“We need stricter internet regulation — the strictest in the world!” said no normal person in Britain ever.
Yet this, by the looks of it, is what we’re about to have dumped on us by Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright, with the enthusiastic support of Home Secretary Sajid Javid.
Note that weasel use of the word “safest”. “Safest” for whom, exactly? And “safest” from what threat?
Naturally, the elements in this new White Paper that its promoters are talking up are things like terrorism and child sex abuse.
If ever you needed another reason to pray that Sajid Javid doesn’t win the leadership contest to replace Theresa May, just savour the cant, dishonesty, and bansturbatory of this response to a criticism by Toby Young. Javid is another tone-deaf authoritarian, just like the dreaded Theresa.
The problem — as Young has recognised, christening this terrible new proposed regulation ‘iPlod’ — is that it won’t just cover beheading videos and child porn. Rather it will be used as a stick with which to beat anyone of whom the state does not approve, which could be anyone from anti-vaxxers to Tommy Robinson supporters. Or, if Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left loons get in, anyone to the right of Stalin. And, of course, anyone who makes a joke.
It’s astonishing that a Conservative government should be proposing measures so draconian and so antagonistic to those hard-won values of free speech which Britons have acquired over centuries of struggle. We are not China or Iran — nor should ever wish to be.
There are at least two reasons why they think they can get away with it.
One is Brexit, which is being used as a cover to introduce all manner of illiberal regulation.
The other is that the mainstream media — which ought to be speaking up for freedom of speech and against regulation — has instead effectively been cheering them on.
The formerly conservative newspaper The Telegraph — aka the Guardiangraph — for example, has been running a campaign for internet censorship called Duty of Care.
The two other main conservative newspapers — The Sun and the Daily Mail — haven’t been much help, either. While they may like to present the internet regulation issue to their readers in the canting terms that Javid does above — protecting the kiddies, fighting terrorists — the real reason is their desire to regulate their online competitors out of business.
This is crony capitalism/rent-seeking in excelsis: if you can’t beat the competition through fair means, close them down by pulling strings in government instead.
Really, the mainstream media ought to know better than this. The press regulatory body IPSO (Independent Press Standards Organisation) has had badly affected the ability of journalists and newspapers to do their job properly, especially when it comes to speaking truth to power.
For example, I know that one reason so few newspapers are prepared to publish sceptical articles about climate change is because well-funded professional bullies in the employ of the Climate Industrial Complex launch endless vexatious complaints designed to wear down the newspapers’ legal departments, intimidate editors (who are forced, whether they like it or not, to take these complaints seriously), and exhaust the poor journalists by forcing them to prepare detailed rebuttals.
The proposed “independent” internet regulator will have a similarly stifling effect on freedom of speech and variety of opinion.
Who, based on your observations of every government quango ever, do you think will be running this “independent regulator”?
The same people who dominate the entirety of the Civil Service and move from one department to another on a revolving doors system: Leftist control freaks, of course.
Toby Young gives some examples of why the proposed regulation will be a disaster in this thread:
This is why people are deserting the Conservative Party in droves. Because it’s really not conservative any more.