Online Safety Bill Formally Introduced To Parliament

On 17 March 2022, the Government published its much-anticipated re-draft of the Online Safety Bill, following various announcements over the last few months as to new features to be added to the Bill. We intend to publish a more comprehensive analysis of the latest draft in due course, but here's a quick overview of the key changes (and you can read our previous publications and blogs on the Bill here, here, and here).

• Social media platforms will only be required to remove 'legal but harmful' content which has been specifically designated as such by the Government (through secondary legislation) and approved by Parliament, which it is hoped will make it easier for regulated service providers to determine what content to take down and prevent over-removal of content at the expense of freedom of expression.