the Online Safety Bill - new law incoming. "Trolls will be jailed for psychological harm"

[bimble]

that's what the headline says but can someone clever maybe access the article?

Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

Trolls could face two years in prison for sending messages or posting content that causes psychological harm under legislation targeting online hate. Ministers

www.thetimes.co.uk

Sounds pretty crazy to me.
Who is going to arbitrate what constitutes 'psychological harm' warranting a prison sentence, the police?

 

[DotCommunist]

'Trolls could face two years in prison for sending messages or posting content that causes psychological harm under legislation targeting online hate.
Ministers will overhaul communication laws by creating new offences in the forthcoming Online Safety Bill, the flagship legislation to combat abuse and hatred on the internet.
The Department for Culture, Media & Sport has accepted recommendations from the Law Commission for crimes to be based on “likely psychological harm”.
The proposed law change will shift the focus on to the “harmful effect” of a message rather than if it contains “indecent” or “grossly offensive” content, which is the present basis for assessing its criminality.
A new offence of “threatening communications” will target messages and social media posts that contain threats of serious harm. It would be an offence where somebody intends a victim to fear the threat will be carried out.

A “knowingly false communication” offence will be created that will criminalise those who send or post a message they know to be false with the intention to cause “emotional, psychological, or physical harm to the likely audience”. Government sources gave the example of antivaxers spreading false information that they know to be untrue.
The new offences will include sol-called “pile-ons” where a number of individuals join others in sending harassing messages to a victim on social media.
The Times was told that the plans had been sent to cabinet for approval. Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, is intending to add them to the bill when it is introduced to parliament next month, government sources said.
The move is likely to be met with resistance from freedom of speech campaigners and civil libertarians.
David Davis, a former cabinet minister, said assessing based on the impact it has on the receiver was too subjective and urged the government to rethink the proposals, especially given it has hailed the legislation as “world-leading”. Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said the new harm-based offences were too broad.
A government spokesman said: “We are making our laws fit for the digital age. Our comprehensive Online Safety Bill will make tech companies responsible for people’s safety and we are carefully considering the Law Commission’s recommendations on strengthening criminal offences.”
Tool tackles online abuse
Players are being urged by the Football Association to use new social media tools to shield themselves from online abuse — particularly if they make on-field errors (Ross Kaniuk writes).
Any player — or member of the public — who experiences or expects abuse on Instagram can use a new feature called Limits. It allows users to still receive comments and messages from long-standing followers but can limit contact from new followers and anonymous trolls.
Another feature, Hidden Words, can censor certain words from appearing under posts. The tools are being launched in the wake of racist abuse aimed at England stars such as Bukayo Saka after the Euros.'

 

[cupid_stunt]

Who is going to arbitrate what constitutes 'psychological harm' warranting a prison sentence, the police?

The courts.

 

[bimble]

Well. I’d like to know how the government intends to define a ‘pile on’, notoriously hard to do.

 

[Pickman's model]

Who is going to arbitrate what constitutes 'psychological harm' warranting a prison sentence, the police?

the courts. you know, the people who already sentence people.

 

[platinumsage]

Well. I’d like to know how the government intends to define a ‘pile on’, notoriously hard to do.

It hasn't stopped them in the past:

"if any persons to the number of twelve or more, being unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled together, to the disturbance of the publick peace..."

 

[bimble]

There would be an amazing number of people bringing these cases I imagine, saying they’ve suffered psychological harm online.
It is a totally different thing to criminalising certain content, criminalising the impact felt by the reader.

 

[Spymaster]

Well. I’d like to know how the government intends to define a ‘pile on’, notoriously hard to do.

The government won't. The CPS will, and law will become established/defined as cases are tried and people are convicted/acquitted.

 

[kabbes]

This is one of those things that seems to be straightforward enough in principle but then you realise that everybody who reads it and agrees with it has a different concept of what will cause “emotional, psychological, or physical harm to the likely audience”. And then you realise that only one group gets to actually decide that and it probably isn’t the group you want to decide it.

 

[kabbes]

For example, I would say that messages that promote rapacious free-market capitalism cause IMMENSE emotional, psychological and physical harm to the likely audience. But something tells me that tweets by Tory MPs about the need to remove all regulatory barriers to companies doing whatever they want are unlikely to fall foul of this law.

 

[purenarcotic]

There would be an amazing number of people bringing these cases I imagine, saying they’ve suffered psychological harm online.
It is a totally different thing to criminalising certain content, criminalising the impact felt by the reader.

I expect it’ll be a nightmare but we seem to have managed with coercive control okay. The whole principle behind it as a crime is that the perpetrator knew it would cause emotional harm. So there is some precedent for determining what emotional abuse actually is. And coercive control is just a posh way of describing emotional abuse.

 

[bimble]

Doesn’t seem straightforward even in principle, does it though. Psychological harm is most of the internet, apart from the cat pics.

 

[purenarcotic]

Doesn’t seem straightforward even in principle, does it though. Psychological harm is most of the internet, apart from the cat pics.

True. I assume it wouldn’t be used for one off comments, but sustained stuff e.g regular rape threats or similar. But I agree you could argue lots of things online cause harm and upset. I’m not sure what the solution is because I know from people I’ve followed that the constant trolling has resulted in them needing medication, not feeling they can leave the house etc. I imagine they’ll have to make the legislation quite specific.

 

[kabbes]

Doesn’t seem straightforward even in principle, does it though. Psychological harm is most of the internet, apart from the cat pics.

It’s even worse than that. To define “psychological harm”, you first have to set up a theoretical norm against which the harm has caused deviation. However, such norms are social constructions that shift radically over time. To use a context-free concept of “psychological harm” implies that intra-psychic process start from a “healthy” baseline that are impacted by some kind of pathological process. In reality, however, no such baseline exists. Instead, it is power that gets to determine what “healthy” means, with the implication that any kind of subjectivity that doesn’t fit with the aims and processes of power are pathologically damaged.

This is why this idea can appear nice on the surface but hides some pretty scary social control stuff underneath. It allows certain ideas to be criminalised as causing harm, with the people that get to decide which those ideas are being those who run the show.

 

[bimble]

True. I assume it wouldn’t be used for one off comments, but sustained stuff e.g regular rape threats or similar. But I agree you could argue lots of things online cause harm and upset. I’m not sure what the solution is because I know from people I’ve followed that the constant trolling has resulted in them needing medication, not feeling they can leave the house etc. I imagine they’ll have to make the legislation quite specific.

Your example is already covered by existing legislation, ‘malicious communications’ are a criminal offence.

 

[platinumsage]

It’s even worse than that. To define “psychological harm”, you first have to set up a theoretical norm against which the harm has caused deviation. However, such norms are social constructions that shift radically over time. To use a context-free concept of “psychological harm” implies that intra-psychic process start from a “healthy” baseline that are impacted by some kind of pathological process. In reality, however, no such baseline exists. Instead, it is power that gets to determine what “healthy” means, with the implication that any kind of subjectivity that doesn’t fit with the aims and processes of power are pathologically damaged.

This is why this idea can appear nice on the surface but hides some pretty scary social control stuff underneath. It allows certain ideas to be criminalised as causing harm, with the people that get to decide which those ideas are being those who run the show.

Surely it will just follow in the footsteps of this famous phrase:

"Veteran peace campaigner Lindis Percy has been charged with causing harassment, alarm or distress after she dragged a US flag in front of cars driven by Americans at the US Spy Base Menwith Hill."

 

[kabbes]

It’s not great, is it?

 

[Saul Goodman]

It's going to be (ab)used by politicians, as a weapon against anybody who disagrees with them sufficiency to call them cunts.

 

[quiet guy]

Wonder how many politicians comments will get flagged up

 

[two sheds]

.

 

[bimble]

I wonder why they leaked this, whether it’s to see if anyone cares, if people think it’s a good idea that’ll make the internet nicer or actually a pretty sinister power grab by the Gov.
I find it pretty disturbing, even vague as it is.

 

[Serge Forward]

If it does happen, it'll be weaponised to attack those the government and right wing types don't like.

 

[bimble]

This is the actual thing, and it doesn’t seem to match the times article very well.

Reforms to protect victims of online abuse and safeguard freedom of expression announced - Law Commission

Law Commission recommends reforms to the communications offences to target serious harms arising from online abuse, while more effectively protecting the right to freedom of expression. A new harm-based offence would ensure only sufficiently harmful communications – which are likely to cause...

www.lawcom.gov.uk

Pretty broad plans re criminalisation of unwanted dick pics in there, interesting.

 

[a_chap]

Pretty broad plans re criminalisation of unwanted dick pics in there, interesting.

View attachment 295168

I know it's never a good idea to comment on things you know nothing about (i.e. I've never sent a "dick pic" to anyone, ever) but...

Unless you send the picture to your GP then surely the whole point of a dick pic is for "a sexual purpose".

Or is there another reason people do that?

[immediately suspects I'll regret posting that]

 

[Saul Goodman]

I know it's never a good idea to comment on things you know nothing about (i.e. I've never sent a "dick pic" to anyone, ever) but...

Unless you send the picture to your GP then surely the whole point of a dick pic is for "a sexual purpose".

Or is there another reason people do that?

[immediately suspects I'll regret posting that]

A friend sent me a picture of his one night when he was pissed. He reckoned it looked like a walnut whip. In fairness, it did look like a walnut whip.

 

[Spymaster]

A friend sent me a picture of his one night when he was pissed. He reckoned it looked like a walnut whip. In fairness, it did look like a walnut whip.

What flavour?

 

[Saul Goodman]

What flavour?

I couldn't tell you. I never got round to tasting it.

 

[tim]

The move is likely to be met with resistance from freedom of speech campaigners and civil libertarians.
David Davis, a former cabinet minister, said assessing based on the impact it has on the receiver was too subjective and urged the government to rethink the proposals, especially given it has hailed the legislation as “world-leading”. Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said the new harm-based offences were too broad.

David "Thick as Mince" Davis seems to have emerged as the de facto Leader of the Opposition over the past few months.

 

[Artaxerxes]

This is the actual thing, and it doesn’t seem to match the times article very well.

Reforms to protect victims of online abuse and safeguard freedom of expression announced - Law Commission

Law Commission recommends reforms to the communications offences to target serious harms arising from online abuse, while more effectively protecting the right to freedom of expression. A new harm-based offence would ensure only sufficiently harmful communications – which are likely to cause...

www.lawcom.gov.uk

Pretty broad plans re criminalisation of unwanted dick pics in there, interesting.

View attachment 295168

Delyn MP Rob Roberts

It is being reported in a couple of Sunday newspapers that Conservative MP Rob Roberts will be suspended by the House of Commons following a Standards Committee report into his conduct. Roberts texted sexually inappropriate messages to an intern and was, briefly, suspended by the parliamentary...

www.urban75.net

 

[8ball]

Well. I’d like to know how the government intends to define a ‘pile on’, notoriously hard to do.

Difficult. When someone says something that leads to doxxing and rape threats etc. that needs dealing with and isn’t a “free speech” issue to me, but there is potential for a very wide range of interpretation.