UK Parliament Watch

Scotland is proceeding with its disgraceful plans to pass a new blasphemy law.

Currently, the Hate Crime Bill looks likely to eventually pass, as it just secured a 91 to 29 vote in parliament during the first phase of the legislative procedure.

Some of the more troublesome points of the bill, the way it was originally drafted, include sanctioning possession of what's referred to as inflammatory media (memes, emails, images, and dark humor), as well as social media posts determined by the authorities to be problematic. At the same time, the legislation is vague enough to fail to objectively define what abuse in terms of speech means.

The phase one vote was preceded by a debate, when SNP member and Scotland's Injustice Secretary Humza Yousaf acknowledged there were concerns about the bill's chilling effect on free speech, but immediately went on to mention the chilling effect of hate (speech) crime perpetrated against sexual, ethnic and racial minorities and religious communities.

Dian Johnson is the Labour MP for Hull. She is the latest of UK politicians to propose a nasty bill criminalising men for buying sex. The parliamentary gender items reads:

SEXUAL EXPLOITATION: TEN MINUTE RULE MOTION

Diana Johnson

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to criminalise paying for sex; to decriminalise selling sex; to create offences relating to enabling or profiting from another person's sexual exploitation; to make associated provision about sexual exploitation online; to make provision for support services for victims of sexual exploitation; and for connected purposes.

The English Collective of Prostitutes have responded:

BASIC FACTS

Of the approximately 72,800 sex workers in the UK -- at least 88% are women.

Prostitution has always been connected to women's poverty -- that's why overwhelmingly clients are men and sex workers are women.

Prostitution is increasing because poverty is increasing. 86% of austerity cuts have targeted women . Child poverty has gone up: 30% and in some London boroughs and areas of the North-East and Midlands 55% of children live in poverty . Government policies of benefit sanctions and the introduction of universal credit have deliberately caused destitution and pushed more women, particularly single mothers , [ii] into prostitution to feed themselves and their families.

Since the pandemic destitution has skyrocketed and women's organisations, including sex worker organisations like the English Collective of Prostitutes, report having to organise for food vouchers and donations to keep families afloat.

ISSUES RAISED IN PARLIAMENT

The Coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated poverty, homelessness and debt. Thousands of sex workers are dependent on food banks to survive . Demands for the government to provide emergency payments for sex workers in crisis, worker status so that women could get wage relief, sick pay and the benefits that other workers can claim, healthcare regardless of immigration status, and a moratorium on arrests, were picked up by some MPs who tabled questions to the government about the lack of support.

These demands for emergency help were not supported by the proposer of this motion.

Evidence submitted to the 2019 Work and Pensions Committee Inquiry into Universal Credit and Survival Sex focused on the impact of austerity on levels of prostitution in the UK. The Committee published its findings in November 2019. It recommended action against some of the worst injustices of the benefit system such as draconian sanctions and the five-week delay to get Universal Credit which have increased destitution and pushed many more women into "survival sex".

The former homelessness tsar recently raised the alarm about growing destitution in the pandemic, warning mothers could have to "go out and prostitute themselves, so that they could put food on the table."

Evidence from sex workers was also presented to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty who commented on "the harsh and arbitrary nature of some of the sanctions, as well as the devastating effects that resulted from being completely shut out of the benefits system for weeks or months at a time."

The Home Affairs Committee 2016 Inquiry recommended : "... the Home Office change existing legislation so that soliciting is no longer an offence and so that brothel-keeping provisions allow sex workers to share premises." It called for "previous convictions and cautions for prostitution [to be deleted] from the record of sex workers".

THIS 10-MINUTE RULE MOTION IS WRONG AND DANGEROUS

The House of Lords approved a statutory instrument that adopts the EU's Audio Visual Media Services Directive into post-Brexit UK law. This law describes state censorship requirements for internet video sharing platforms.

The law change was debated on 27th November 2020 with the government introducing the law as follows:

Baroness Barran, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this instrument, laid in both Houses on 15 October, which is being made under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. These regulations remedy certain failures of retained EU law arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU. This instrument seeks to maintain, but not expand, Ofcom's remit to regulate video-sharing platform services. This intervention is necessary to ensure the law remains operable beyond the end of the transition period.

The EU's audiovisual media services directive, known as the AVMS directive, governs the co-ordination of national legislation on audio-visual media services. The AVMS directive was initially implemented into UK law in 2010, primarily by way of amendments to UK broadcasting legislation. The directive was subsequently revised in 2018. The UK Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2020, which transposed the revised AVMS directive, were made and laid in Parliament on 30 September. Those regulations came into force on 1 November and introduced, for the first time, rules for video-sharing platform services. The Government have appointed Ofcom as the regulator for these services. The new rules ensure that platforms falling within UK jurisdiction have appropriate systems and processes to protect the public, including minors, from illegal and harmful material.

There were three key requirements placed on video-sharing platforms under the regulations. These were: to take appropriate measures to protect minors under 18 from harmful content, to take appropriate measures to protect the general public from harmful and certain illegal content, and to introduce standards around advertising. I also draw the attention of the House to the report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee considering this instrument, and I thank its members for their work.

I will now address the committee's concerns regarding jurisdiction. The AVMS directive sets out technical rules governing when a platform falls within a country's jurisdiction. First, there must be a physical presence, or a group undertaking, of the platform in the country. Where there is a physical presence in more than one country, jurisdiction is decided on the basis of factors such as whether the platform is established in that country, whether the platform's main economic activity is centred in that country, and the hierarchy of group undertakings as set out by the directive.

Under the revised AVMS directive, each EU member state and the UK is responsible for regulating only the video-sharing platforms that fall within its jurisdiction. There will be only one country that has jurisdiction for each platform at any one time. However, if a platform has no physical presence in any country covered by the AVMS directive, then no country will have jurisdiction over it, even if the platform provides services in those countries.

Through this instrument, we are seeking to maintain the same position for Ofcom's remit beyond the end of the transition period. This position allows Ofcom to regulate video-sharing platforms established in the UK and additionally regulate platforms that have a physical presence in the UK but not in any other country covered by the AVMS directive. Although Ofcom's remit will not be extended to include platforms established elsewhere in the EU, we believe UK users will indirectly benefit from the EU's regulation of platforms under the AVMS directive. The regulation under this regime is systems regulation, not content regulation. We therefore expect that as platforms based outside of the UK will set up and invest in systems to comply with the AVMS regulations, it is probable that these same systems will also be introduced for their UK subsidiaries.

In the absence of this instrument, Ofcom would no longer be able to regulate any video-sharing platforms. This would result in an unacceptable regulatory gap and a lack of protection for UK users using these services. Our approach also mitigates the small risk that a video- sharing platform offering services to countries covered by the AVMS directive, but not the UK, would establish itself in the UK in order to circumvent EU law.

While we recognise that most children have a positive experience online, the reality is that the impact of harmful content and activity online can be particularly damaging for children. Over three-quarters of UK adults also express a deep concern about the internet. The UK is one of only three countries to have transposed the revised directive thus far, evidencing our commitment to protecting users online.

These regulations also pave the way for the upcoming online harms regulatory regime. Given that the online harms regulatory framework shares broadly the same objectives as the video-sharing platform regime, it is the Government's intention that the regulation of video-sharing platforms in the UK will be superseded by the online harms legislation, once the latter comes into force. Further details on the plans for online harms regulation will be set out in the full government response to the consultation on the Online Harms White Paper, which is due to be published later this year, with draft legislation ready in early 2021. With that, I beg to move.

Senior Labour MPs have called on the government to step up censorship of the internet and to censor non-supportive comments about coronavirus vaccines.

The shadow culture secretary, Jo Stevens, and the shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, have written to the government warning that our historic strength in vaccine uptake must not be taken for granted as the prospect of a treatment for the virus looms.

The Labour ministers are calling for financial and criminal penalties for social media companies that fail to censor posts promoting anti-vaccination content. The opposition ministers claim that anti-vaccination groups with almost 100,000 users can be found within seconds of logging on to Facebook.

Stevens claimed that the government has a pitiful track record on taking action against online platforms that are facilitating the spread of disinformation/

The upcoming social media website Tiktok will allow UK politicians to review its algorithm, after MPs challenged the firm over censorship concerns and ties to the Chinese government.

Tiktok's UK director of government relations and public policy Elizabeth Kanter said members of the Business Select Committee were welcome to visit its transparency centre, to review its algorithm and the way it moderates content.

Of course the very  idea of algorithms has evolved into some sort of assumption that they are a sinister means of corrupting the weak minds of social media users. In reality they are probably closer to something simple like:

Give 'em more of what they like and don't bother wasting their time with 'worthy' content that they 'should' like, because they'll only skim over it anyway.

Kanter claimed that the app no longer moderates content based on political sensitivities or affiliation. She said:

We do not censor content, I would encourage you to open the app and search for Tiananmen square, search for Uygher, search for Tibet -- you will find that content on Tik Tok.

Kanter reiterated the company's claim that it would not share any data with its Chinese parent company Bytedance or with the Chinese authorities.

TikTok has also announced that it is upping its censorship of political content. In a blog post, the app said it was expanding its policy to take into account coded language and symbols used to spread hateful ideologies:

Tiktok already removes content related to neo-Nazism and white supremacy, but will now also ban similar ideologies such as white nationalism, white genocide theory, Identitarianism and male supremacy.

Update: And on the subject of the repression of Uyghur muslims

10th November 2020. See article from digitalmusicnews.com

A TikTok executive admitted to UK lawmakers that the platform censors anti-Chinese content. The statement was made during a hearing held by the UK's Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy Committee. Elizabeth Kanter, TikTok's Director of Government Relations and Public Policy, made the damning comments.

The UK hearing was held to determine whether businesses in the UK are exploiting forced labor in those Xinjiang camps. Kanter initially told the committee that TikTok does not censor content . But when pressed about those previous incidents of censorship on the platform, Kanter admitted something different. She said those videos were removed in the early days of TikTok when content was governed by different guidelines. She said:

The people who wrote the content guidelines took a decision to not allow conflict on the platform, and so there were some incidents where content was not allowed on the platform, specifically with regard to the Uyghur situation.

Kanter later backtracked on her comments claiming that she had misspoken.

The disgraceful new Scottish hate crime and blasphemy bill will criminalise free speech in people's own homes, MSPs have been told.

MSPs questioned Scottish 'Justice' Secretary Humza Yousaf over the censorship legislation during an evidence session before the Holyrood Justice Committee. The new proposed legislation will introduce a stirring-up of hate offence on characteristics including religion, and sexual orientation.

However critics note that the Hate Crime and Public Order Bill, which centres around plans for a new offence of stirring up hatred, will stifle freedom of expression.

BBC Scotland, Catholic bishops, the Humanist Society of Scotland, and the Scottish Police Federation are amongst those to have raised concerns, along with Mr Bean star Rowan Atkinson and writer Val McDermid.

Because of this, Yousaf was forced to moderate the legislation and marginally change the controversial stirring up offences section which has been condemned by opponents. It now means stirring up offences would be limited to intent relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics and therefore prosecutions could only be brought in this respect.

Liam Kerr MSP, Scottish Conservative Justice Spokesman, added: The Hate Crime Bill was a mess when the SNP first brought it to parliament and it still contains serious issues that need to be fixed. He said:

Tinkering around the margins will not fix the most controversial bill in Scottish Parliament history.

This latest admission from the justice secretary confirms what so many respondents to the consultation have warned 203 that as drafted, this Bill means free speech could be criminalised within the home with friends you've invited over for a dinner party, and that Mr Yousaf is perfectly comfortable with that.

The SNP need to be clear with the Scottish public about exactly what they intend this Hate Crime Bill to do.

They can't keep trying to force through dangerous attacks on freedom of speech.

Update: Stronger free speech protection needed over hate crime bill urges the National Secular Society

31st October 2020. See article from secularism.org.uk

The National Secular Society has urged the Scottish government to ensure freedom of expression is adequately protected after ministers hinted at possible concessions in a bill on hate crime.

NSS chief executive Stephen Evans met with government representatives on Thursday and urged them to reconsider plans to criminalise stirring up hatred on various grounds, including religion.

Mr Evans warned that the vague and highly subjective wording in the bill risked chilling free speech and sending the message that the law was there to protect people from being offended.

Part of the bill, which is currently making its way through the Scottish parliament, would criminalise behaviour deemed threatening or abusive and intended to stir up hatred.

As part of its case the NSS argued that protections for free speech in the relevant section of the bill should be at least as strong as their equivalents in England and Wales.

Offsite Comment: Scotland is leading the way to totalitarianism

2nd November 2020. See article from unherd.com by Rod Dreher

 A bill brought forth by the SNP aims to police what citizens say at home