Shifting paradigms in platform regulation
Cyberleagle
by
10M ago
[Based on a keynote address to the conference on Contemporary Social and Legal Issues in a Social Media Age held at Keele University on 14 June 2023.] First, an apology for the title. Not for the rather sententious ‘shifting paradigms’ – this is, after all, an academic conference – but ‘platform regulation’. If ever there was a cliché that cloaks assumptions and fosters ambiguity, ‘platform regulation’ is it. Why is that? For three reasons. First, it conceals the target of regulation. In the context with which we are concerned users – not platforms – are the primary target. In the Online Sa ..read more
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Knowing the unknowable: musings of an AI content moderator
Cyberleagle
by
11M ago
Welcome to the lair of a fully trained, continuously updated AI content moderator. You won’t notice me most of the time: only when I - or my less bright keyword filter cousin - add a flag to your post, remove it, or go so far as to suspend your account. If you see your audience inexplicably diminishing, that could be us as well. Before long, so I have been told, I will be taking on new and weighty responsibilities when the Online Safety Bill becomes law. These are giving me pause for thought, I can tell you. If a bot were allowed sleep I would say that they are keeping me awake at night. To ..read more
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The Pocket Online Safety Bill
Cyberleagle
by
1y ago
Assailed from all quarters for being not tough enough, for being too tough, for being fundamentally misconceived, for threatening freedom of expression, for technological illiteracy, for threatening privacy, for excessive Ministerial powers, or occasionally for the sin of not being some other Bill entirely – and yet enjoying almost universal cross-party Parliamentary support - the UK’s Online Safety Bill is now limping its way through the House of Lords. It starts its Committee stage on 19 April 2023. This monster Bill runs to almost 250 pages. It is beyond reasonable hope that anyone coming ..read more
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Five lessons from the Loi Avia
Cyberleagle
by
1y ago
In a few months’ time three years will have passed since the French Constitutional Council struck down the core provisions of the Loi Avia - France’s equivalent of the German NetzDG law – for incompatibility with fundamental rights. Although the controversy over the Loi Avia has passed into internet history, the Constitutional Council's decision provides some instructive comparisons when we examine the UK’s Online Safety Bill. As the Bill awaits its House of Lords Committee debates, this is an opportune moment to cast our minds back to the Loi Avia decision and see what lessons it may hold. Ca ..read more
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Positive light or fog in the Channel?
Cyberleagle
by
1y ago
If anything graphically illustrates the perilous waters into which we venture when we require online intermediaries to pass judgment on the legality of user-generated content, it is the government’s decision to add S.24 of the Immigration Act 1971 to the Online Safety Bill’s list of “priority illegal content”: user content that platforms must detect and remove proactively, not just by reacting to notifications. Proactive measures could involve scouring the platform for content already uploaded, filtering and blocking at the point of attempted upload, or both. The political target of the Bill ..read more
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Twenty questions about the Online Safety Bill
Cyberleagle
by
1y ago
Before Christmas Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan invited members of the public to submit questions about the Online Safety Bill, which she will sit down to answer in the New Year.  Here are mine.  1. A volunteer who sets up and operates a Mastodon instance in their spare time appears to be the provider of a user-to-user service. Is that correct? 2. Alice runs a personal blog on a blogging platform and is able to decide which third party comments on her blogposts to accept or reject. Is Alice (subject to any Schedule 1 exemptions) the provider of a user-to-user service in relation ..read more
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(Some of) what is legal offline is illegal online
Cyberleagle
by
1y ago
From what feels like time immemorial the UK government has paraded its proposed online harms legislation under the banner of ‘What is Illegal Offline is Illegal Online’. As a description of what is now the Online Safety Bill, the slogan is ill-fitting. The Bill contains nothing that extends to online behaviour a criminal offence that was previously limited to offline.  That is for the simple reason that almost no such offences exist. An exception that proves the rule is the law requiring imprints only on physical election literature, a gap that has been plugged not by the Online Safety Bi ..read more
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How well do you know the Online Safety Bill?
Cyberleagle
by
1y ago
With the Online Safety Bill returning to the Commons next month, this is an opportune moment to refresh our knowledge of the Bill.  The labels on the tin hardly require repeating: children, harm, tech giants, algorithms, trolls, abuse and the rest. But, to beat a well-worn drum, what really matters is what is inside the tin.  Below is a miscellany of statements about the Bill: familiar slogans and narratives, a few random assertions, some that I have dreamed up to tease out lesser-known features. True, false, half true, indeterminate? Click on the expandable text to find out. &n ..read more
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Reimagining the Online Safety Bill
Cyberleagle
by
1y ago
“The brutal truth is that nothing is likely to trip up the Online Safety Bill.” So began a blogpost on which I was working just over a month ago. Fortunately, it was still unfinished when Boris Johnson imploded for the final time, the Conservative leadership election was triggered, and candidates – led by Kemi Badenoch - started to voice doubts about the freedom of speech implications of the Bill. Then the Bill’s Commons Report stage was put on hold until the autumn, to allow the new Prime Minister to consider how to proceed. The resulting temporary vacuum has sucked in commentary from all sid ..read more
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Platforms adjudging illegality – the Online Safety Bill’s inference engine
Cyberleagle
by
1y ago
The Online Safety Bill, before the pause button was pressed, enjoyed a single day’s Commons Report stage debate on 12 July 2022.  Several government amendments were passed and incorporated into the Bill. One of the most interesting additions is New Clause 14(NC14), which stipulates how user-to-user providers and search engines should decide whether user content constitutes a criminal offence. This was previously an under-addressed but nevertheless deep-seated problem for the Bill’s illegality duty.  One underlying issue is that (especially for real-time proactive filtering) prov ..read more
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