Writing for The Critic, Simon Calvert argues that you can’t legislate away hatred.
Calvert begins: “It seems the new Government may reopen the can of worms that is the Online Safety Act in a knee-jerk reaction to recent public disorder.
“Of course, the Government must examine the root causes of the shocking scenes of violence, as well as prosecuting the perpetrators. But this is not the occasion for throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks.
“Keir Starmer made an astute observation in the first week of the unrest:
The clear message from police and law enforcement is not that they need more powers… [but] to use the existing powers that we’ve got.
“Crucially, he stated, “we have to wean ourselves off the idea that the only response is to pass more legislation every time we have a challenge in front of us.”
“Of course, as the violence continued, the new PM must have felt enormous pressure to be seen to be doing more. And so there are reports that he might ignore his own advice.
One of the first targets is the 2023 Online Safety Act. Some Labour figures are calling for more stringent restrictions on what people can say online.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan told The Guardian: “I think very swiftly the government has realised there needs to be amendments to the Online Safety Act. I think what the government should do very quickly is check if it is fit for purpose. I think it’s not fit for purpose.”
Labour activist Carol Vorderman, responding to reports that the Act was to be reviewed, said “Good. It was never strong enough”.
As a matter of fact, the Online Safety Act isn’t yet being enforced by Ofcom. So Vorderman and Khan’s analysis is somewhat suspect.
But the fundamental challenge they face is to justify the apparently draconian limits they appear to want imposed on our online speech.
To be clear: online threats, like offline threats, are already illegal and have been for years. That is why we saw a recent conviction for a Facebook post calling for the burning down of a mosque.
But those calling for additional regulation of what you and I say online clearly want to go much further and criminalise the content of our opinions.
It seems likely the push will be to reintroduce limitations on content that is deemed “legal but harmful” for adults. This was a Conservative policy wisely abandoned when Parliament was looking at the Bill but to which Labour, at the time, seemed rather attached.
Some already fear the Online Safety Act goes too far in restricting free speech. But it remains untested. Tinkering with it at this point makes no sense.
Calvert continues by reminding us that” “About a decade ago, the same “something must be done” approach almost landed us with the ill-fated Extremism Disruption Orders (EDOs). That was also a knee-jerk, sweeping response to violence that would have trampled on harmless free speech while doing little to tackle the real problem.
“I wrote at the time, “it is perfectly plausible that comedians, satirists, campaign groups, religious groups, secularist groups, and even journalists could find themselves subject to these draconian measures”.
“Thinking of the then recent shooting at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, I remarked:
“It would be easy to make the case that the distributors of the Charlie Hebdo magazine were ‘spreading hate’ on the grounds of religion. How ironic it would be if extremists could use EDOs to achieve what violence could not — the silencing of criticism of their beliefs.
“Then Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham MP warned David Cameron:
The PM needs to take care to make sure the measures are not heavy-handed. If he’s not careful, they could have the opposite effect and fuel resentment, division and a sense of victimisation. The government must proceed with the utmost caution and Labour will watch carefully to ensure the correct balance is achieved.
“It was evident at that time, as it is now, that free speech was vital to countering dangerous ideas that tempt people towards violence. Starmer must surely know to avoid any form of totalitarian power where speech is limited, because it is in that context that anger abounds. As Rowan Atkinson sagely observes in the viral video of his speech on freedom of expression, “the best way to increase society’s resistance to insulting or offensive speech is to allow a lot more of it”.
“There is already a raft of legislation that can be used to tackle incitement to violence and damage to property. That’s why we’ve seen days on end of arrests and court cases. Sir Keir should stick to his plan to “wean ourselves off” passing more legislation every time there is a challenge in front of us.”
Worth reading in full.
The Prime Minister’s recent clamp down on free speech is deeply worrying. Since the beginning of August, we’ve witnessed the greatest assault on free speech in this country since Oliver Cromwell passed a law banning all theatrical performances in 1642.
In the wake of the civil unrest that spread across the UK following the murder of three children in Southport, Sir Keir Starmer has blamed ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ on social media for whipping up violence and urged the authorities to prosecute people for saying supposedly inflammatory things online.
As a result, a man who has been sent to jail for 18 months for sharing something “offensive” that someone else said on Facebook, another man was sent down for three years for posting “anti-Establishment rhetoric” and a third man was jailed for 18 months for chanting “Who the f*** is Allah?”.
Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has even warned that people sharing footage of the riots online may be prosecuted. “People might think they’re not doing anything harmful, they are, and the consequences will be visited upon them,” he said.
This threatening language is more reminiscent of a tin-pot dictatorship than the birthplace of parliamentary democracy and it has unleashed a wave of terror across the country, with hundreds of thousands of people now worried that they may be sent to prison for posting something un-PC online.
This has to stop.
We need to remind the Prime Minister, a former human rights lawyer, that free speech is the most important human right of all because without it we wouldn’t be able to defend any of the others.
If you’re concerned about the Prime Minister’s assault on free speech, please use our campaigning tool (here) to write to your local MP, using our template letter.
Completing the form is a simple, fast process that can have a significant impact. We’ve even provided a template to help, but feel free to personalise it – and make sure you write in your name, address and email address at the foot of the letter (in addition to filling out the boxes requesting the same).
Your voice matters and it’s vital that you make it heard.
