Today, Nadine Dorries revealed that she will be considering banning tech giants like Facebook from removing any content published on news websites. This would cement freedom of expression online as well as clamp down Silicon Valley censorship.
The Culture Secretary insists her proposed Online Safety Bill will protect journalism by preventing social media firms deleting stories ‘willy-nilly’ after years of doing so without punishment – or recourse for recognised publishers.
During questioning by Lord Gilbertof Panteg, who sits in Parliament’s and Draft Online Safety Bill (Joint Committee), her admission that she is open to considering taking down tech firms that delete news stories was made. The minister was asked to simply tell Silicon Valley that it is impossible to take down news content.
Ms Dorries replied to Lord Gilbert, saying she would consider his recommendations. This would result in a complete exemption for publishers from the Online Safety Bill.
Lord Gilbert, a Tory Life peer, also asked Ms. Dories to consider whether these US companies should be forced to pay news outlets to use the content they provide for free, while also raking out tens to millions of pounds annually in advertising. Ms Dorries stated that she would be considering it.
It was days after MailOnline, a British publisher, had accused Google using ‘woke’ algorithms in order to bury and lower-grade their original content and boost stories from more sympathetic organizations.
Nadine Dorries (pictured today) revealed she will consider banning tech giants such as Facebook from removing any content published by news websites during questioning by Lord Gilbert of Panteg (right) who urged the minister to simply ‘tell Silicon Valley that they just cannot take down news content’
Owen Meredith, chief executive of News Media Association, said that the Culture Secretary had pledged to examine a full exemption of news publishers from the Online Safety Bill’s scope during an oral evidence session on Draft Online Safety Bill this morning.
“We believe that a comprehensive and robust exemption to the regime is the best option to balance the need for freedom of speech with the noble goals of the legislation to crackdown online harms propagated via the platforms.
“We look forward working with Government to determine the best way to implement the exemption.”
Today, Ms Dorries dubbed Nick Clegg, Mark Zuckerberg, and warned them that they could be in trouble if Facebook and their websites, including Instagram, continue to share ‘toxic, hateful’ content, especially encouraging suicide, self-harm, and anorexia.
She stated that she wanted to accelerate the introduction and enforcement of personal liability sanctions on company managers in order to prompt a quicker response to online harms threats. This would reduce the time between two years and six months after the bill has been passed.
During her evidence, Culture Secretary also criticised Facebook’s recent company rebranding to Meta and its plans for work on the virtual universe known as the metaverse. She stated that while its boss Mark Zuckerberg, and communications chief Nick Clegg want them to ‘take flight into the metaverse’, they should instead stay in the real-world’ because ‘you’ll be held accountable under this Act.
The Bill’s draft includes personal criminal liability sanctions for executives that can be implemented within two years of its implementation.
Ms. Dorries, however, said it was nonsense to give firms two year to change and confirmed that she was looking at ‘three-to six months’ for criminal liability.
“Now I believe they’re (Facebook), putting 10 or 20k engineers on the metaverse – put those 10-20k engineers now on to complying with your terms and conditions, and to removing harmful algorithms because if not, this Bill will be unbreakable,” she stated.
“They (social media platforms have an opportunity to put that absolutely right immediately, why would they give them two years?” Why would they give them two years to do what they can today? You can remove your harmful algorithms now and you won’t be exposing named individuals to criminal liability or prosecution’.
Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, are trying to stop laws being rolled out which would force their platforms pay news publishers for content
Children have seen and shared sexist posts like the one shown above on Instagram.
Ms. Dorries stated that she believed the Bill was a ‘possibly most important piece legislation to pass through Parliament’ during her time as an MP. She called it a novel’ piece legislation that was ’groundbreaking’ and ‘extremely essential’.
She stated that she was not going to wait two years for the platforms.
“We are looking to reduce that timeframe to a shorter period of time and that’s something I as Secretary of States want to do more in this Bill.
“I think it’s just absurd that platforms were given two years to prepare for criminal action.
“They are aware of what they’re doing, they can correct what they’re doing wrong, they can now abide to their terms and conditions. They could even remove harmful algorithms tomorrow.”
The current proposals allow tech companies to be fined up to 10% of their global turnover for failing to protect users from harmful content. This could amount to billions of dollars for the largest platforms. They also have their sites blocked.