The Armchair Rioters – Part 3

In Part 1 we discussed the very daft concept of the “armchair rioter” and explored the evidence which shows no one caused any riots by posting rumours or political opinions on social media.

In Part 2 we looked out how high-profile cases were used to give the false impression that people can be convicted in the UK for expressing anti-establishment dissent online.

The purpose of all this apparent state and judicial mis’ and disinformation is to instil fear in the public. The clear intention is to convince people they have to be careful about what they say in order to “stay safe” from the alleged authority of the state, which currently cannot stop anyone from saying whatever they like.

To reiterate: it is “illegal” to encourage crimes, especially violent crimes. It is not presently “illegal” to express a political opinion.

But, with the introduction of the Online Safety Act 2023, the UK state has signalled its intention to make political dissent effectively “illegal.”

The way we communicate and access information has undoubtedly been changed by our use of the internet and particularly by our use of social media. This means the “reach” of government’s relied upon to control the flow of information has diminished by comparison.

If we accept Deep Throat’s advice and “follow the money,” it is obvious that our attention has switched away from traditional TV, radio and print news media to online news, most commonly accessed through social media. By measured advertising investment, social media is now the largest channel for adspend by a considerable margin.

Consequently, governments around the world have found it increasingly difficult to control our access to information and, thereby, our opinions. United Nation (UN) member states consider this to be a major problem. The UN addresses this directly in its 2022 Information Mapping Report:

Access to quality information plays a critical role in public trust, democracy, peace and social cohesion. [. . .] As information becomes more accessible, it also becomes more open to influences from non-traditional actors in the infosphere — in most contexts anyone can create and disseminate information. As a consequence, the traditional actors and gatekeepers of information and news — established media and government institutions — are struggling to compete with this new reality.

As far as governments are concerned, the legacy media represent their “gatekeepers of information and news.” The state is “struggling to compete” precisely because “anyone can create and disseminate information.” The fact that we, the people, can now communicate and share ideas and information between ourselves online has been identified as a threat at the global, governmental level.

A major caveat to the “narrative” I have just outlined is that the internet and many of the major “Big Tech” firms that dominate it, wouldn’t exist in their current form were it not for the considerable development effort of governments and, most notably, the intelligence agencies. Perhaps the internet has spiralled out of the public-private state’s control. Though we might be wise to consider, by corralling all our communication onto digital platforms, the internet actually provides states with an unprecedented opportunity to surveil and censor us. It would be naive not to consider the possibility that the drive toward censorship, we are currently witnessing, was always the intention.

The “non-traditional actors in the infosphere” comprise of the general public and the genuinely independent media, sometimes framed as the alternative or “alt-media.” While significant efforts have been made to centralise and control the so-called “alt media,” some truly independent journalism remains. Real independent media, as averse to the legacy media’s claims of “independence,” can be defined as:

[. . .] journalism that isn’t beholden to governments, corporations, and other outside influences. This allows for impartial reportage that helps people make informed decisions on important issues. This includes all types of media, whether television, radio, print, or digital. It also encompasses journalists who either work for an organization or have their own blog, publication, or website.

The Child Protection OSA Sales Pitch

In order to regain information control, the UK government has enacted the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA). The OSA was sold to the public with arguments it was necessary to protect children from the online grooming of paedophiles and other alleged internet and social media related risks.

Yet the state’s and its judiciary’s efforts to protect children from these risks are negligible to nonexistent. Freedom of information based research—which the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Children (NSPCC) has undertaken annually over the last sixteen years—shows that with nearly 87,000 sexual offences committed against children last year. Paedophile offending in the UK remains “close to record levels.”

Research from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) found a significant increase in online paedophile activity in recent years. Of course, this provides a reason to take steps to tackle the problem. Yet, with regard to online child sexual offences, it is very hard to see how the OSA will achieve anything.

In 2014 Facebook launched its dark-web onion address portal, enabling users to access its social media platform using encrypted and anonymous protocols. Much harder for law enforcement to detect and intercept, this is the favoured internet access route for paedophiles.

Facebook (now Meta) set up its “onion” address the year after the UK and the US governments formed their 2013 joint “dark web task force” to supposedly stop paedophiles grooming children online. Yet, despite Facebook remaining popular with children, neither government has done anything to stop Meta from continuing to provide apparent protected paedophile access to its platform. The OSA certainly doesn’t address the issue.

It seems the judiciary couldn’t care less about protecting children either. While people have received lengthy custodial sentences—after pleading guilty to “encouraging” racial hatred—time and time again, paedophiles are treated far more leniently by the farcically named justice system.

For example, BBC news anchor and paedophile, Huw Edwards, paid for the very worst “Category A” child rape videos and images. Edwards more than “encouraged” child rape, he actively facilitated child rape. He received a six-month—effective non-custodial—suspended sentence. District judge Paul Goldspring declined to issue a sexual harm prevention order against Edwards and expressed his concern for Edwards’ mental health. Goldspring was worried that Edwards could be “at risk of harm from others.” Edward’s sickening crimes evidently did not provide any kind of rational “context” for his sentencing.

The Real Reason for the OSA

Rather than take steps that might actually reduce the risk to children, through the OSA, the government and the judiciary has instead turned to policing what ordinary citizens say and and the information they share online. The OSA has created nine new offences. Of these, if freedom of speech and expression matters to us, offences defined under Section 179 and 181 are dictatorial.

Section 179 deals with so-called “false communication.” If you send a message containing information you know to be false and you intend the message to cause supposed “non-trivial psychological or physical harm to a likely audience,” under the OSA you are potentially guilty of an offence. If found guilty you could be fined or imprisoned for up to six months.

Among the many problems with this legislation is that non-trivial “harm” is not defined. Much like the legislative move from “incitement” to “encouragement,” this introduces a subjective interpretation of people’s intentions or their beliefs to the judgement of their suspected communication offences. The OSA represents a further step toward creating thought crimes.

The UK state prosecutors—the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)—openly acknowledges the thought crime aspect and the lack of clarity:

Non-trivial psychological or physical harm is not defined [. . .]. Prosecutors should be clear when making a charging decision about what the evidence is concerning the suspect’s intention and how what was intended was not “trivial”, and why. Note that there is no requirement that such harm should in fact be caused, only that it be intended.

The new Section 179 OSA false communication offences aim to censor whatever the state considers to be fake news:

These new criminal offences will protect people from a wide range of abuse and harm online, including [. . .] sending fake news that aims to cause non-trivial physical or psychological harm.

The new offences are aimed squarely at the public posting information online and particularly information posted on social media. Section 180 of the OSA exempts the legacy media, who are deemed to be “recognised” news publishers, and other authorised—licensed—broadcasters from compliance with the OSA.

For the purposes of the OSA a “recognised” news publisher in the UK is defined under Section 56 . The BBC is automatically exempt from the legislation.

It is possible that some of the larger, genuinely independent media outlets will be able to comply with Section 56. This will have the effect of centralising any remaining independent journalism. Small individual blogs, those using platforms such as Substack or other independent blogging platforms, will be subject to OSA censorship.

The legal scholar Ricki-Lee Gebrandt observed:

[. . .] the [UK] Government exempted social media companies from taking action against (i.e. removing, flagging, etc.) ‘recognised news publisher’ content, legislated and subsequently strengthened privileges for ‘recognised news publishers’ and undefined ‘journalistic content’ and exempted the press from taking steps to ensure below-the-line comments did not contain unlawful content that the OSA otherwise prohibited the public from publishing online.

The OSA places an onus on social media platforms and search engines to clearly state, in there terms of service, what content they will allow and what content they won’t. Services that do not enforce their content policies will be punished by a fine up to £18 million or 10 percent of their qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.

“Unlawful content” is defined to include so-called “fake news” under the OSA. As Gebrandt observed, while the legacy media can share whatever fiction they choose, if the public comment on that fiction—perhaps by posting contradictory information—the social media platforms are required to police our comments and posts but not those shared by the “gatekeepers of information and news.”

Section 181 of the OSA deals with “sending threatening communications.” Again, there is considerable scope for this to be applied subjectively. While conveying a threat of death or serious injury would appear to be relatively easy to establish in a court, it is less clear how an alleged threat of “serious financial loss” might be determined. It seems entirely possible, if not likely, that posting support for the BDS Movement, for example, won’t be “permitted.”

In addition, you are potentially guilty of this offence not by virtue of sending any “message” directly to an individual or group, but because someone “encountering” the message—on social media for instance—might “fear” that whatever they perceive to be a threat could be carried out. A bad joke might see you prosecuted and imprisoned.

Ofcom has been appointed by the UK government as the OSA’s “independent” regulator. Ofcom is “directly accountable” to UK Parliament, is funded by many of the media corporations it currently regulates, and is “sponsored” by the UK Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), among other government agencies and departments.

Ofcom board’s declared register of interests reveals that, of its forty-six members (spread between Ofcom’s executive, content and advisory boards), fourteen have either former or current professional or financial ties to the BBC and twenty-six are either currently or were formerly in government roles.

Ofcom is not “independent” from the government, nor from many of the state and corporate legacy media corporations it supposedly regulates. The Ofcom Code of Practice will determine the online content social media platforms and search engines will need to censor only our communications under the OSA.

Section 44 of the OSA gives the government “powers of direction” over Ofcom’s Code of Practice. The UK government will effectively set Ofcom’s “code” based upon whatever it deems necessary to allegedly protect “national security, public safety, public health,” and the way foreign governments are reported or discussed online.

This means state and corporate owned legacy media outlets, such as the BBC, will be free to publish whatever they like on social media and their content will be ranked by the search engines, no matter what. Furthermore, with control of the Ofcom ”code,” the UK state will determine what information can or cannot be shared online and, through the OSA, prosecute people and journalists who don’t comply.

For example, promoting fake news stories about nonexistent “far-right riots” in Leeds will not be considered “false communication.” Under the OSA, legacy media outlets will remain free to share “fake news” on social media. Only the public will be censored and potentially prosecuted for “false communication.” In other words, potentially imprisoning people for spreading alleged “disinformation.”

The so-called far-right riots have been exploited as an opportunity to test the OSA’s intended capacity to police alleged “disinformation,” in order to protect the “gatekeepers of information and news.” So far, this has been an almost comical debacle. The problem the state faces is that it is trying to maintain two diametrically opposed positions.

On the one hand it wants to maintain the illusion that we live in some sort of democracy but on the other that it can legitimately censor and effectively ignore the democratic ideal of freedom of expression. The self-contradictory position explains why, as we explored in the Part 2, the state has relied on propaganda to create the myth that it has authority it is currently unable to exert.

Nonetheless, the UK state remains undeterred. In Part 4 will examine its attempts to construct its censorship panopticon.