Controversial online safety bill has now become law

The bill aims to make the UK ‘the safest place in the world to be online’ and introduces new obligations for tech companies in how they run their platforms.  

The controversy comes from the steps necessary to meet requirements, such as removing encryption from direct messaging apps so content can be monitored and capturing more user information to properly restrict age appropriate content.  

Companies like Whatsapp, Signal and Wikimedia have suggested they may withdraw their services from the UK over the issue. 

THE KEY INFO: 

Although official law, companies do not have to immediately comply with all their duties, which will be spread out over the coming months and years. The first enforcement of these rules begins at the end of 2024.  

1.     Phase one covers how companies respond to terrorism and child sexual abuse material. This begins in November 

2.     Phase two covers child safety and access to adult material, which begins in December. 

3.     Phase three covers large or high risk platforms and their transparency, this is expected to include social media and begins mid-2024. 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? 

We’ve already seen the impact of the European equivalent of this bill, which focused on privacy and data concerns. This caused social media companies to create optional algorithm-free feeds, reduce the options of personalised advertising, add transparency in ad funding and allow users to block scheduled content from platforms such as Hootsuite, Buffer and more. 

More information will come from the platforms as they announce their own responses to the bill and we must be ready to react to the range of options they have available – including the extreme reaction of leaving the market. 

From the range of oversight they’ve outlined, we can’t see any social media platform being unduly affected outside of direct messaging apps. Though with fines of £18 million on the table and UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman directly calling them out, a witch hunt might be enough to make them think it’s not worth the trouble, regardless of the money left on the table.