In two weeks time, our CEO @jemimahsteinfeld.bsky.social will be at the Conservative Party Conference discussion blasphemy and free speech. Learn more: www.moreincommon.org.uk/events/conse...

"If so, we need to build a different space of the world,...". Hayek's Fatal Conceit well to the fore.

50 Cyberleagle blogposts since June 2018 on online harms, the UK Online Safety Bill and now the #OnlineSafetyAct are far too many for anyone to read. So, featuring a pithy extract from each one, here is a compendium. Enjoy. Alternatively, read and weep.

50 Cyberleagle blogposts since June 2018 on online harms, the UK Online Safety Bill and now the Online Safety Act are far too many for anyone to read. So, featuring a pithy extract from each one, here is a compendium. Enjoy. Alternatively, read and weep. www.cyberleagle.com/2020/02/an-o...

TL;DR A plea for @ofcom.bsky.social to address some difficult but basic questions of scope and compliance responsibility in the #OnlineSafetyAct.

What is it about 'digital' that seduces every political party into abandoning points of principle? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

50 Cyberleagle blogposts since June 2018 on online harms, the UK Online Safety Bill and now the Online Safety Act are far too many for anyone to read. So, featuring a pithy extract from each one, here is a compendium. Enjoy. Alternatively, read and weep. www.cyberleagle.com/2020/02/an-o...

Reviewed Nick Clegg’s book. Didn’t think much of it, except for: “Nadine Dorries, while secretary of state for the department overseeing the internet, ‘once called me in high dudgeon, demanding to know why I hadn’t taken down tweets … I had to explain to her that Twitter was a different company’.”

Also pleased to announce @liberalreform.bsky.social and @youngliberalsuk.bsky.social emergency motion on the OSA has been selected by members for debate on Tuesday morning. Huge opportunity to make a statement that the OSA implementation is not working and the party is willing to ensure it does

TL;DR A plea for @ofcom.bsky.social to address some difficult but basic questions of scope and compliance responsibility in the #OnlineSafetyAct.

'FAQs a Million': my latest Cyberleagle blogpost on the #OnlineSafetyAct. If you were at the University of Sussex 'Future of the Online Safety Act 2023' event in June, this will be familiar territory. www.cyberleagle.com/2025/09/faqs...

This kind of repudiation of the Supreme Court by a state Supreme Court justice is very rare. But — speaking as a former Alaska Supreme Court clerk — this is also part of their structural purpose. There’s a reason our rights can be, and often are, given *better* protection under state constitutions.

'FAQs a Million': my latest Cyberleagle blogpost on the #OnlineSafetyAct. If you were at the University of Sussex 'Future of the Online Safety Act 2023' event in June, this will be familiar territory. www.cyberleagle.com/2025/09/faqs...

"conditional bail until 12 December while the investigation continues." according to the BBC. You have to wonder how long it takes to investigate whether a projection is an electronic communication and whether a tower is a person (per MCA 1988). Maybe they are thinking about social media posts...

Next time someone suggests that online platforms should be licensed remember that, in the pantheon of laws touching on freedom of expression, broadcast licensing has always been the exception not the rule - and a dangerous one at that. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is a great cover.

Next time someone suggests that online platforms should be licensed remember that, in the pantheon of laws touching on freedom of expression, broadcast licensing has always been the exception not the rule - and a dangerous one at that. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Almost as though the motive for your arrest was to prevent any further embarrassment rather than to pursue serious criminal activity.

This 👇 theonion.com/in-defense-o...

Unsurprising but significant - AG Szpunar finds that two French laws on (1) age verification for porn and (2) preventing online maps from displaying the location of speed traps, etc. are in the scope of the E-Commerce Directive (so can’t be enforced against providers established elsewhere in EU).

Here is a link to the ruling www.corteconstitucional.gov.co/relatoria/20...

Since it's 10 years since I originally charted the genealogy of the S.127 communications offence, time for an update to take account of the #OnlineSafetyAct. Plus a new section for the Malicious Communications Act 1988. 1/2

Since it's 10 years since I originally charted the genealogy of the S.127 communications offence, time for an update to take account of the #OnlineSafetyAct. Plus a new section for the Malicious Communications Act 1988. 1/2

Isn't this kind of thing what habeas corpus is for?

I have questions. Many questions.

A rare exception to Betteridge’s Law. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/t...

Ofcom, or police/CPS? hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-0...

Hansard transcript of a short debate in the UK House of Lords today on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in the context of the Online Safety Act hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-0... #ageverification #censorship #openweb #techpolicy

On that basis nothing could ever amount to a general monitoring obligation. A general monitoring obligation *always* involves looking for a specific kind of content.

Oh please do not let the stupid idea that users want confident answers more than they want correct answers spread from politics into all of life and science. What a horrible take on the OpenAI fluffy blog where they discovered hallucinations are unavoidable.

Viz. www.cyberleagle.com/2025/09/the-...

Very glad to see that someone is doing the important work of aligning AI alignment. alignmentalignment.ai

Epic proofreading fail @thetimes.com. Print v digital edition.

This is known as "chain refoulment" and yes, it's a violation of international law.

TFW you write a paragraph you feel really good about, and also you know your future self is going to tear it to shreds in edits. It's a fine feeling. I've done this process enough to be content with this stage.

On it goes. #OnlineSafetyAct

New from me at my favourite newsletter (again): the origins of the UK Online Safety Act were not grounded in child safety, but rather the authoritarian fantasies of the affluent white English right wing. So why aren't they over the moon about it? internet.exchangepoint.tech/the-dog-that...

This is an exceptionally good piece starting with the grifters pushing ‘age verification’ and continuing through to the ongoing collision between the Online Safety Act and reality. Highly recommended.

VPNs must not face the chop 🚫 Next week the Lords will debate whether VPNs undermine the Online Safety Act. Banning or blocking VPNs will shatter security and free expression in a self-defeating attempt to make the unworkable workable. Read our briefing ⬇️ www.openrightsgroup.org/publications...

The concurring Opinion in Google v Russia highlights a perennial question about the role of the Strasbourg Court. Is it there to set boundaries or to make laws? www.cyberleagle.com/2025/09/goog...

"Trump has pulled out of the dustbin of history the patrimonial system... . In this system, rulers treat the state as their personal property and citizens as their personal servants."

New on my blog: The Online Safety Act: guardian of free speech? www.cyberleagle.com/2025/09/the-...

@bernardkeenan.bsky.social Enjoyed your Parliamentary session - very thoughtful, thank you. One question: when you said that there is a right to freedom of speech, but not a right to amplification, are you saying that Ofcom’s recommender algorithm proposals would not engage ECHR Art 10?

New on my blog: The Online Safety Act: guardian of free speech? www.cyberleagle.com/2025/09/the-...

Speaker's Conference to hear evidence from DSIT on the Online Safety Act, this afternoon committees.parliament.uk/committee/74... (UK House of Commons) Kanishka Narayan MP has been a Government minister since the weekend. #censorship #openweb #techpolicy

Cannot believe no previous government has thought of an Economic Growth Act. So easy! Economic Growth Act. s.1 There shall be economic growth when a minister giver the order under section 2. s.2 A minister may any time order that there will be economic growth.

Free For Me But Not For Thee: my SKETCH of MPs discussing the Palestine Action arrests.

UPDATE: Reform is excited to tell you that freedom of speech is now bad. thecritic.co.uk/free...

20 years ago, Parliament argued anxiously about whether suspected terrorists could be tagged and curfewed and confined. In 2025, government asks us to allow such powers, and more, to be used without safeguards on any temporary visa-holder: tourist, student, spouse of a UK citizen ... /1