{"id":186581,"date":"2019-04-12T07:07:36","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T07:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=186581"},"modified":"2019-04-15T07:09:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T07:09:02","slug":"uks-plans-for-internet-regulation-would-make-chinas-state-censors-proud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=186581","title":{"rendered":"UK&#8217;s plans for internet regulation would make &#8216;China&#8217;s state censors proud&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Tim Collins for Mail Online \u2013 April 11, 2019<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>The Online Harms White Paper was issued on Monday by the UK government<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>It\u00a0proposes taking sites offline to UK citizens if they fall foul of new regulators<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>The chiefs of five prominent civil rights groups have spoken out over the plans<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>They say the white paper would be &#8216;disastrous if it proceeds in its current form&#8217;<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2002\/10\/Internet-access-denied.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-150647\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2002\/10\/Internet-access-denied-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"304\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Regulations proposed by the UK government to limit the spread of &#8216;harmful&#8217; content could lead to the lawful speech of millions being censored, civil rights groups warn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The chiefs of five prominent organisations have spoken out about their issues with the Online Harms White Paper, issued on Monday, in an open letter to the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/apr\/10\/internet-regulation-proposals-could-censor-the-lawful-speech-of-millions\"><strong>Guardian<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Experts say that the report, which\u00a0proposes taking sites offline to UK citizens if they fall foul of new regulators, would be &#8216;disastrous if it proceeds in its current form.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The white paper also suggests levying massive fines on companies like Facebook and <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sciencetech\/google\/index.html\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Google<\/span><\/strong><\/a> and their employees if they fail to meet up to regulatory requirements<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It&#8217;s part of an effort to crack down on the spread of child abuse images, terrorism, revenge pornography and hate crime online.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But they have sparked fears that they could backfire and turn Britain into the first Western nation to adopt the kind of censorship usually associated with totalitarian regimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Signatories of the letter include\u00a0Antonia Byatt, director of the English PEN, the worldwide writers\u2019 association;\u00a0Silkie Carlo of Big Brother Watch; Thomas Hughes,\u00a0 executive director of free speech group Article 19; Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group and Joy Hyvarinen, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In it, they said: &#8216;The lawful speech of millions of people would be monitored, regulated and censored.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;The result is an approach that would make China\u2019s state censors proud. It would be very likely to face legal challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;It would give the UK the widest and most prolific internet censorship in an apparently functional democracy.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Speaking to MailOnline on Monday,\u00a0Jim Killock, executive director\u00a0of Open Rights Group and one of the signatories of the letter, said: \u2018We are talking about the potential for the most draconian crackdown in the Western democratic world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018We\u2019re talking about banning content that the government won\u2019t make illegal \u2013 it won\u2019t legislate to ban it, but it wants companies to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;They&#8217;re saying &#8220;we don&#8217;t like Facebook so we&#8217;re going to give Facebook more power to regulate our content more&#8221;, it&#8217;s a terrible irony.&#8217;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The UK&#8217;s Culture Secretary has said that the proposed laws\u00a0will not limit press freedom, however.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In a letter to the Society of Editors on Wednesday, April 10, Jeremy Wright vowed that \u2018journalistic or editorial content would not be affected\u2019 by the proposals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">And he reassured free speech advocates by saying there would be safeguards to protect the role of the press.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Government is facing accusations that its Online Harms White Paper paves the way for totalitarian-style censorship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The 98-page document laid out plans for an internet watchdog that would have the power to block websites from Britain if they did not adhere to its rules.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The regulator could also remove non-compliant websites from search results and app stores, and stop users from accessing them via links on social media.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Former culture secretary John Whittingdale drew parallels with China, Russia and North Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Matthew Lesh of the Adam Smith Institute, a free market think-tank, branded the white paper a \u2018historic attack on freedom of speech\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Mr Lesh said: \u2018Even if they exempt newspaper content from the scheme, there is still a serious danger that it could lead to certain news content being removed or hidden on search engines and social media sites.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018It will also serve to limit journalistic access to information by requiring social media companies to remove content. At the very least, the Government should make a distinction between news sources and user-generated content.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u2018This entire white paper is a serious threat to a free, liberal society. The Government should go back to the drawing board.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sciencetech\/article-6911749\/Proposed-internet-regulations-censor-speech-millions-experts-warn.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Free speech advocates warn that proposed new legislation could pave the way for a totalitarian-like clamp down <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=186581"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186607,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186581\/revisions\/186607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=186581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=186581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=186581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}