UK’s Draft Online Safety Bill Raises Serious Concerns Around Freedom of Expression

On May 12, the UK government published a draft of its Online Safety Bill, which attempts to tackle illegal and otherwise harmful content online by placing a duty of care on online platforms to protect their users from such content. The move came as no surprise: over the past several years, UK government officials have expressed concerns that online services have not been doing enough to tackle illegal content, particularly child sexual abuse material (commonly known as CSAM) and unlawful terrorist and extremist content (TVEC), as well as content the government has deemed lawful but “harmful.” The new Online Safety Bill also builds upon the government’s earlier proposals to establish a duty of care for online providers laid out in its April 2019 White Paper and its December 2020 response to a consultation.

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