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Joy Hyvarinen, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship, discusses the UK government’s online harms white paper with Jim Gamble, CEO INEQE Safeguarding Group on BBC Radio Foyle’s Breakfast Show.
Hyvarinen said: “If you have a legal duty of care and then combine that with the possibility of very large fines and personal criminal responsibility for senior managers, you get a very strong incentive for online platforms to take the easy way out, and just remove and restrict lots and lots of content. If in doubt, censor — take it down. And that’s going to affect millions of normal internet users. “
Joy Hyvarinen, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship, discusses the UK government’s online harms white paper with Vinous Ali, head of policy at Tech UK.
“It’s very important that when you propose laws that will affect people on a very large scale, that it needs to be based on evidence and a thoughtful, careful approach because you can do a huge amount of damage,” Hyvarinen said.
Joy Hyvarinen, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship, discusses the UK government’s online harms white paper with Vinous Ali, head of policy at Tech UK.
“The government is under public pressure to be seen to be doing something about this problem,” Hyvarinen said. “The implications for ordinary internet users have not been considered. If you introduce a duty of care, especially in combination with the risk of fines, it creates a very strong incentive for online platforms to remove and restrict content, and this is really going to impact on free speech rights and the right to information for millions of ordinary internet users in the UK, and it’s also going to set an example internationally.”