Online Safety Act: ‘Protect the kids’ is pretext for rights erosions
Original article by Marin Scarlett republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. People gather in Trafalgar Square ahead of the Trans+ Pride 2023 march in July 2023 in London | Hollie Adams/Getty Images. All rights reserved We all want accountability for Big Tech, but the OSA’s moralising aims are hurting LGBTQ+ people and sex workers New Ofcom regulations, introduced in July, are forcing a reckoning for online content. This overhaul of the digital landscape is part of the second phase of the Online Safety Act (OSA), which ostensibly targets content harmful to children. First passed in October 2023, the OSA’s stated objective of protecting young people garnered widespread support from children’s charities. This was echoed by digital safety campaigners frustrated with the lack of accountability placed on Big Tech and desperate to see its power reined in. But while these new rules may aim to protect one group, others are being put in harm’s way. Sex workers and other marginalised communities are now less able to access content on harm reduction, face huge income losses due to their accounts being targeted, and risk losing precious anonymity due to identification rules. Minimising online harms and holding powerful tech companies to account are worthy goals. But despite fixating on explicit content, the OSA isn’t even delivering on its key aims – a recent study by the Children’s Commissioner for England showed children’s exposure to porn is higher now than before it came into effect, and algorithms continue to bombard young people with content promoting suicide and self-harm. And when that non-progress comes at the expense of other vulnerable groups of people, such as sex workers, it’s clear that it’s not fit for purpose. We’ve heard ‘protect our children’ before Blanket calls to ‘protect the children’ should always be treated with caution. Safeguarding young people often serves as a flimsy pretext for discriminatory legislation, and the emotive language provides useful cover for lawmakers seeking to shield themselves from criticism. There are many examples of this in action. In the US, racial segregation during the Jim Crow era was justified in part as promoting the “best interests” of children. The US’s 1996 Communications Decency Act also has marked similarities with the OSA, which aimed to protect minors from "indecent" internet content, although most original provisions were struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. In the UK, the notorious Section 28 prohibited the promotion of homosexuality in schools under the guise of giving children “a sound start in life”, according to then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Section 28 was repealed across the UK from 2000 to 2003, with then prime minister David Cameron offering a public apology in 2009. In 2018, he was joined by the key architect of the law, Baroness Knight – but who maintained in her apology that her intention had only been the “wellbeing of children”. Children need protecting, but not everything that claims to protect them does what it says on the tin The following decade saw significant gains for LGBTQ+ communities and, until 2015, the UK was considered among the most…