CLEANSING THE AUGEAN STABLES:

Under the Bill as introduced, all social media sites in the world with a substantial UK readership will indeed have to take steps, by age verification or otherwise, to protect children from a wide variety of unsuitable content. But they will have to go a great deal further.

Machinery will be required to flag and remove posts alleged to contain illegal matter: something that sounds like sweet reasonableness itself, until you realise that illegality extends to pure speech crimes such as harassment. It also covers offences under the Public Order Act, ranging from verbal attacks on religion or sexuality to abusive words likely to cause distress.

The effects of this exercise in legislative overkill are predictable

In the case of the largest sites -- Facebook, Twitter and the like -- there is now a new and highly controversial "legal but harmful" duty. Subject to a few protections for news providers and the like, sites will have to take steps to remove, or to limit access to, a wide swathe of material otherwise entirely lawful. Taboo content will be determined by government regulation (via a list that can at any time expand at the whim of a minister), if deemed "harmful to adults". Content will be censored if it "presents a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of adults in the United Kingdom", even if that harm is not specified.

Any breach of these duties is liable to be met with a very sizeable fine from Ofcom. In the last resort, a court order may block access.

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