Site Blocking and the Digital Economy Bill
A repost of comment I just added to a Lib Dem Voice thread on this subject -
Declaring my interest as my day job is now with Facebook, I did want also to declare my profound sense of disappointment that the Lib Dems have been supportive of this particular measure.
They did a great job being early opponents of the Government’s original Clause 17 of this Bill which had the potential to grant sweeping powers with little scrutiny and we should celebrate its demise.
I understand that support for this more specific provision on injunctions may have been seen to be necessary to secure consensus with the Conservatives around the removal of Clause 17.
But this provision is also fatally flawed IMO as, however it is dressed up, it does take us in a direction of forcing internet service providers to block websites on grounds which do not meet what I believe is the correct threshold at which we should ever contemplate such measures.
I personally do support the Internet Watch Foundation blocking scheme as the sad reality is that there are a small number of websites that are involved in the business of child abuse and which are not being taken down in their host countries even after the authorities have been notified.
But the IWF case to me exemplifies precisely why this power to block should be used with extreme caution. As long as the line is being drawn around a very specific area of concern where there is near universal consensus that the material is grossly illegal and that the harm caused is substantial then this is defensible even, I believe, by a liberal.
To then try to extend what is always going to be a highly illiberal measure, the blocking of access to internet sites, to other circumstances where the same criteria of extreme necessity and proportionality to the harm caused do not apply is not justified and is certainly not liberal.
So, I would, and have, opposed site blocking when it has come up in all sorts of contexts such as illegal internet adoption sites. It is an instinctive response of politicians to argue that the solution to a problem which has an online component is just to block access to those websites.
This is a lazy response which we must resist as the price we would pay in terms of limitations on both our speech and our freedom to innovate is too high.
My biggest fear about this amendment is that it would give the green light to those who feel that internet blocking is a generally acceptable response to combat all manner of harms, and not a nuclear option that should only used in the most extreme of circumstances such as the prevention of the gross abuse of vulnerable children.
I do not think it is too late to shift the Lib Dems on this. The mobilisation efforts here and across the web are helpful in communicating very real concerns that may not have been fully apparent to the original supporters of the amendment.
I remain a political optimist so would hope that as these concerns do become apparent there will be an honest recognition that in trying to do good, ie removing Clause 17, a further harm has been introduced which is more extensive than at first realised, and that this should now also be removed.