Big techs react to British plan to regulate content

The UK government began to face resistance from US technology giants to its proposals to regulate content on the internet.

The Online Safety Bill, introduced in May last year and whose most recent format dates from March, was questioned by Google in a written comment on the text, which is pending in parliament.

“The language about ‘preventing individuals from finding’ illegal content and the practical challenges of distinguishing between illegal and legal content appear to encourage widespread automatic monitoring — and excessive removal — of content,” says the company, which has, among others, the search service and YouTube.

“In our experience, algorithms have a hard time identifying illegal and harmful content that is more context-dependent. As a result, by the current wording of the bill, significant amounts of legitimate content will be removed.”

Meta, which controls Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, among others, goes further and points out what it sees as a threat to privacy, which could lead to censorship.

The project in its current form would, the company says, require actions in messaging applications to prevent users from having contact with harmful content and even to force user identification.

“Attempting to apply these obligations to messaging services runs the risk of people’s private messages being constantly scrutinized and censored,” the platform points out.

In a statement, the government responded that “technology companies have failed to combat child abuse.” And that the responsible body would have, “as a last resort, the power to make them use technology to identify child sexual abuse material, with strict privacy safeguards”.

Also the British newspaper association, while praising the “government’s intention to keep journalistic websites out of the scope of the project”, demanded that this be recorded “explicitly”, including with regard to comments on its websites.

It is believed that the project, which has already received close to a hundred such contributions, will undergo changes and should only come into force next year or in 2024.

In addition to companies, the discussion reached civil society, with organizations such as the Open Rights Group pointing to encouraging “censorship”. The Conservative government seeks to react with public demonstrations, among others, by Chris Philp, who is responsible for technology and digital economy.

“Contrary to what you may have heard, the bill does not jeopardize freedom of expression, it will not prevent adults from expressing controversial or unpopular views on social media. It simply requires that major platforms be transparent,” he wrote. .

“It will list toxic behavior that is not illegal (such as racist, homophobic and sexist abuse that falls below the criminal threshold) and platforms will need to ensure that it is addressed in their terms and conditions, but it is up to them to set their own terms and conditions.”

Among other publications, the London-based magazine The Economist questioned, in an editorial, the new category of “nice but harmful” speech, which would have no precedent in the country’s legislation:

“The government insists that this imposes nothing more than a duty of transparency on companies, who will be forced to explicitly announce whether they will allow such speech. But it would be naive to think that a list of topics that are officially frowned upon will not have a chilling effect.” reference to self-censorship.

Formally, the current draft text imposes several “obligations of care” on social networks, search engines, and others that host user-generated content, including pornographic websites and apps.

Among the obligations are taking measures to mitigate the risks of damages arising from illegal content and adopting systems and processes to allow the reporting of specified content.

The UK broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, would be responsible for oversight and enforcement, including new investigative and access-blocking powers. In case of non-compliance with the obligations, it could impose a fine of up to 10% of the company’s global revenue.

While not the first content-oriented one, British legislation, if passed, could be influential, with effect on the United States. Think tanks such as Washington’s Brookings are already evaluating what their lawmakers “can learn” from the Online Safety Project.

Two lessons in particular: empowering an agency to implement the specific regulatory system for social media and search, and focusing on the processes that tech companies themselves use to regulate their content.

While the bill does not advance, the British government last month expanded the regulatory power of another body, its Digital Markets Unit (DMU), in order to combat possible “predatory practices” by the same technology giants.

Practices that they use not only to contain competitors, for example, in operating system changes by users, but also for the manipulation of user data, for example, in targeted advertisements.

One of its first targets was Google, on suspicion of anti-competitive behavior about apps on Android. Asked about the DMU, ​​a Google spokesperson replied:

“Online tools have proven vital during the lockdown and can contribute to a sustainable, inclusive and digital recovery. We support an approach that benefits people, businesses and society and look forward to working constructively with the Digital Markets Unit so that everyone can harness the internet to its full potential.”