The United Kingdom’s broadcasting regulator has been hiring top staff from Big Tech firms as it prepares to begin policing the internet under the controversial Online Safety Act.
The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, has hired 350 new staff members, many of whom have been poached from the likes of Google, Meta, and Microsoft, and is planning on hiring another 100 as it assumes its new role as the enforcer of the Online Safety Act, which was passed into law in October.
Speaking to the globalist Financial Times newspaper, former Meta “misinformation” specialist turned director of online safety policy for Ofcom, Jessica Zucker said that in light of Big Tech layoffs over the past two years, there is an “overwhelming” interest in joining the British regulator among ousted Silicon Valley employees.
“Those still motivated by online safety and proportionality see Ofcom as the alternative,” Zucker said, adding: “You could do it for one company, or you can do it for an entire industry.”
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And the links between big government and big tech seem to run both ways, the most infamous example being Britain’s former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg taking a top job with Meta after facing electoral defeat at home. Mr Clegg is now president of global affairs and communications with the Facebook owner.
Ofcom, which hitherto was chiefly tasked with policing content on television and radio in the UK, has been granted sweeping new powers by the parliament to monitor and fine the internet.
For larger companies, most notably social media services and search engines, Ofcom will be empowered to impose fines of up to £18 million ($22 million) or 10 per cent of global annual turnover depending upon which is higher.
The Online Safety Act in Britain does not go as far as recently instituted regulations in the European Union, which demands that social media companies police so-called hate speech and combat misinformation, and some of the more controversial elements of the bill were removed before being passed into law, most notably the ability to sanction companies over the vaguely worded “legal but harmful” content.
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While Ofcom has claimed that it does not intend to police speech online, saying that it will not be “responsible for removing online content, and we won’t require companies to remove content, or particular accounts,” the civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch has warned that Big Tech companies will “almost certainly censor lawful speech out of an abundance of caution” to avoid the financial penalties from the UK regulator.
Indeed, with Britain not only failing to have First Amendment-style protections for free speech but also having instituted broad hate speech codes on “stirring up hatred” or “malicious communication”, social media companies and websites may face accusations of breaching the law for content that is considered perfectly legal in the United States.
Advocacy Manager for Big Brother Watch Mark Johnson warned in October: “At a time when criminal law is being used to repress protesters, refugees and many other marginalised groups, so too will this regulatory system be used to censor them.
“It is quite possible that the Online Safety Bill will fail on its own merits to keep people safe online whilst still undermining our free expression and privacy in ways that we could not yet comprehend. If this becomes the reality, civil liberties campaigners will take no pleasure in saying that many of our warnings were simply not heeded.”
While the OSA is ostensibly intended to crack down on content deemed harmful to children and to prevent the dissemination of child sexual abuse or terrorism content online, there are still concerns about the scope of the law, including demands that companies which provide messaging services allow for their encryption to be broken for the government.
In response to the demands, firms that offer encrypted messaging such as Apple, WhatsApp and Signal have all said that they may be forced to shut down their services in the UK to protect the privacy of their users.