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#freedomofexpression

7 posts2 participants6 posts today
Public
Open Rights Group

🗞️ NEW: Read about our important report into the Online Safety Act in Digit.

“This complicated legislation favours Big Tech who have the means and capacity to comply with the Act’s onerous provisions.

Instead of tackling online harms, the Act concentrates the market power of Big Tech companies, exacerbating the underlying reasons that harmful content circulates.”

🗣️ @jim – ORG Exec Director.

digit.fyi/is-the-online-safety

DIGIT · Is the Online Safety Act Favouring Big Tech?A new report from the Open Rights Group outlines how the Online Safety Act (OSA) favours big tech, harming the general public in the process.
#OnlineSafetyAct#OSA#freedomofexpression
Continued thread
Public
Open Rights Group

The UK Online Safety Act threatens net plurality.

ORG calls on the government not to centralise power in monopoly Big Tech. We need measures to introduce competition, so users can choose platform experiences they can trust.

Write to your MP #SaveOurSites ⬇️

action.openrightsgroup.org/sav

Open Rights GroupSave our sites - Write to your MPSmall UK websites, user-to-user services and even computer games that are completely safe and well managed, are faced with difficult paperwork, risks assessments, registration and fines thanks to the Online Safety Act. Even personal blogs with comments are forced to undergo these difficult tests and compliance tasks. Getting it wrong or ignoring them could cost an operator their house – as fines can be imposed for failing to do them. As a result, many small websites in the UK are deciding to close down.
#OnlineSafetyAct#OSA#freedomofexpression
Continued thread
Public
Open Rights Group

In trying to tackle the worst of the web, we're harming the best of it.

In the face of onerous duties, sites may simply block UK users. And with it goes our right to access information.

That's why @wikipedia has launched a judicial review of the #OnlineSafetyAct.

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62j2g

A stock image showing a screenshot of Wikipedia's logo - a globe constructed out of jigsaw piece like elements bearing letters in different global alphabets - on a mobile phone. The text in the image reads "Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia"
BBC NewsWikipedia legally challenges 'flawed' online safety rulesIt argues the regulations could threaten the privacy and safety of Wikipedia's volunteer contributors.
#OSA#freedomofexpression#netplurality
Continued thread
Public
Open Rights Group

Online safety duties disproportionately impact small and medium-sized businesses, even if run voluntarily.

Many sites are closing already, including a hamster forum, a local residents group and a video game that had been running for 19 years 🤷‍♂️

#OnlineSafetyAct

telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/

The Telegraph · Hamster forum and local residents’ websites shut down by new internet lawsBy James Titcomb
#OSA#freedomofexpression#OnlineSafety
Public *
Open Rights Group

NEW REPORT: How to fix the UK Online Safety Act.

This broken legislation weighs heavy on small sites, exerting a burden that only Big Tech can withstand.

It further concentrates the market dominance of platforms that have incubated harmful content.

Instead we need greater user choice and voice over platforms.

Read more about our report ⬇️

openrightsgroup.org/press-rele

Open Rights GroupOnline Safety Act Entrenches Big Tech Market Dominance, New Report FindsA new report by digital campaigners, the Open Rights Group, outlines how the Online Safety Act favours big tech, and harms small websites and the general public.
#OnlineSafetyAct#OSA#freedomofexpression
Continued thread
Public
Open Rights Group

The UK government must change the categorisation of sites under the Online Safety Act to protect net plurality.

Small and well moderated sites should be exempt from these duties to stop them from closing or blocking UK users.

Tell your MP to #SaveOurSites ⬇️

action.openrightsgroup.org/sav

Open Rights GroupSave our sites - Write to your MPSmall UK websites, user-to-user services and even computer games that are completely safe and well managed, are faced with difficult paperwork, risks assessments, registration and fines thanks to the Online Safety Act. Even personal blogs with comments are forced to undergo these difficult tests and compliance tasks. Getting it wrong or ignoring them could cost an operator their house – as fines can be imposed for failing to do them. As a result, many small websites in the UK are deciding to close down.
#OnlineSafetyAct#OSA#NetPlurality
Public *
Open Rights Group

Wikipedia @wikimediauk are going to court over the UK Online Safety Act!

Saddling platforms with hefty duties and penalties under the new regime will cause many safe sites to fold.

We can't lose the best of the web due to laws that were meant to tackle the worst of it.

#SaveOurSites

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62j2g

A stock image showing a screenshot of Wikipedia's logo - a globe constructed out of jigsaw piece like elements bearing letters in different global alphabets - on a mobile phone. The text in the image reads "Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia"
BBC NewsWikipedia legally challenges 'flawed' online safety rulesIt argues the regulations could threaten the privacy and safety of Wikipedia's volunteer contributors.
#OnlineSafetyAct#OSA#NetPlurality
Public *
Brad Rosenheim

This time last year, universities and police were teaming up to eradicate college campuses of encampments protesting Gaza genocide.

Imagine if they had just listened to the protestors. Imagine.

• Policy change in the U.S.A.
• Many fewer deaths in Gaza
• Humanitarian aid; people wouldn't be starving right now
• President Harris
• No blueprint for fascist elimination of freedom of expression
• No armed conflict between India and Pakistan right now

That action of the Biden administration allowing police crackdowns on peaceful protests has caused immeasurable damage to free society worldwide, and has allowed tens of thousands to be murdered, disappeared, and starved.

#Gaza
#Israel
#fascism
#Trump
#Harris
#Biden
#police
#protest
#FreedomOfExpression

Public
LordWoolamaloo

An exhibition of editorial cartoons entitled "License to Offend" was pulled by cowardly venue owners at the last moment because, er, they thought they might offend. Yeesh downthetubes.net/cartoonists-f

Worth pointing out satirical cartooning goes back centuries in the UK, and most of these works have already appeared in national publications, making it all the more perplexing these spineless cretins would agree to host it then suddenly pull it.

downthetubes.net · Cartoonists furious after “Licence to Offend” cancelled for… potential offenceBy John Freeman
#FreedomOfExpression
Public
Steve

Pulp, IDLES and Fontaines D.C. among dozens of artists to sign Heavenly Recordings letter defending Kneecap’s “freedom of expression”

“In a democracy, no political figures or political parties should have the right to dictate who does and does not play at music festivals"

#NME #KneeCap #FreedomOfExpression

nme.com/news/music/pulp-idles-

NME · Pulp, IDLES and Fontaines D.C. among dozens of artists to sign Heavenly Recordings letter defending Kneecap’s “freedom of expression”Dozens of artists have signed a letter from Heavenly Recordings supporting the right to freedom of expression for musicians and artists. 
Public
Aaron

I wrote a piece in The Progressive on the link between extremist doxxing sites and actions taken by ICE/ DHS.

An interesting and concerning part of this (some of which got edited out) is that government agencies' timelines of visa revocations are quite suspicious, happening rapidly and without notifying anyone until after #Immigration officials attempt or succeed in abducting political targets, selected for their opposition to genocide.

#FreedomOfExpression #Fascism

progressive.org/latest/what-th

Progressive.org · What the Doxxing of Student Activists Means For the First AmendmentIs ICE following the lead of rightwing websites to suppress pro-Palestinian speech and activism?
Continued thread
Public
Open Rights Group

Competition makes for a safer Internet.

We urge UK Ministers to exempt small community sites that are at little risk of hosting harmful content and not force them to collapse under the weight of disproportionate duties.

Write to your MP to #SaveOurSites ⬇️

action.openrightsgroup.org/sav

Open Rights GroupSave our sites - Write to your MPSmall UK websites, user-to-user services and even computer games that are completely safe and well managed, are faced with difficult paperwork, risks assessments, registration and fines thanks to the Online Safety Act. Even personal blogs with comments are forced to undergo these difficult tests and compliance tasks. Getting it wrong or ignoring them could cost an operator their house – as fines can be imposed for failing to do them. As a result, many small websites in the UK are deciding to close down.
#onlinesafetyact#onlinesafety#ofcom
Public
Open Rights Group

With over 1600 pages of guidance on Online Safety duties, Ofcom (UK) has dealt a sucker punch to small blogs, forums and fedi instances.

Onerous duties with the threat of fines has led to many sites shutting down already.

Only the largest companies that engineer harms can realistically comply.

#SaveOurSites

theguardian.com/technology/202

The Guardian · Ofcom announces new rules for tech firms to keep children safe onlineBy Dan Milmo
#onlinesafetyact#ofcom#onlinesafety
Replied in thread
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Strypey

"... seizing on the opportunity of COVID, under the guise of preventing misinformation, there's been a spate of laws from Singapore to India to Indonesia ... to supposedly curb misinformation, but have really been used to throttle freedom of speech and expression... Singapore for example ... many of the remaining independent media have been [censored using these laws]"

#AnupriyaDatta, 2025

techpolicy.press/part-2-techno

#FreedomOfExpression#FreeSpeech#IndependentMedia
Replied in thread
Public
Strypey

"I don't trust all experts. I go and do a journal article and get it published, and oftentimes my articles are calling into question other articles that other experts ... have written. So one of the things we do amongst experts is to challenge each other openly, often, and that's how we build knowledge. "

#JosephUscinski, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Miami, 2024

natoandtheged.substack.com/p/t

(5/?)

Ordering the Disorder · The System is Rigged: Conspiracy theories and the revenge of the losersBy Jason Pack
#FreedomOfExpression#AcademicFreedom#experts
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