Online Safety vs Free Speech: UK’s "Online Harms" white paper divides the internet and puts tech companies in government crosshairs

The internet is an integral part of everyday life for so many people. It has definitely added a new dimension to the spaces of imagination in which we all live. But it seems the problems of the offline world have moved there, too. As the internet continues to grow and transform our lives, often for the better, we should not ignore the very real harms which people face online every day. And the lawmakers around the world are taking decisive action to make people safer online.

On Monday, Europe drafted EU Regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online. Last week, the Australian parliament passed legislation to crack down on violent videos on social media. Recently Sen. Elizabeth Warren, US 2020 presidential hopeful proposed to build strong anti-trust laws and break big tech companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple. On 3rd April, Elizabeth introduced Corporate Executive Accountability Act, a new piece of legislation that would make it easier to criminally charge company executives when Americans’ personal data is breached.

Last year, the German parliament enacted the NetzDG law, requiring large social media sites to remove posts that violate certain provisions of the German code, including broad prohibitions on “defamation of religion,” “hate speech,” and “insult.”

And here’s yet another tech regulation announcement on Monday, a white paper on online harms was announced by the UK government. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has proposed an independent watchdog that will write a "code of practice" for tech companies.

According to Jeremy Wright, Secretary of State for Digital, Media & Sport and Sajid Javid, Home Secretary, “nearly nine in ten UK adults and 99% of 12 to 15 year olds are online. Two thirds of adults in the UK are concerned about content online, and close to half say they have seen hateful content in the past year. The tragic recent events in New Zealand show just how quickly horrific terrorist and extremist content can spread online.”

Further they emphasized on not allowing such harmful behaviours and content to undermine the significant benefits that the digital revolution can offer. The white paper therefore puts forward ambitious plans for a new system of accountability and oversight for tech companies, moving far beyond self-regulation. It includes a new regulatory framework for online safety which will clarify companies’ responsibilities to keep UK users safer online with the most robust action to counter illegal content and activity.

The paper suggests 3 major steps for tech regulation:

establishing an independent regulator that can write a "code of practice" for social networks and internet companies

giving the regulator enforcement powers including the ability to fine companies that break the rules

considering additional enforcement powers such as the ability to fine company executives and force internet service providers to block sites that break the rules

Outlining the proposals, Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright discussed the fine percentage with BBC UK, "If you look at the fines available to the Information Commissioner around the GDPR rules, that could be up to 4% of company's turnover... we think we should be looking at something comparable here."

What are the kind of 'online harms' cited in the paper?

The paper cover a range of issues that are clearly defined in law such as spreading terrorist content, child sex abuse, so-called revenge pornography, hate crimes, harassment and the sale of illegal goods. It also covers harmful behaviour that has a less clear legal definition such as cyber-bullying, trolling and the spread of fake news and disinformation.

The paper cites that in 2018 online CSEA (Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse) reported over 18.4 million referrals of child sexual abuse material by US tech companies to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Out of those, there were 113, 948 UK-related referrals in 2018, up from 82,109 in 2017. In the third quarter of 2018, Facebook reported removing 8.7 million pieces of content globally for breaching policies on child nudity and sexual exploitation.

Another type of online harm occurs when terrorists use online services to spread their vile propaganda and mobilise support. Paper emphasizes that terrorist content online threatens the UK’s national security and the safety of the public.

Giving an example of the five terrorist attacks in the UK during 2017, had an online element. And online terrorist content remains a feature of contemporary radicalisation. It is seen across terrorist investigations, including cases where suspects have become very quickly radicalised to the point of planning attacks. This is partly as a result of the continued availability and deliberately attractive format of the terrorist material they are accessing online.

Further it suggests that social networks must tackle material that advocates self-harm and suicide, which became a prominent issue after 14-year-old Molly Russell took her own life in 2017. After she died her family found distressing material about depression and suicide on her Instagram account. Molly's father Ian Russell holds the social media giant partly responsible for her death.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said tech giants and social media companies had a moral duty "to protect the young people they profit from". Despite our repeated calls to action, harmful and illegal content - including child abuse and terrorism - is still too readily available online.”

What does the new proposal suggest to tackle online harm

The paper calls for an independent regulator to hold internet companies to account. While it did not specify whether a new body will be established, or an existing one will be handed new powers. The regulator will define a "code of best practice" that social networks and internet companies must adhere to. It applies to tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google, and the rules would also apply to messaging services such as Whatsapp, Snapchat and cloud storage services.

The regulator will have the power to fine companies and publish notices naming and shaming those that break the rules. The paper suggests it is also considering fines for individual company executives and making search engines remove links to offending websites and also consulting over blocking harmful websites.

Another area discussed in the paper is about developing a culture of transparency, trust and accountability as a critical element of the new regulatory framework. The regulator will have the power to require annual transparency reports from companies in scope, outlining the prevalence of harmful content on their platforms and what measures they are taking to address this. These reports will be published online by the regulator, so that users can make informed decisions about online use.

Additionally it suggests the spread of fake news could be tackled by forcing social networks to employ fact-checkers and promote legitimate news sources.

How it plans to deploy technology as a part of solution

The paper mentions that companies should invest in the development of safety technologies to reduce the burden on users to stay safe online. As in November 2018, the Home Secretary of UK co-hosted a hackathon with five major technology companies to develop a new tool to identify online grooming. So they have proposed this tool to be licensed for free to other companies, and plan more such innovative and collaborative efforts with them.

The government also plans to work with the industry and civil society to develop a safety by design framework, linking up with existing legal obligations around data protection by design and secure by design principles. This will make it easier for startups and small businesses to embed safety during the development or update of products and services.

They also plan to understand how AI can be best used to detect, measure and counter online harms, while ensuring its deployment remains safe and ethical. A new project led by Turing is setting out to address this issue. The ‘Hate Speech: Measures and Counter-measures’ project will use a mix of natural language processing techniques and qualitative analyses to create tools which identify and categorize different strengths and types of online hate speech.

Other plans include launching of online safety apps which will combine state-of-the-art machine-learning technology to track children’s activity on their smartphone with the ability for children to self-report their emotional state.

Why is the white paper receiving critical comments

Though the paper seems to be a welcome step towards a sane internet regulation and looks sensible at the first glance. In some cases it has been regarded as too ambitious and unrealistically feeble. It reflects the conflicting political pressures under which it has been generated.

TechUK, an umbrella group representing the UK's technology industry, said the government must be "clear about how trade-offs are balanced between harm prevention and fundamental rights". Jim Killock, executive director of Open Rights Group, said the government's proposals would "create state regulation of the speech of millions of British citizens". Matthew Lesh, head of research at free market think tank the Adam Smith Institute, went further saying "The government should be ashamed of themselves for leading the western world in internet censorship. The proposals are a historic attack on freedom of speech and the free press. At a time when Britain is criticising violations of freedom of expression in states like Iran, China and Russia, we should not be undermining our freedom at home."

No one doubts the harm done by child sexual abuse or terrorist propaganda online, but these things are already illegal. The difficulty is its enforcement, which the white paper does nothing to address. Effective enforcement would demand a great deal of money and human time. The present system relies on a mixture of human reporting and algorithms. The algorithms can be fooled without too much trouble: 300,000 of the 1.5m copies of the Christchurch terrorist videos that were uploaded to Facebook within 24 hours of the crime were undetected by automated systems.

Apart from this there is a criticism about the vision of the white paper which says it wants "A free, open and secure internet with freedom of expression online" "where companies take effective steps to keep their users safe". But it is actually not explained how it is going to protect free expression and seems to be a contradiction to the regulation.

https://twitter.com/jimkillock/status/1115253155007205377

Beyond this, there is a conceptual problem. Much of the harm done on and by social media does not come from deliberate criminality, but from ordinary people released from the constraints of civility. It is here that the white paper fails most seriously. It talks about material – such as “intimidation, disinformation, the advocacy of self-harm” – that is harmful but not illegal yet proposes to regulate it in the same way as material which is both. Even leaving aside politically motivated disinformation, this is an area where much deeper and clearer thought is needed.

https://twitter.com/guy_herbert/status/1115180765128667137

There is no doubt that some forms of disinformation do serious harms both to individuals and to society as a whole. And regulating the internet is necessary, but it won’t be easy or cheap. Too much of this white paper looks like an attempt to find cheap and easy solutions to really hard questions.