Beware Boris’s sinister crackdown on free speech

A Conservative government that boasts it is a defender of free speech against the attacks of ‘the woke’ is about to impose the severest censorship this country has seen in peacetime since parliament abolished press controls in the 1690s.

In an extraordinary power grab – which is all the more extraordinary for the absence of opposition – ministers want to silence views that carry no criminal penalty. This is more than a much-needed crackdown on racial attacks on black footballers or incitements to violent crime or any other crime; it is an unmerited attack on free speech.

The government’s draft Online Safety bill imposes a ‘duty of care’ on internet companies to remove content that may cause ‘psychological harm’. If they fail to do so, they face crippling fines from the media regulator Ofcom. 

Harm is not properly defined in the bill. Instead it is left hanging as a dangerously fuzzy concept that can be picked by any interest group or pack of heresy hunters that wishes to exploit it.