Orwellian law worthy of Putin and Kim would leave media freedom in tatters

THERE can be no doubt that the Government’s plans to counter ‘Online Harms’ unveiled yesterday are based on good intentions. But as the old proverb reminds us, the road to hell is paved with those.

For, no matter how well-meaning, the proposals to regulate the web could give a future less liberal government – perhaps one led by Jeremy Corbyn – the power to clamp down on the thing it most fears: freedom of the Press and free speech.

A week, as they say, is a long time in politics. Just last Friday Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, himself a former Culture Secretary, announced to great fanfare that celebrity human rights lawyer Amal Clooney will be Britain’s ‘special envoy on media freedom’.

It was supposed to be a signal to the world that Britain will lead the charge against the rise of despotic leaders and the introduction of draconian censorship laws around the world.

Yet three days later, the very same Government of which Mr Hunt is a senior member proposed setting up an official regulator in the UK armed with the sort of repressive powers we associate with totalitarian police states.

Will Special envoy Clooney lead a designer- heeled demonstration up Whitehall in protest? I wouldn’t hold my breath.

The Online Harms White Paper proposes a sweeping, punitive system of regulation that hopes to remedy a range of problems, from terrorist propaganda and child pornography to ‘fake news’ and trolling.

In a chilling section that could have been lifted out of George Orwell’s 1984, it states the Home Secretary of the day would sign off the rules on terror and child exploitation content.

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the moment, the ostensible targets of these measures are tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, which have been rightly slated for hosting potentially harmful content.

But give censors an inch and they will take a mile. It would, I predict, be only a matter of time before Britain’s proud history of media freedom and freedom of speech lies in tatters.

The White Paper’s one-size-fitsall approach would hand extraordinary powers to a new regulator, Ofweb, to fine, restrict and ultimately bar non- compliant websites – regardless of how big they are.

This means that the same rules that govern behemoths such as Google and Facebook – both of which have expert in-house legal teams and billions of pounds at their disposal – will apply to any website, however small or harmless, that allows users to post comments.

Tory MP and former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, writing at the weekend, was completely justified in warning that the proposals risk dragging Britain into a ‘ draconian censorship regime’ more akin to China, Russia or North Korea. No other Western democratic state has countenanced similarly far-reaching controls.

Of course, Theresa May is no Putin-style ‘strongman’ and current Home Secretary Sajid Javid would make an unlikely Kim Jongun. But once such an apparatus is in place, what is to stop a future, more regressive government from using those powers for its own political ends?

Imagine Labour’s blinkered Home Secretary Diane Abbott, entrusted with overseeing the regulator which enforces the rules for what can and cannot be seen online?

While her hapless TV performances in recent years suggest she may not be much good with numbers, we can have a fair notion of what her No 1 target would be.

Since Jeremy Corbyn took control of the Labour Party in 2015, he has waged a shameless Stalinist war on what he sees as the trouble-making media.

His party may not agree about Brexit or much else, but there are no divisions on Labour’s frontbench when it comes to bashing the Press.

Deputy leader Tom Watson – himself the recipient of £500,000 of donations in one year from multimillionaire Max Mosley, an ardent campaigner for stricter Press control – has long crusaded for greater media restrictions.

Years before Watson became Labour’s deputy leader, he was a zealous supporter of the celebrityled Hacked Off campaign for tighter Press regulation.

Back then, he had no qualms about using the victims of phonehacking as the human shields behind which he could advance his political agenda.

Since his rise to prominence under Corbyn, he has championed the introduction of ‘Section 40’ measures that would in effect blackmail the media into signing up to Britain’s first system of state-backed Press regulation since 1695.

Last summer, in a rare speech spelling out what a Labour government would do, Corbyn also made clear his own disturbing desire for government-approved journalism produced by a tame, state-financed media.

He suggested plans for a special tax on tech giants, not to fund social care or anything useful, but to finance ‘public interest journalism’ as defined, not by the public, but by a Labour-controlled organisation.

There is no question that the current Labour Party hierarchy would love to nationalise the news to stop the media asking awkward questions of those in power.

‘Just because it’s on the front page of The Sun or The Mail doesn’t automatically make it news,’ Corbyn said last summer.

What he meant was: ‘Just because it’s news, doesn’t automatically mean it should be allowed on the front page of The Mail.’

Corbyn’s contempt for Press freedom has some surprising allies in high places. Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, Britain’s top anti-terror cop, last month published an ‘open letter’ to the media on ‘how to report terrorism’ following the Christchurch mosque atrocity in New Zealand.

He called for a ‘sensible conversation’ which seems eminently reasonable. But what ACC Basu was really calling for was powers for the police or other authorities to issue orders to newspapers and TV broadcasters on what they can and cannot publish – something that wouldn’t seem out of place in an Orwellian police state.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that ACC Basu has expressed his support for the new White Paper. After all, it smoothly followed on from his warning that ‘we cannot simply hide behind the mantra of freedom of speech’.

But if there is a ‘mantra’ being chanted repeatedly in Britain today, it is certainly not in defence of free speech.

Instead, we face a new breed of thought police who preach that society needs even more restrictions on what is permissable to say, hear read and even think.

FREEDOM of speech and of the Press are the lifeblood of any civilised society. And Britain has led the way in securing those liberties. Our nation’s history is awash with heroes who would fight to the death for a free Press, from the Levellers during the english Civil War through to John Wilkes and Thomas Paine in the 18th century.

Brave people went to jail – and even the gallows – to ensure that the Press remained untainted by state interference. Today’s politicians would do well to remember their actions.

Racist, sexist and vile online content should always be condemned. But the problem, once you decide to impose new limits, is always the same: who decides where to draw the line?

Should it be the PM or the Home Secretary? A few high court judges? Or Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow cabinet? Or perhaps Simon Cowell and Cheryl?

Or should we just leave it to the unaccountable members of an ‘ independent’ quango such as Ofweb?

When it comes to media regulation, there is no such thing as ‘independent’. There are no ‘independent’ angels hovering on a cloud above the political fray below; everybody has an agenda, an angle, or an axe to grind.

However worthy the motives, every attempt further to restrict freedom of expression inevitably invites more of the same.

Defending media freedom online may not seem the easy, comfortable option. But there is always one thing more harmful than free speech – and that’s its opposite.

Mick Hume is the author of Trigger Warning: Is The Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?