Lucy Powell’s bill is the wrong way to tackle online hate

Politicians and the internet still don’t seem to get on. Yesterday Labour’s Lucy Powell put forward a bill proposing two peculiar new suggestions for tackling online hate: first, that moderators and administrators (the people that run online groups and forums) be held legally responsible for what’s posted in their groups. Second, that the name of any large Secret Facebook group, and the number of members it has, be made public

Powell has pulled together an impressive array of signatories, including David Lammy and Jacob Rees-Mogg. It’s nice to see that bi-partisanship is still alive and well, even if the proposal itself is completely unworkable. I understand the aspiration – we need to stem the flow of online hate, and make tech companies more accountable. Indeed, I’ve written a whole book about it. But this isn’t the answer.

Let’s start with the suggestion that moderators be made legally accountable for what’s posted, since this is the least bad idea of the two.