Government ministers and MPs defending access to subscriber info and retention of metadata in Bill C-22 have recycled the same talking point: it's "just like the phone book." My post on why that’s a misleading, inaccurate claim the Supreme Court rejected.

Perhaps we should tell law students and trainees that a quick-fix easy-win way around spending pages chatting with a LLM, is to just look up the statutes and cases themselves.

I’m seeing a lot of talk about the government promising to fix some issues in Bill C-22. I watched the scrum and saw a Minister offering misleading talking points that the government was forced to correct and walkback within hours.

#UK: Labour appears set to introduce new limits on children’s access to social media. But banning social media is not the answer. It risks undermining young people’s speech rights while failing to address the real issues. Read Index’s analysis ⬇️ www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/02/bann...

The real giveaway line in that Blair piece is "whatever it takes" to stop the boats. Leave ECHR? Shoot them out of the water? He doesn't want to actually engage with the trade-offs. Same with welfare. Who's benefits is he going to cut? How? Against what criteria.

When your trade is votes, your currency is headlines and to the noisiest go the spoils.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser says metadata is phone book information and dismisses concerns regarding search implications. Plainly wrong. My post on misleading phone book claim www.michaelgeist.ca/2025/06/more... And @robertdiab on search robertdiab.substack.com/p/pressure-m... x.com/junonewscom/...

Ofcom has always said that it doesn't assess whether individual posts are legal or illegal, only whether adequate systems and processes are in place. How can it approach something like this without making its own illegality judgements?

“One of our Committee’s critiques of the Online Safety Act is that it is based on services and technologies. It ends up being a game of whack-a-mole— … but it is not principles-based. What are your views on principles-based regulation?” >>> Regulation without rules?

Well no, those are not the reasons why we shouldn’t apply broadcast-style ‘regulation by regulator’ to individual speech. They are much better than that. 2/2 www.cyberleagle.com/2018/10/a-lo...

“At that time—2004 to 2010—the then chair [of Ofcom] was very clear that Ofcom should not be regulating the internet because it was too big, too difficult and too controversial.” Dame Chi Onwurah 1/2 media.reclaimthenet.org/2026/05/8Jya...

“At that time—2004 to 2010—the then chair [of Ofcom] was very clear that Ofcom should not be regulating the internet because it was too big, too difficult and too controversial.” Dame Chi Onwurah 1/2 media.reclaimthenet.org/2026/05/8Jya...

There are days when I miss being an editor. I loved writing headlines. Whoever did this, I hope they took the rest of the day off.

Will read with interest - especially whether OSAN now consider that automated content moderation is a safety by design feature or contrary to safety by design. 1/2

Then (Carnegie UK): “We would prefer that the ability to direct be removed altogether…” Now (OSAN): Direct Ofcom to implement our Code… carnegieuk.org/blog/secreta...

Will read with interest - especially whether OSAN now consider that automated content moderation is a safety by design feature or contrary to safety by design. 1/2

Speechless.

For the first time, Ofcom addresses the 'prescribed by law' foreseeability issues of its automated content filtering recommendations. www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/r...

Companies at risk of NCII in the UK will now need to deploy dedicated hash-matching technology to remain in compliance with the Online Safety Act, under an update to Ofcom's codes of practice announced today. ofcom.cmail20.com/t/i-l-zhuykkt-iiulklydjk-i/

New post From Chişinău to Makerfield: The Labour Party, populism and the politics of triangulation publiclawforeveryone.com/2026/05/18/f...

So last century.

We have accepted X’s public commitments to bring in new protections to tackle illegal hate and terror content. Read the full list of changes and our statement here 🔗 www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...

Ofcom has issued its final guidance on OSA technology notices following the consultation. I am really pleased that my joint consultation response with Micheál Ó Floinn and @bernardkeenan.bsky.social was cited and led to changes. I have written a bit about it here: open.substack.com/pub/issuesin...

US court hearing yesterday on challenge to visa sanctions policy against foreign nationals ’complicit in censoring Americans’. h/t @daphnek.bsky.social www.politifact.com/article/2026...

"Indeed, “online safety” is not even mentioned in the 129-page briefing pack that accompanies the text of the Speech;"

"We are preparing an application for a court order requiring internet service providers to block UK access to the site if our concerns are not fully addressed and there continues to be an ongoing breach." #OnlineSafetyAct www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...

At this stage, I wouldn’t blame The King for writing the speech himself

A very long explanation from Ofcom of its #OnlineSafetyAct priorities for the year ahead. 1/3 www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safet...

Meta has launched a High Court challenge against UK regulator Ofcom, seeking a judicial review of the Online Safety Act fees and fines regime www.bbc.com/news/article... Fortnite maker Epic Games and the CCIA (a US trade body) are expected to join the case as third parties #openweb #techpolicy

“Britannia rule the internet”. The Law Commission has recommended that a revised contempt by publication law should apply to all material accessible in England and Wales. Does this accord with comity of nations? Why didn’t it adopt targeting? All discussed here. www.cyberleagle.com/2026/05/brit...

interesting and important stuff

Done. www.cyberleagle.com/2026/05/brit...

“Britannia rule the internet”. The Law Commission has recommended that a revised contempt by publication law should apply to all material accessible in England and Wales. Does this accord with comity of nations? Why didn’t it adopt targeting? All discussed here. www.cyberleagle.com/2026/05/brit...

New on my blog: "Britannia rule the internet" - discussing the territorial scope of the Law Commission's recommendations on liability for contempt of court. www.cyberleagle.com/2026/05/brit...

New on my blog: "Britannia rule the internet" - discussing the territorial scope of the Law Commission's recommendations on liability for contempt of court. www.cyberleagle.com/2026/05/brit...

The court established that at the time the French surveillance was authorised, there existed no suspicion whatsoever against the accused — let alone the urgent, sufficiently individualised suspicion required under Swiss law for covert surveillance measures. www.joint-defense-team.com/post/basel-c...

RIP Stew Baker; countless arguments in the crypto wars, always with a smile and creativity

Deep in the US 2027 State/Nat Sec Appropriations Bill. www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

My colleagues have written about this so I don't have to :-). #OnlineSafetyAct www.twobirds.com/en/insights/...

the government of zambia is announcing that it canceled RightsCon. this is a serious attack on civil society, the global & local ones. thousands of people - activists, academics, govt etc - are en route to lusaka. to cancel at this late stage is just horrible.

Rightscon being postponed by the Zambian government days before thousands of people from hundreds of countries fly in is quite chaotic: www.404media.co/rightscon-hu...

I spoke to the @thetimes.com about the UK's impending social media restrictions for teenagers. Until it is clear about what harms to children it is trying to mitigate, government is likely to make sub-optimum policy choices about the services to target and how. www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog...

This week in the USA.

Death by Shakespeare Causes of 74 deaths in Shakespeare's plays #ShakespeareDay

With so much emphasis on necessity and proportionality, it is easy to overlook the first step in ECHR compliance: “prescribed by law”. Unusually, that was the sole focus of yesterday’s Live Facial Recognition judgment. The Met Police won. Court of Appeal next? 1/2 www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWH...

"My cat hacked those medical records" defense fails: Russell insisted that he didn’t know how his credentials had been used to run the searches. But he theorized that “potentially his cat had run across the keyboard and typed in those letters.” law.justia.com/cases/federa...

The Australian government has set out its plans for a sweeping overhaul of the domestic online safety rulebook. AU was the world's first country to create comprehensive online safety rules back in 2021, but its approach looks increasingly dated (the EU DSA ushered in a regulatory paradigm shift).

I wrote about that Palantir tweet reason.com/2026/04/20/t...

The shortlist of candidates for the role of UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression has been published. I recognise several strong human rights defenders in the mix. www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies...