bill, saying it is “totally and utterly undercooked” and that it had been “rammed through in the shortest possible time”.

    The post Labor ‘not happy’ about supporting Online Safety Bill appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Why the rush? Online Safety Bill still not passed

    The Online Safety Bill will not be passed by Parliament until May at the earliest, despite the rushed process behind the federal government’s controversial legislation.

    The Online Safety Bill, which extends the eSafety Commissioner’s takedown scheme to Australian adults and allows for the issuing or removal notices for content deemed to be R18+ or higher and the ordering for sites or apps to be blocked if they fail to comply, was introduced to the Senate last week.

    There are significant concerns around the legislation, including the discretion it hands the eSafety Commissioner, its potential impact on sex workers and activists and the potential to further undermine encryption.

    data online safety bill
    The eyes have it? The Online Safety Bill is still before parliament

    The government revealed a number of amendments to the legislation following negotiations with the Opposition, centred around improved transparency and reviews of the sweeping new powers.

    But the bill wasn’t brought on for debate and was not passed before Parliament rose for the sitting week. With Senate Estimates this week and the Easter break, Parliament does not return for a full sitting week until the end of May, presenting the next opportunity for the Online Safety Bill to be passed into law.

    Shadow assistant minister for cybersecurity Tim Watts said the Opposition would continue to work with the government on the proposed amendments during this delay.

    “Despite significant delays and much media spruiking the government still hasn’t been able to deliver legislation that adequately addresses serious stakeholder concerns,” Mr Watts told InnovationAus.

    “It’s been two and a half years since the Briggs Review recommended a new Online Safety Act. Instead of getting on and delivering it, the government has been spruiking the Bill in the media as if it were already law for two years.”

    The government could have used this extra time to consult on the legislation and address the issues around it, Electronic Frontiers Australia board member Justin Warren said.

    “It is disturbing that the government plans to hand a large amount of largely unchecked power to a single person when it hasn’t even figured out how to safely use that power,” Mr Warren told InnovationAus.

    “The current Commissioner told the Senate that ‘this is the sausage being made right now’. ‘Move fast and break things’ is what got us in this mess in the first place,” Mr Warren said.

    “These are not new issues, so it is entirely reasonable for us to expect the government to have figured out these details before asking for more power. It’s just another example of the government not doing its homework and then rushing to turn in something, anything, at the last moment. Australians deserve better.”

    The short process from revealing draft legislation to introducing it into Parliament has led to a number of issues, Mr Warren said.

    “EFA is very disappointed that the government has ignored the detailed and constructive feedback on the bill from a broad and diverse cross-section of Australian society. When this many people, who frequently disagree with each other, are all telling you you’ve got it wrong, you should pay attention,” he said.

    “The hasty drafting of the legislation has removed a variety of oversight mechanisms and safeguards that already exist, while extending Australia’s outdated censorship regime to cover private, person-to-person messages.”

    The two-month delay comes after a rushed process where the government only provided three working days for stakeholders to make submissions to a senate committee inquiry into the bill.

    A draft version of the Online Safety Bill was unveiled in December last year, with a consultation process running over the Summer break to 14 February.

    Despite receiving nearly 400 submissions, the government introduced the bill to the lower house just 10 days later.

    The submissions also weren’t made public until after the legislation was introduced to Parliament.

    The bill was quickly referred to a Senate committee, with further submissions due just three working days later.

    The committee soon gave the legislation the green light, and it was passed by the House of Representatives last week with bipartisan support.

    Labor voted in favour of the bill but raised a number of concerns and flagged further amendments in the upper house.

    The government announced it would be amending its own legislation in the Senate, requiring the reporting on the use of the powers by the eSafety Commissioner, and for the formulation of a reviews scheme within the office.

    Tim Watts said the timeframe around the legislation “undermined confidence” in it.

    “It is disappointing that the government has proved incapable of conducting a process that satisfies stakeholders in terms of process and substance,” Mr Watts said in Parliament.

    The Greens will be voting against the legislation because it is “poorly drafted and could lead to widespread, unintended consequences”.

    The post Why the rush? Online Safety Bill still not passed appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Govt to amend Online Safety Bill with Labor support

    The government will move to amend the Online Safety Bill to provide more transparency and reviews after the controversial legislation was passed by the lower house with support from the Opposition.

    The Online Safety Bill hands new powers to the eSafety Commissioner, extending the online content takedown scheme to Australian adults, and allows for the issuing of removal notices for content deemed to be rated R18+ or higher, and to order the site or app to be blocked if it refuses.

    A set of basic safety expectations will also be outlined for Big Tech as part of the legislation.

    The legislation was given the green light by a Senate committee on Friday, and was passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon.

    data
    Online safety: Labor will support governments controversial bill, albeit with amendments

    Labor supported the legislation in the lower house but is expecting a number of government amendments in the Senate to address the myriad concerns around the bill.

    Shadow cybersecurity spokesman Tim Watts acknowledged concerns about the bill, including that it vests significant power and discretion with the eSafety Commissioner, its lack of transparency about how this power would be used, its potential impact on the sex industry and for it to be used to remove content that is in the public interest.

    The government has been unable to address these stakeholder concerns, Mr Watts said

    “The safety of Australians online is of paramount importance and Labor will work with the government to iron out concerns with these bills in time for debate in the senate,” Mr Watts said in Parliament.

    “But in the meantime, Labor will not oppose these bills and we support passage through this place on the understanding that government amendments are forthcoming,” he said.

    “Labor considers that the government must consider further amendments to clarify the bill in terms of its scope and to strengthen due process, appeals, oversight and transparency requirements given the important free speech and digital rights considerations it engages.”

    The government amendments are expected to include increased reporting from the eSafety Commissioner on how the new powers are utilised, and a new internal review mechanism regarding these decisions.

    On Tuesday morning the Greens announced that they would be voting against the legislation, calling for it to be withdrawn and redrafted as it is “poorly drafted and could lead to widespread, unintended consequences”.

    “This bill would make the eSafety Commissioner the sole arbiter of internet content in Australia. It creates extraordinary powers for any one person to hold, let alone an unelected bureaucrat,” Greens senator and digital rights spokesperson Nick McKim said.

    “It also fails to provide for timely reviews or appeals of decisions made by the eSafety Commissioner. We are concerned that people opposed to sex work, pornography and sexual health for LGBTIQ+ people could abuse the complaints process to seek to have lawful online content removed. Public interest news that involves violent imagery, such as footage of police violence, could also be taken down.”

    While the Online Safety Bill has been discussed by the government for several years, it recently only gave stakeholders four working days to make submissions to the senate inquiry into the final piece of legislation, which was introduced to Parliament just a week after nearly 400 submissions were received on it.

    This short timeframe has “undermined confidence” in the process, Mr Watts said.

    “It is disappointing that the government has proved incapable of conducting a process that satisfies stakeholders in terms of process and substance,” he said.

    There is also a “worrying lack of conceptual and operational clarity” around how the new powers will work, with Mr Watts pointing to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant recently saying that the “sausage” is still being made.

    “Finding the balance between free speech and protections against certain kinds of speech is a complex endeavour and we are concerned that this bill represents a significant increase in the eSafety Commissioner’s discretion to remove material without commensurate checks and balances,” Mr Watts said.

    “It doesn’t take much imagination to foresee a situation where, in the hands of an overzealous eSafety Commissioner, legitimate speech could be silenced – whether of racial or religious minorities expressing outrage at racist speech, or of women expressing outrage at sexual violence in the workplace.”

    The post Govt to amend Online Safety Bill with Labor support appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Senate committee green light for Online Safety Act

    The government’s Online Safety Bill has been given the green light by a Senate committee, paving the way for its debate in Parliament this week.

    In the final report, the Opposition did however signal that it would move to amend the legislation in Parliament this week, while the Greens called for it to be redrafted entirely.

    The Environment and Communications Legislation Committee tabled its report into the Online Safety Bill late on Friday afternoon.

    Data sharing
    Online Safety Bill: Senate report tabled in Parliament

    The legislation hands new powers to the eSafety Commissioner, extending the takedown scheme to Australian adults, allowing for the issuing of removal notices for content deemed to be rated as R18+ and higher, and order the sites and apps to be blocked if they don’t comply.

    While the committee received a number of submissions raising significant concerns with the impact of the new powers on the adult industry, the investment of huge powers with a single individual in the eSafety Commissioner, and the potential for the law to further undermine encryption, it recommended the bill be passed as is.

    The committee’s only other recommendation was for the bill’s explanatory memorandum to be amended to clarify that the requirement for the basic online safety expectations code for tech companies to be in place within six months is “for best endeavours” with the eSafety Commissioner to have further discretion to work with industry to determine a timeframe.

    In the report, the committee rejected the transparency and accountability concerns, and those worried about unintended consequences.

    “The committee notes that there are extensive existing mechanisms for public and parliamentary scrutiny, as well as provision for statutory independent review of the options of the Online Safety Act, and administrative and judicial review of individual decisions made by the Commissioner,” the report said.

    “Despite this, some committee members continue to share the particular concerns expressly identified by some submitters and witnesses regarding transparency and reporting in the exercise of the Commissioner’s powers.

    “The committee notes that the Commissioner’s view that the new scheme is intended to focus on online harm, which the committee considers is an appropriate approach and which would not capture the significant majority of adult content online.”

    In additional comments to the report, participating Labor Senators Nita Green and Catryna Bilyk criticised the rushed process behind the government’s consultation around the legislation.

    “The short timeframe at the end of this drawn-out process has undermined confidence in the government’s exposure draft consultation process, with a number of stakeholders concerned that submissions have not been considered properly,” the Labor senators said.

    The Opposition called on the government to make further amendments to the legislation to clarify its scope and “strengthen due process, appeals, oversight and transparency requirements, given the important free speech and digital rights considerations it engages”.

    “We are concerned that this bill represents a significant increase in the eSafety Commissioner’s discretion to remove material without commensurate requirements for due process, appeals or transparency over and above Senate estimates, annual reporting and AAT appeals,” the Labor senators said.

    In additional comments, participating Greens senators slammed the bill, saying it creates “extraordinary power for a single unelected bureaucracy – with little to no oversight – to wield”, and that the rushed process has meant it hasn’t been considered by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills or the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

    The new powers could also be “weaponised by people with moral or political agendas”, the Greens said.

    The Greens called for the legislation to be withdrawn and redrafted to address these concerns, including the potential for the powers to be used against lawful online content, an inadequate right of appeal, inadequate transparency and accountability, the potential for the powers to be used to undermine encryption, and their detrimental impact on sex workers.

    The Greens also called for a constitutionally or legislatively enshrined Charter of Rights, including privacy and digital rights matching the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.

    The Online Safety Bill is now expected to be debated in Parliament this week.

    The post Senate committee green light for Online Safety Act appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • The new Online Safety Bill has been a ‘rush job’

    Civil and digital rights groups say the sweeping new Online Safety Bill is a “rush job”, having been introduced to federal parliament just 10 days after government received nearly 400 submissions on the proposed laws.

    The government unveiled the draft Online Safety Bill in December last year, with consultation running across the summer break up until 14 February.

    The bill extends the eSafety Commissioner’s takedown scheme for Australian adults, allowing them to issue removal notices for content deemed to be rated as R18+ or higher, and to order the sites or apps be blocked if they do not comply.

    Data
    Dark tunnel: The Online Safety Bill has been smashed through parliament

    There are significant concerns about the new powers, particularly their impact on sex workers and activists, the significant power and discretion handed to the commissioner, and on their potential to further undermine encryption.

    Despite the scale and scope of the legislation, the process behind its introduction to parliament and consultations has been a “rush job”, Digital Rights Watch program director Lucie Krahulcova said.

    Submissions on the draft legislation closed on 14 February, with 370 submissions made to government on the bill.

    Despite the volume of submissions, the government introduced the legislation to Parliament just 10 days later on 24 February. It is still yet to release any of the submissions it received as part of that round of consultation.

    It was subsequently referred to a Senate committee for inquiry, with submissions opening on 25 February and closing on 2 March. This left just three working days for stakeholders to make a further submission on the final legislation.

    “The fact that the government is willing to plough on with the bill a mere 10 days after 370 submissions were filed should raise alarm bells. That is not what a democratic consultation process looks like,” Ms Krahulcova told InnovationAus.

    “This does not indicate a meaningful consultation process, nor that community concerns are being taken seriously. It means we need to speak up even more,” Digital Rights Watch tweeted.

    Former federal Greens Senator Scott Ludlam also raised concerns with the timeframe around the bill in a submission to the senate inquiry, saying it appears the government has already made up its mind.

    “As expected, the draft bill provoked hundreds of submissions flagging grave concerns. For some reason the government has ignored this feedback and instead proposes to proceed with an unacceptably compressed timetable, with a largely unamended bill, in the absence of any formal response to red flags many civil society organisations have made,” Mr Ludlam said in the submission.

    “This response indicates that the government had already made up its mind, calling into question the purpose of the exposure draft. It therefore falls to the senate, through this committee, to prevent the foreseeable risks posed by this bill as drafted.”

    In its submission, tech giant Google also pointed out the speedy process of introducing the bill to Parliament.

    “This bill was introduced into the House of Representatives a mere 10 days after the public consultation period on the Exposure Draft of the bill closed,” Google’s Samantha Yorke said in the submission.

    The Online Safety Bill will introduce a “world-first cyber abuse take-down scheme” for Australians, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said in Parliament last month.

    “This new scheme provides a pathway for those experiencing the most seriously harmful online abuse to have this material removed from the internet,” Mr Fletcher said.

    “The Australian government believes the digital industry must step up and do more to keep their users safe. That belief underpins the provisions of the bill.

    “We all enjoy standards of behaviour and civility in the town square that keeps us safe, and there are appropriate mechanisms and sanctions for those who break these rules,” he said.

    “The Australian government believes that the digital town squares should also be a safe place, and that there should be consequences for those who use the internet to cause others harm. This bill contains a comprehensive set of measures designed in accordance with this belief.”

    The post The new Online Safety Bill has been a ‘rush job’ appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • The extent of the attacks on the left is now horrifying

    It looks like if you’re left-wing, you’d best prepare yourself for a dunk or a burning at the stake. Because the witch hunt against us all has stepped up a gear. 

    Tribune Magazine is “fighting a legal case” which ‘threatens its future’. The Labour Party has banned socialist candidates from the Liverpool Mayor election. And Twitter has suspended left-wing accounts left, right, and centre. But all this is the thin end of the wedge. Because we’re under the greatest attack since the days of McCarthyism. 

    The Tories recently appointed former Labour MP John Woodcock to head up a review into “countering violent extremism”. A preserve of the far right, you may think. Wrong. Because witchfinder general Woodcock will also be looking into the so-called far left. But his review comes at a time when the left wing in the UK is under attack from all sides.

    Social media companies are deliberately censoring our news and views – while jumping into financial bed with the likes of Rupert Murdoch. Meanwhile, him and the rest of the establishment corporate media are tightening their grip on the narrative – being aided and abetted by the Tories parachuting their mates into top jobs. And if you want to protest about all this – tough luck.

    The government brands groups like Extinction Rebellion “criminals”. Our right to protest is being lost as an increasingly authoritarian police force uses coronavirus rules to its advantage. Oh, and if you think lawyers will help you when you’re nicked – think again. Legal aid has gone, and those “lefty lawyers” are under attack themselves – simply for doing their jobs. But it’s OK! Because Generation Z will save us! Sorry. Wrong again.

    Anti-capitalist teaching is not allowed in schools. The Tories are cancelling university ‘cancel culture’ by making sure free speech matters. But only if it’s their mates, of course. And if you think those slave trader statues will continue to topple – think again. Because the Tories are trying to stop that, too.

    Journalist Tim Fenton called all this a “new McCarthyism”. But are we all now witches, being tried in a modern-day Salem? The truth is, the reality is probably far, far worse. And if we’re not careful, we’ll all soon be metaphorically burned at the stake. We have got a lot to fight – and to succeed, we need to ensure unity is the strongest weapon in our armoury. 

    Read Steve Topple’s full article here.

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • The left is under the most extensive attack since the 1950s

    A former Labour MP has been tasked with examining left wing groups as part of a government review into UK ‘extremism’. But this move is just the thin end of the wedge. It is one part of a much wider assault on left-wing views and activity.

    Taken as a whole, we are witnessing perhaps the system’s greatest attack on us since the McCarthyism of the 1950s.

    John Woodcock: witchfinder general

    As The Canary‘s Tom Coburg recently wrote:

    In November 2019, home secretary Priti Patel appointed lord Walney (former Labour MP John Woodcock) as the government’s envoy on countering violent extremism. According to the Telegraph, Woodcock will be looking at “progressive extremism” in Britain. That includes how ‘far-left’ groups could infiltrate or hijack environmental movements and anti-racism campaigns.

    To be clear, ‘extremism’ is a nonsense term. As police monitoring group Netpol’s Kevin Blowe wrote for The Canary, it can mean a number of things: from being a member of a civil disobedience group to being part of a campaign that challenges corporate power. Moreover, the government hasn’t even defined the term extremism or extremist in law. So it allows the state, and its agents, to decide who gets labelled as one.

    The thin end of the wedge

    Already, the right wing in the UK is cheering Woodcock on. The Telegraph wrote with glee that he’d be looking at “anti-capitalist” groups. Woodcock himself stated that:

    I want to look at the way anti-democracy, anti-capitalist far-Left fringe groups in Britain like the Socialist Workers Party tend to have much more success hijacking important causes… than the far-Right, and the harm that may do.

    Woodcock’s review is the thin end of the wedge. Because it sums up what’s happening across society. He’s implying there is no alternative to corporatism (or “capitalism” as he incorrectly refers to it). Anything “anti” that is wrong and must be stopped. And in the wider world, this is already happening. It can be broken down into several areas.

    Un-social media: controlling the narrative

    Facebook and Twitter have been actively silencing dissent. This has now been happening for a while. In 2017, Facebook changed its algorithm to intentionally remove smaller, left-wing news outlets from people’s feeds. The Intercept reported last year that as Facebook was banning far-right, QAnon-related groups, it was doing the same to antifacist ones, too. It consistently shuts down pro-Kurdish accounts. Also, UK Twitter has repeatedly banned left-wing voices. And now, Facebook will be “depoliticising” its platform. In short, it’s looking to reduce the amount of news in people’s feeds. But campaigners say this will hit small, grassroots groups the hardest.

    Now, you could argue ‘it’s the algorithms what did it’. But someone designed those algorithms. And according to reports, CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened to make sure left-wing sites were hardest hit. Why? It’s about control of the narrative. And it’s also about protecting powerful people and companies’ interests.

    Losing the internet

    The internet nearly caused control of the narrative to be lost. In the early days, it was a fairly open platform. But then, the dot com crash of 2000 came. The demise of countless new, smaller tech start-ups was a disaster capitalist’s dream. It paved the way for the domination of the internet by a few companies. And in turn, these companies have ended up being some of the biggest in the world.

    At first, this was about concentrating ownership. But after events like the Arab Spring, the system realised the power the internet could yield for the people. So, the shutting down began. But just recently, we’ve seen some tech giants openly go to war with governments. Most pointed in this is Australia. Its government is making companies like Facebook pay the media for its content. Facebook isn’t happy. In response, it has blocked all news content from its Australian site. Google, meanwhile, is so far going along with the Australian government’s plans.

    The situation in Australia sums up another problem. Namely the establishment corporate media. Because it too has massive control over the public narrative.

    Manufacturing consent, 21st century-style

    The Canary‘s Tom Coburg recently summed up the problem with the establishment corporate media. He wrote that:

    Professor Noam Chomsky co-wrote Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, which famously argued that the mainstream media’s role was all about suppressing criticism of the powerful. Now recent moves by media in the UK are about to see that ‘manufactured consent’ taken to a whole new level.

    Coburg argued that UK media is already dominated by a few players. People like right-wing Rupert Murdoch control huge sections of it. But Coburg wrote about how it’s about to get worse. He said that:

    in February 2021, Ofcom was reported to have given its approval for Murdoch and Brooks to launch News UK TV, an outlet that will undoubtedly reflect the political leanings of its owner.

    Meanwhile, it’s understood that former editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, is rumoured to become the next chair of Ofcom [the broadcast media regulator].

    Dominating the narrative

    And then:

    In January, it was reported that Richard Sharp, a former Goldman Sachs banker who donated an estimated £416,189 to the Conservative Party, is to be chair of the BBC’s board of directors.

    In short, the corporate media was already run by a few, right-wing people. Now, it’s about to get worse. The new Australian rules are all the more concerning, too. Because with Google and Murdoch now in financial cahoots, power over the narrative is even more concentrated.

    Overall, the left wing is being shut down on social media. It’s actively deplatforming our news sites. The establishment corporate media is more and more dominant. So, we all better get back to protesting on the streets, yes? Well, we are facing a clampdown there as well.

    Co-opting climate chaos

    Whatever you think of Extinction Rebellion (XR), it’s gotten a name for itself. Its protests in London and around the world have been high-profile. But the system is determined to shut the group down. UK home secretary Priti Patel called its members “criminals”. She said its methods were a:

    shameful attack on our way of life, our economy and the livelihoods of the hard-working majority.

    Billionaire tech mogul Bill Gates said XR was not “constructive”. And Woodcock will be including the group in his review. So, why are the establishment attacking XR? It’s about control of the climate change narrative.

    In short, we’re seeing corporations and those in power co-opting the green movement for their own benefit. Gates is one example. Elon Musk is another. Shell, one of the world’s largest oil companies, is another; rolling out low carbon fuels. The system and its proponents know that we’ve screwed the planet. They know it needs fixing. But in the process, these disaster capitalists also see a money-making opportunity. Plus, if the system fails, so do they. So, XR and its people-led approach needs stopping. And the UK’s increasingly authoritarian police are central to this.

    Increasing authoritarianism

    Police monitoring group Netpol recently wrote that the UK government:

    is planning to introduce major changes to public order legislation to crack down on protests, under a new “Protection of the Police and Public Bill” planned for 2021.

    It’s looking to increase police powers over protest. These include police being able to control where they happen and using stop and search powers on protesters. Netpol says it comes in the wake of not only XR but also Black Lives Matter (BLM). Patel accused the latter of “hooliganism and thuggery”. Little wonder, when its call for defunding of the police is, like XR, a threat to the system. BLM’s drive for equality and social justice is the same. Corporate capitalism needs inequality to function. Any true levelling of the playing field would be too damaging for it.

    So, what if the police do arrest and charge you over a demo? At least lawyers will be able to help you. Or so you’d think.

    Battering the law

    The government is also attacking the legal profession. As former Green Party leader Natalie Bennett recently wrote for Bright Green:

    It’s not just that the government has drained away the resources of legal aid: the annual legal aid budget is now £1.6bn a year, £950m less in real terms than it was in 2010, or removed all support for large areas of work under the 2013 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO).

    It’s also that the government has actively attacked the role of lawyers in upholding the rule of law: Priti Patel attacked “do-gooders” and “lefty lawyers”, her Home Office tweeted (although after an outcry deleted) an attack on “activist lawyers” and even produced a video with the same theme (also eventually deleted).  Marina Sergides, a barrister at Garden Court, testified to the APPG: “We are public servants but we are not treated as public servants… we are actively attacked by the government”.

    That attitude permeates throughout government action. Just this weekend, Paul Powlesland tweeted that while assisting, pro bono, anti-HS2 protesters at Euston, he was slapped with a £200 Covid regulation fine. He said he’s confident of being able to fight it in court – but what a pass we’ve come to when police are acting against legal protection.

    So, the left is becoming increasingly squeezed. We’re unable to operate effectively online. Our media outlets are impaired. The corporate news is all the more dominant. Physical protest is becoming more and more restricted. And our right to legal recourse is also under threat. So, we’d best hope that Generation Z is going to save us then?

    Indoctrinating the youth

    In 2020, the UK government issued new education guidance. Vice reported that it:

    told leaders and teachers involved in setting the RSE curriculum that anti-capitalism is categorised as an “extreme political stance”, comparable to the opposition to freedom of speech, antisemitism and the endorsement of illegal activity.

    Of course, this would mean students would not hear any opposing views on capitalism. But it could also mean erasing huge parts of history. As George Monbiot said in a Twitter thread:

    Behind these histories lies an even bigger and more sacrilegious truth. It’s that the system we call capitalism… is really a system of global theft… Let’s imagine there’d been no theft. No gold, silver and land stolen from Native Americans, no people stolen from Africa, no wealth stolen from India and the other colonies, no ransacking of our life support systems. How successful would this system we call capitalism have been? How rich and powerful would nations like ours have been? I would guess: not very. Capitalism is not what it claims to be. It is not the great success story its beneficiaries proclaim. It is the ideological structure we use to shield ourselves from brutal truths.

    So, the system has to erase valid criticism of it for it to continue to evolve. And it’s embedding this further, too.

    Cancelling cancel culture

    We’re also seeing a “twin” attack on so-called “cancel culture”. The UK government has just said it’s ‘strengthening’ free speech at universities. Education secretary Gavin Williamson said:

    I am deeply worried about the chilling effect on campuses of unacceptable silencing and censoring. That is why we must strengthen free speech in higher education, by bolstering the existing legal duties and ensuring strong, robust action is taken if these are breached.

    In short, the UK Tories are targeting students trying to shut down transphobes, racists, and misogynists.

    Also with this comes a government focus on ‘heritage’.

    The “war on woke”

    The government is bringing together 25 of the UK’s biggest heritage bodies and charities in an attempt to whitewash British history. Third Sector said that the government has “summoned” them:

    to a summit where Oliver Dowden [the culture secretary] is expected to tell them “to defend our culture and history from the noisy minority of activists constantly trying to do Britain down”.

    It is being seen as an escalation of the government’s “war on woke” against so-called “cancel culture”, amid concern at senior levels in the government over what it sees as attempts to rewrite Britain’s past.

    It’s an obvious attack on BLM and the removing of slave trader statues. But moreover, it’s an attempt to shore up the false nationalist history peddled by the establishment that has led the system to the point it’s at today.

    So, you’d be hard-pushed to find somewhere the system wasn’t attacking the left. These individual cases are nothing new. But what seems new this time is the sheer scale of it. And a freelance journalist has compared this to another time in history.

    A new McCarthyism?

    Tim Fenton said that much of this is a new form of McCarthyism. Historically, it’s not far off in terms of the current system’s MO. Woodcock’s review is the same as a ‘Salem Witch Trial’. That is, in the context made famous by Arthur Miller in his play The Crucible. Miller’s Salem witch trials were a metaphor for the clamp-down on communists during the 1950s in the US. But Fenton’s point is also useful in seeing why this is going on.

    In the 1950s, two forces were pulling the world apart: communism and capitalism. Human society was at a crossroads of ideologies. It could have gone either way. Fast-forward to the 21st century, and we are in a similar position. Except this time, the forces are not communism and capitalism. They are corporatism on one side and humanity on the other. This isn’t just a UK phenomenon, either. It’s been the same in the US. And it’s the same in France. It’s the same in Australia. Power is now highly concentrated. And those with it want to make sure it stays that way.

    But in the UK, Woodcock’s review isn’t the end of the story.

    The left wing: being dunked, Tory style

    The government will soon be introducing the Online Safety Bill. As I previously wrote for The Canary, this proposed legislation is peak Tory government. It’s dressing up an overarching attack on freedom and democracy as something that’s good and protective for us. Put this authoritarian piece of law in tandem with Woodcock’s review. Then, tie in all the other crackdowns mentioned above. And what you have is perhaps the greatest attack on the left since McCarthyism in the 1950s. In fact, it may end up being even worse.

    With the advances in technology have come more and more ways for activists to organise. But consequently, traditional methods have been lost. Our lives and our human interactions are now dominated by tech. This leaves us exposed to governments and corporations exerting more power than ever before over them. My late father was a prominent member of the communist party in the 1950s/60s. He used to have a favourite story to tell. When they held meetings, the chair would always end his opening speech by saying:

    And finally, a very special welcome to our friends at the back of the room.

    He was referring to undercover police. But the meeting would still go ahead. Now, we live in the age of virtual organising. And our right to even discuss having a meeting may end up being curtailed. Our freedom to object to, and protest against, what the system is meting out has never been under such a threat. It’s up to all of us to push back – before it’s too late.

    Featured image via Rupert Colley – Flickr and Sky News – YouTube

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.