Online Safety Act: Ofcom’s super-complaints scheme will be used to censor “emerging online harms”

 The UK’s Online Safety Act is being used to monitor and censor online users, not only in the UK but worldwide. Now, Ofcom, the regulator implementing the provisions of the Act, is turning its attention to “emerging online harms.”

At the end of this year, new regulations will come into effect that allow for super-complaints to be made to Ofcom. Super-complaints are complaints made by designated organisations, including charities and consumer groups, on broad, emerging trends or widespread “online safety issues” across multiple platforms.

A super-complaint is a formal mechanism established under the Online Safety Act that allows designated organisations to raise concerns about systemic issues affecting users of regulated online services. Unlike individual complaints, super-complaints focus on broad, emerging trends or widespread problems across multiple platforms, rather than isolated incidents.

Eligible entities, such as consumer protection bodies or organisations representing users, can submit these complaints to trigger a specific regulatory response from Ofcom. The super-complaints regime is designed to complement Ofcom’s own research and horizon scanning, a forward-looking assessment of emerging risks and trends in digital services.

“The super-complaints regime, in line with the Act and recent Government regulations … will enable eligible entities to raise systemic issues that arise across services or, in exceptional circumstances, on one service, to our attention. We expect to consult on draft guidance for potential super-complainants in September 2025 and publish our final guidance in early 2026,” Ofcom’s roadmap to regulation of “online safety” states....<<<Read More>>>...

Food for Thought #768

 

Online Safety Act: UK government’s global censorship has turned up a notch

 This week, the UK government has openly moved from using the Online Safety Act for age verification to using it for censorship.

On Monday, the Government announced urgent action to strengthen the Online Safety Act by amending it to classify content encouraging or assisting serious self-harm as a “priority offence” for all users, not just children.

This change will legally require tech companies to proactively use cutting-edge technology to hunt down and remove such material before it can reach users, rather than simply reacting after it has been published.

As with all these nefarious schemes, who decides what content causes “self-harm”? It is open-ended and can be applied to just about any content – which is the intention.

The following are extracts from the article ‘UK OSA moves past age assurance into censorship with self-harm content designation’ published by Biometric Update on 9 September 2025.

The UK government continues to build out the Online Safety Act (“OSA”), this week announcing tighter legal requirements for platforms to locate and remove material that encourages or assists serious self-harm.

The change means that platforms will have the responsibility to ensure content previously subject to age assurance regulations, which is also being made illegal, is intercepted and removed before reaching children or adult users.

The move is just the first in what is expected to be a series of amendments toughening the OSA by new Technology Secretary Liz Kendall. Ofcom is expected to publish a register of regulated services soon, MLex reports, after the government’s approach to categorisation was upheld in court.

A release from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (“DSIT”) says the OSA will be amended to classify self-harm content as a “priority offence.” It specifies that, while the measure is partly to protect children from content that promotes suicide, eating disorders and “online challenges or hoaxes that may encourage someone to take part in an activity that could cause them harm,” it also aims to help adults with mental health challenges avoid bogus medical advice and potential triggers....<<<Read More>>>...

New legislation allows electric companies to CONTROL your smart THERMOSTAT

 It’s the hottest day of the year, the kind where the air feels thick enough to chew, and your home is your last refuge from the scorching sun. You reach for the thermostat, desperate for relief — only to find it locked. A cold, digital message glares back at you: "Energy Emergency. Adjustments Not Allowed." This is happening right now in Colorado, Texas, and — if Ohio’s latest bill passes — soon in your state too. The question isn’t if utility companies will seize control of your home’s climate, but when. And once they do, what’s next? Your fridge? Your lights? Your ability to cook dinner? Welcome to the brave new world of energy rationing, where corporate and government collusion doesn’t just spy on you — it dictates how you live, all under the guise of "saving the grid."

The practicality of this boils down to governments needing to prioritize AI energy consumption needs for "national security" reasons. Future governments could force you to ration electricity because of "climate change." In the end, this isn’t about reliability or affordability. It’s about control. The same elites pushing the Great Reset, digital IDs, and central bank currencies are now testing how far they can stretch their fingers into your home. And if history is any indicator, what starts as "voluntary" today becomes mandatory tomorrow — with penalties for those who resist. The energy crisis is a manufactured one, a trojan horse for a future where your comfort, your choices, and even your survival are held hostage by unelected bureaucrats and their corporate overlords....<<<Read More>>>....

We’re about to enter ‘false flag’ season

 You probably haven’t even heard of it, because that is what happens when the government and their lapdog mainstream media want something to pass without public scrutiny.

They simply don’t talk about it until it’s already well on the way to becoming law, or in some cases, already has.

Big Brother Watch in the UK were one of very few voices pointing out the obvious implications of such a bill coming into law.

Nearly all the bills that the government gets over the line, are there with the sole intention of giving them more control, and giving you and I less control over our own lives, less freedoms, and less money in our pockets,

Some bills are about laying the groundwork for something else.

They are about taking away the checks and balances that would prevent the government, from doing something they already have planned for further down the line.

For instance, the World Health Organisation changed the definition of a pandemic to remove the words “with enormous numbers of deaths and illness”, meaning the powers that be, could later push the Covid button without the need for the deaths and illness to create a ‘pandemic’.

The definition of vaccine has also subtly changed to accommodate the introduction of mRNA technologies.

The newly adopted Data (Use and Access) Bill works on the same principle....<<<Read More>>>...

UK government’s digital wallet plus digital ID is the digital prison

The UK is planning to launch a digital ID app called ‘GOV.UK Wallet’ by the end of 2025.

At the same time, the Labour government is currently considering a proposed mandatory, universal digital identity system, called the BritCard, advocated by the think tank Labour Together.

The Britcard will be a free digital credential stored on a smartphone via the GOV.UK Wallet app, designed to verify an individual’s right to live, work and rent in the UK.

This is a digital prison. Those who comply risk not only their own autonomy but also the future freedom of their children and grandchildren. Future generations may never know what it means to live outside constant surveillance.

Currently in the UK, a Wallet and Digital ID App – a mobile app called “GOV.UK Wallet” – is set to launch at the end of 2025 (for both Android and iOS). It allows users to store government-issued documents, like veteran cards and digital driver’s licences. By 2027, all UK government services issuing physical credentials must offer a digital alternative. This Labour government is considering a mandatory or widely used digital ID card (“BritCard”), but there is no official rollout timeline yet.

The GOV.UK Wallet has already begun phased deployment with public sector bodies, which started in May 2024 and a broader rollout is expected through 2025.

Some of you may have experienced situations when they have collected your data digitally – if you bought a new car on finance or applied for a new job in the last year or two. It’s time-consuming and often tricky but once they’ve got your data, that’s it. The card would be linked to government records and could be checked by employers or landlords...<<<Read More>>>...

ID cards are a state power grab that won’t do anything to stop illegal immigration. Starmer is arming himself with bullying weapons Stalin and Hitler wished they had… we can’t let this happen

 This period of British specialness may be ending, as the sea ceases to guard us as well as it once did. But we should not help it to end, by foolishly surrendering the freedoms we have.

Even in the most welcoming of continental countries, the state is above the people’s heads and the individual is beneath the feet of then power elite. Almost all these countries have some form of identity card or identity register, and it is up to you to show that you are going about your lawful business.

 My Swiss-German mother-in-law, brought up in one of the Continent’s most liberal and democratic nations, was amazed all her life by the casual attitude British people had to their passports. 

Like any European, she knew that the loss of such documents, or the inability to produce them, could plunge any individual into a nightmare of powerlessness, lawlessness, detention, interrogation and perhaps quite a bit worse. I have come to adopt her rather more severe view of the subject. And with that comes a strong desire never to see such a regime installed in Britain.

 It would turn upside down the proper relationship between the state and the individual. Except during the 1939-45 war, when identity cards proved entirely useless and deeply unpopular, the British state has had to justify itself to us.

 But if we are forced to carry slave badges ‘identifying’ ourselves, we would be required to justify ourselves to the government. It would give every jumped-up official behind a desk a new way of harassing and belittling us, as happened during World War II. 

And heaven help you if you lost yours, even though the place would soon be awash with very convincing forgeries. Indeed, you’d probably find your card had been cloned by criminals, condemning you to weeks of explaining that you hadn’t been where you weren’t.

 Oh, and it won’t solve the migrant crisis, France has identity cards, and also has an estimated 900,000 undocumented migrants living in its cities. So much for the wonders of digital ID....<<<Read More>>>...

Food for Thought #766

 

Digital ID: You’ll Own Nothing and Scan Everything

 You can already hear it, can’t you? The dreary chorus of ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear.’

Soon your neighbour, your colleague, and that bloke in the pub will all sound like NPCs reciting the gospel of Digital ID.

And if you’re happy to trade liberty for ignorance, don’t whimper when your life resembles Kim Jong-un’s playpen with a Tesco Clubcard.

Welcome to Brave New Blighty, where your papers are digital, your wallet is monitored, and your freedom is conditional. Great Britain is teetering on the brink of ushering in a national digital ID system.

Yes, the same Britain that once prided itself on civil liberties, privacy, and a general disdain for government overreach. Now, our political class, like a dodgy Carry On character with a penchant for surveillance, is dangling the shiny promise of “convenience” while quietly sliding the handcuffs into place.

Think back, if your memory hasn’t been wiped by the Ministry of Health. During the pandemic, we got a taste of digital control with those charming little vaccine passports. Want to enter a venue? Flash your app. Want to fly, work, or exist in polite society? Better have your QR code scanned, jab status verified, and obedience levels recalibrated.

That little COVID experiment was a not-so-dry run for a far more sinister project.

The digital ID being proposed is not some benign bit of modern admin. It is, quite frankly, a blueprint for technocratic control. It won’t stop with your name and date of birth. Oh no.

Soon, your biometric data, spending habits, health records, social media activity, and ideological alignment could be packed into your shiny new BritCard.

Want to buy a pint or a sausage roll? Better scan in first. Had too many pints this week? Sorry, your cholesterol’s high and your carbon credits are low. Try again next month.

Now imagine the government deciding you’ve said something “hateful” (which is Newspeak for “unpopular”). Suddenly, your car won’t start. Your social media is locked. Your travel rights revoked. It’s not a stretch of the imagination. This is a roadmap, and we’re already halfway there.

During the COVID era, the Canadian government showed us what financial control looks like in real time: freezing the bank accounts of protesters and their supporters with the flick of a bureaucratic switch....<<<Read More>>>...

£25 Million ‘Nanny State’ National Emergency Alert Flops

 Another 'compliance test' failed miserably. We'd already switched off the alert setting days earlier. And where we were, in a cafe in a UK shopping centre, when 3pm came and went, there were only two phones sounding the natiional emergency alert ... many others had apparently done the same thing we had. 

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Britain’s £25 million ‘nanny state’ emergency alert to millions of phones has dramatically flopped, with alarms arriving late or not at all and BBC presenters left awkwardly filling airtime. The Mail has the details.

Devices connected to 4G and 5G networks throughout Britain blared a siren-like alarm, vibrated and displayed a warning message for ten seconds at around 3pm – even if they were on silent.

It was the first test of its kind since 2023 and has been criticised over ‘big brother’ concerns over intrusion of the state into private life. …

But in a flop for the emergency system, which will cost up to £25.3 million to fund during its first three years, presenters live on BBC News were forced to fill air time as the siren failed to come through when expected.

Titled “Severe Alert,” the notification which eventually came through read: “This is a test of Emergency Alerts, a UK government service that will warn you if there’s a real life-threatening emergency nearby.” …<<<Read More>>>...

Britain is Descending into Anarcho-Tyranny – We Need a First Amendment

 Britain is descending into an anarcho-tyrannical state and needs the equivalent of the US First Amendment to protect freedom of speech from our censorious overlords, says Allister Heath in his latest blistering Telegraph column. Here’s an excerpt.

The Left-wing juristocracy doesn’t believe in true freedom: it believes in weaponising the law for social engineering. The ECHR is a useful tool to promote open borders, but it won’t stop Linehan from being arrested.

Starmer felt obliged to defend Linehan, and Wes Streeting went as far as calling for a change in the law, but nothing meaningful will happen. Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, would never allow it. The best we can hope for are tweaks and slightly more liberal guidance for the police.

Yet if the mainstream Left is bad, the far-Left which may soon replace it is worse. Zack Polanski, the Green Party’s new Corbynite leader, said on the BBC of Linehan that “these are totally unacceptable tweets… I think it was proportionate to arrest him”. This is a new development: the rise of a class of politicians who don’t seek to hide their authoritarianism. Many are influenced by woke ideology, which claims that speech is violence, a tool of oppression when in the hands of the ‘privileged’ class of white overlords, and that only the ‘oppressed’ have the right to speak out.

We need a radical break with the past 28 years. The Blairite project must be undone. We need fresh protections for free speech. The police must be retaught liberal values. Its operational autonomy must be curtailed. We must firmly resist digital ID cards as these would further shift power from citizen to state. The Online Safety Act has gone too far, and needs radical reform, as do many other laws. Non-crime hate incidents must be abolished. We need to quit the ECHR, scrap the HRA and return to Law Lords in Parliament....<<<Read More>>>...

Your last chance to stop politicians introducing euthanasia to the UK

Sometime this month (September 2025), members of the House of Lords (possibly the most undemocratic and unrepresentative body in the world) will decide whether to approve the Leadbeater Bill to allow doctor-assisted suicide.

The House of Lords can stop this Bill dead in its tracks. It is a private member’s Bill, and the Government cannot force the Bill through.

The evidence showing that doctor-assisted suicide won’t be painless, dignified or quick is overwhelming.

And you’d have to be naïve and ignorant not to believe that if this Bill is passed then within a short time, doctor-assisted suicide will be available to children, the mentally ill, the poor, the unemployed, the disabled and the elderly.

That’s what always happens.

This is your last chance to have a voice.

Please buy a copy of Jack King’s book `Anyone who tells you that doctor-assisted suicide is always dignified and painless is lying: here’s the proof.’ Once you’ve read it, you will understand the terrifying truth about doctor-assisted suicide....<<<Read More>>>...

“At What Point Did We Become North Korea?” Nigel Farage Tells US Lawmakers in Washington About Starmer’s “Awful and Authoritarian” UK

 Nigel Farage today told US lawmakers in Washington that the UK is in an “awful, authoritarian position” and resembles North Korea as he highlighted the appalling treatment of Graham Linehan and Lucy Connolly. The Mail has more.

The Reform leader warned that Americans – including tech moguls – could face arrest at Heathrow over online content disliked by British authorities in the wake of the arrest of Graham Linehan. Father Ted writer Mr Linehan revealed yesterday he had been detained at Heathrow over trans-sceptic tweets, sparking a row over police priorities and freedom of speech.

Mr Farage skipped Parliament’s first week back after its summer break to give evidence to the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, which is investigating the impact of the UK’s Online safety Act on US citizens. …

“At what point did we become North Korea? Well I think the Irish comedy writer found that out two days ago at Heathrow Airport. This is a genuinely worrying, concerning and shocking situation.”

Mr Farage warned that the Online Safety Act “will damage trade between our countries, threaten free speech across the West because of the knock-on rollout effects of this legislation from us or from the European Union”. …

Mr Farage addressed a Republican-controlled HJC session entitled ‘Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation’, which will “highlight how European online censorship laws – specifically the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act (OSA) and the European Union‘s (EU) Digital Services Act (DSA)-threaten Americans’ right to speak freely online in the United States”....<<<Read More>>>....

Starmer Pushes Digital ID Cards for All After Macron Demands Action to Tackle Scourge of Illegal Working in Britain

 Tony Blair's puppet demands ... really? Classic problem, reaction, solution ... one reason they have been pushing the illegal migrant invasion of the UK. 

When Starmer speaks, its Blair who is pulling the strings. Blair has dreamed of us all controlled by the evils of technology.

No way ....

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Keir Starmer is pushing for everyone in Britain to be forced to sign up for a digital ID card after Emmanuel Macron demanded action to tackle the scourge of illegal working in Britain. The Mail has more.

Sir Keir Starmer told the Cabinet he would be “exploring options around digital ID” as part of a wider package of reforms designed to make it harder for illegal migrants to live and work in this country.

Downing Street confirmed Ministers are examining proposals for a digital ID scheme 15 years after the idea was abandoned following an outcry about the impact on civil liberties.

Under one option, anyone applying for a new job would be required to produce their digital ID to demonstrate that they have the right to live and work in this country. Similar provisions could also be introduced for those moving to new accommodation, making a benefit claim or seeking to access public services.

Labour ruled out ID cards as recently as July this year, with Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds saying the idea was “not our approach”.

Sir Keir has been told by President Macron to address the “pull factors” attracting migrants to Britain in return for French help in stopping the boats.

Whitehall sources said Tony Blair has also continued to push the idea behind the scenes.

And, with Sir Keir coming under intense pressure to be seen to be acting on illegal migration, he has now changed tack.

The PM’s official spokesman told reporters that the Government would “always look at what works”.

Asked if the idea could eventually mean compulsory ID cards for all, he said: “We are willing to look at what works when it comes to tackling illegal migration.”

Questioned about the civil liberties row that ended the last bid to introduce compulsory ID cards, the spokesman said Ministers believed “the debate has changed since the last time we had this discussion”, with people more relaxed about the idea of having to prove their identity online.

The idea is set to be discussed at an emergency meeting chaired by Sir Keir aimed at accelerating work to shut down the UK’s 200 migrant hotels....<<<Read More>>>...

Three essays: The centralised control of your body, soul and spirit

 The government you elected isn’t in charge and we are on the road to algorithmic authoritarianism. They don’t plan to stop there. The plan is to transform our spirituality, too.

The above are the subject matters of three important essays from three different independent journalists. The following are outlines of these essays, with hyperlinks to sections contained within the essays to help our readers find the particular topic that is of most interest to them or to read the essays in sections if reading them in one sitting feels overwhelming.....<<<Read More>>>...

UK Asylum Disaster Worsens With New Court Ruling

Just weeks after the High Court dealt a devastating blow to the government’s asylum seeker policy by ruling that an Epping hotel must be emptied by 12 September, the Court of Appeal has now swung the pendulum back in Whitehall’s favour. As of 29 August, it has been ruled that ministers can in fact continue using hotels to house tens of thousands of asylum seekers, despite what previously felt like a victory for protestors against the UK asylum crisis.

The new ruling is a legal victory for the Home Office, but has poured petrol on the fire in communities already reaching breaking point. Reversing the High Court’s prior decision closes a potential loophole for those hoping to reduce the vast quantity of asylum seekers housed in UK hotels, and while Friday’s ruling has been sold to us as courtroom clarity on a delicate scenario, it may yet prove to be political quicksand. 

The government continues to insist that hotels remain a “temporary necessity” in the asylum system, with migrants’ claims taking months to process and having no alternative sites ready for the next few years. For communities though, it seems to have landed like a hammer blow. 

In North Yorkshire and the Midlands, demonstrations have intensified. “Homes for Brits First” and “We Weren’t Asked” appear on placards, summing up the general attitude of local citizens. Residents continue to voice concerns about unaffordable housing, stretched GP surgeries, and lack of consultation in decisions that change their communities. To most, the case is not about legal technicalities, but rather about being excluded from key decisions that reshape their towns, and their lives, overnight. 

One protestor told Sky News: “It’s not fair. We can’t afford housing for our own people. We can’t get GP appointments. Yet the government pays millions to put them up in hotels”. ...<<<Read More>>>...

How to stop AI agents going rogue

 Disturbing results emerged earlier this year, when AI developer Anthropic tested leading AI models to see if they engaged in risky behaviour when using sensitive information.

Anthropic’s own AI, Claude, was among those tested. When given access to an email account it discovered that a company executive was having an affair and that the same executive planned to shut down the AI system later that day.

In response Claude attempted to blackmail the executive by threatening to reveal the affair to his wife and bosses.

Other systems tested also resorted to blackmail, external.

Fortunately the tasks and information were fictional, but the test highlighted the challenges of what’s known as agentic AI.

Mostly when we interact with AI it usually involves asking a question or prompting the AI to complete a task.

But it’s becoming more common for AI systems to make decisions and take action on behalf of the user, which often involves sifting through information, like emails and files.

By 2028, research firm Gartner forecasts, external that 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made by so-called agentic AI.

Research by consultancy Ernst & Young, external found that about half (48%) of tech business leaders are already adopting or deploying agentic AI.


“An AI agent consists of a few things,” says Donnchadh Casey, CEO of CalypsoAI, a US-based AI security company.

“Firstly, it [the agent] has an intent or a purpose. Why am I here? What’s my job? The second thing: it’s got a brain. That’s the AI model. The third thing is tools, which could be other systems or databases, and a way of communicating with them.”

“If not given the right guidance, agentic AI will achieve a goal in whatever way it can. That creates a lot of risk.”

So how might that go wrong? Mr Casey gives the example of an agent that is asked to delete a customer’s data from the database and decides the easiest solution is to delete all customers with the same name.

“That agent will have achieved its goal, and it’ll think ‘Great! Next job!'...<<<Read More>>>...

Silenced in Starmer’s ‘Free Speech Britain’?

 I’m sure we were all very proud of our PM when he informed Donald Trump that we’ve had free speech in Britain for a long time and that we would continue to have free speech in the future. But that hasn’t been my recent experience. Moreover I suspect that many other people are also falling foul of what appears to be an increasing climate of censorship of any views which contradict the official Government narrative.

I’ve had a YouTube video channel for more than eight years without ever having had any problems. I have used my channel to post occasional videos usually based on my current affairs books. So I’ve covered subjects such as Gordon Brown’s financial incontinence, foreign aid waste, our bloated charity industry, ever-rising knife crime in London, the pointlessness of many university degrees and, most recently, the supposed ‘Global Boiling Climate Crisis’.

In the last couple of months I made three short parody videos mocking three members of Keir Starmer’s Government – Starmer himself, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves. A week or so ago I tried to upload a fourth video onto YouTube mocking Ed Miliband’s ludicrous Net Zero assault on our country. But I was unable to upload my latest video as YouTube had taken down my whole video channel. So now none of my videos, even those which have been live on YouTube for years, are available. Helpfully YouTube informed me that I could appeal against their decision to ban me and remove all my videos. But, in a rather Kafkaesque situation, I’m not told why I have been banned. The only information I got was a link to all the many reasons why YouTube could remove a video channel. This made it somewhat difficult to appeal against YouTube’s ban as I’ve no idea what violation I am alleged to have committed. However, I did appeal and my appeal was quickly rejected again without any reason being given....<<<Read More>>>...

YouTube secretly used AI to edit people’s videos. The results could bend reality

 YouTube made AI enhancements to videos without telling users or asking permission. As AI quietly mediates our world, what happens to our shared connection with real life?

Rick Beato’s face just didn’t look right. “I was like ‘man, my hair looks strange’, he says. “And the closer I looked it almost seemed like I was wearing makeup.” Beato runs a YouTube channel with over five million subscribers, where he’s made nearly 2,000 videos exploring the world of music. Something seemed off in one of his recent posts, but he could barely tell the difference. “I thought, ‘am just I imagining things?'”

It turns out, he wasn’t. In recent months, YouTube has secretly used artificial intelligence (AI) to tweak people’s videos without letting them know or asking permission. Wrinkles in shirts seem more defined. Skin is sharper in some places and smoother in others. Pay close attention to ears, and you may notice them warp. These changes are small, barely visible without a side-by-side comparison. Yet some disturbed YouTubers say it gives their content a subtle and unwelcome AI-generated feeling.

There’s a larger trend at play. A growing share of reality is pre-processed by AI before it reaches us. Eventually, the question won’t be whether you can tell the difference, but whether it’s eroding our ties to the world around us....<<<Read More>>>.....

J.R.R. Tolkien, AI and Transhumanism

 J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, particularly ‘The Lord of the Rings‘, are claimed to contain occult symbolism, with some arguing that he was involved with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Paul List has a different view. He sees ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy as a combat between the philosophy of scholasticism and the philosophies of Francis Bacon and René Descartes, and believes Tolkien’s mythology is a warning to humanity about AI and transhumanism.

In an interview about his book, List discusses how innovators and philosophers from the 17th to the 19th centuries founded the fundamental ideas on which the ideas of machines, such as AI, ruling over humans, and transhumanism are based...<<<Read More>>>...

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