The Act also grants significant power to Ofcom, the government-approved regulator, and exempts “recognised news publishers” from fines for potentially harmful material, while independent journalists, citizen journalists and social media commentators face content restrictions.
It gives significant censorship powers to a single civil servant, Ofcom’s Melanie Dawes, and grants police chiefs the power to arrest citizens for sending “false communications” or “threatening messages” online, which has been used to restrict free speech.
The Act compromises privacy rights by forcing online platforms to deploy technology that detects and removes illegal content, even within end-to-end encrypted messages, and requires age verification for users....<<<Read More>>>...
