How do you police the internet? That is the question that the
government sought to answer with the launch of last month's
online harms white paper. The white paper, a cross-departmental
collaboration between the home secretary and the culture secretary,
outlines a proposed regulatory framework to tackle the prevalence
of illegal and harmful content online, dubbed "online
harms."
The concept of "online harms" is a broad one, going
further than illegality (which would include, for example, content
relating to child sexual abuse or terrorism) and encompassing
"harms with a less clear definition" such as trolling,
disinformation and advocacy of self-harm. Currently, such harms
proliferate on internet platforms which are effectively
self-regulating. That may be about to change.
