Children cannot be safe online. We will just have to carry on policing them

The Online Safety Act is a response to a practical problem everyone wants to solve, which is to stop kids from stumbling across pornography online.

- Martha Gill

How, then, did it become such a raging ideological flashpoint?

Last week, for example, we had the usually sensible technology secretary, Peter Kyle, claiming that Nigel Farage’s objections to the act put him on the side of “people like Jimmy Savile”. He has since doubled down. Meanwhile, Reform UK has been fretting that the bill is preparing the ground for a shadowy state-run dystopia. “Any student of history will know that the way countries slip into this sort of authoritarian regime is through legislation that cloaks tyranny inside the warm fuzz of safety and security and hopes nobody reads the small print,” said Reform’s Zia Yusuf.

Let us start by saying that the new rules, which came into force on 25 July, have many flaws. They require that platforms protect kids from “legal but harmful” content by implementing age checks. So far, so seemingly reasonable. But, in the process, they set up incentives that harm free speech. The fines are so large, for example, that they encourage companies to over-censor content, since the costs of falling foul of the rules outweigh the benefits of keeping the internet free and open. Already, X has censored a speech in the House of Commons on the subject of grooming gangs.