The Government’s Latest Censorship Initiative is its Most Sinister Yet

 Over the last few months, free speech activists have been perturbed by proposals to age-gate social media for under-16s. Meantime, whilst all eyes were looking elsewhere, the Government has just slipped out a new raft of proposals which would profoundly reshape the online media landscape in the UK. In my view, whereas the impact of the proposed social media restrictions for kids on the free speech rights of adults has been overstated, this new initiative poses a far greater and invidious threat to our freedom of speech and access to information.

The proposals are contained in a Green Paper, published this week, called ‘Watch This Space’. Described by Ian Murray, the Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Art, as setting out a “new strategic direction” for the Government’s media policy, the new measures would require social media companies to prioritise content from ‘traditional’ so-called public service broadcasters – the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and so on – over that of independent media outlets. This would therefore (although this is not spelt out expressly in the paper) de-prioritise, i.e., suppress, content from independent content creators. The effect would be to rewire the algorithms according to which content is delivered to our social media feeds. It would take us from content driven by preference and audience demand towards a system structurally hardwired and legally obliged to direct us to traditional media brands – the very titles that such a large proportion of the public have turned away from.

Given that some 70% of all UK news content is now read digitally, the impact of these measures on the online public square and on the ability of UK audiences to access information sources of their choosing can hardly be overstated....<<<Read More>>>...