Want to order dinner from Pizza Hut? You’ll have to show ID before you can take the box. Want to learn about what’s happening in Gaza and Ukraine via social media? Ditto. Do you want to watch an MP’s Commons speech on stopping child sexual abuse, sign up to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new political party, or send a message to a friend on Bluesky? Listen to a podcast on Spotify? Get online support to stop smoking or drinking? Yes, altogether now: you’ll have to show ID first.
Welcome to the new normal, thanks to the government’s Online Safety Act. Possibly our most vaguely drafted bit of legislation, it limped into force at the end of July with the stated aim of restricting children’s access to pornography and any material that promotes suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, or otherwise abusive and hateful behaviour.
Few will disagree that children being able to access such content is a real issue, and indeed, public polling from YouGov suggests that 80 per cent of the country agrees with that element of the act, although the question they’re asked is simply whether they think kids shouldn’t watch porn. The problem is that this Frankenstein’s monster of a law, years in the making thanks to a contentious game of parliamentary ping-pong, isn’t just, as the government is trying to spin it, a way to protect your child from online harm.
The dragnet put into law by the government is so broad that users are being prompted to prove they’re of age when they visit websites that have nothing whatsoever to do with these topics. Make no mistake: this is the digital equivalent of Brexit border checks; an unnecessary and self-inflicted bureaucracy that makes life materially harder and more frustrating for us all, simply to appease a small number of shouty voices.
Already, support for the act is waning. Four in five of us supported it before it was implemented. When the rubber hit the road, and stop-and-search-style age checks started popping up on web browsers and phone screens, support dropped to 69 per cent. Half a million people have signed a petition asking the government to repeal it. The government has said they hear the criticism, but they’re not going to listen, and has indeed told the likes of Nigel Farage and Reform UK that opposing the Act means they’re on the side of predators like Jimmy Savile.
The reality is that the Online Safety Act was always going to flounder, and anyone in government might have realised this would happen. Legislating the act was always a game of parliamentary pass the parcel, where whoever was caught holding it when the music stopped would unwrap a booby trap ready to explode.
A different government might have kicked the can down the road for the next lot to handle. But they didn’t, so here we are, lumbered with a law that doesn’t work and which is a massive inconvenience to everyone. Now they’ve seen how it works, the proportion of the public who think the act won’t be effective in its goal of stopping those under 18 getting access to adult content has shot up. It doesn’t help that you can get around the supposedly world-leading age verification checks by opening up a new tab and typing in three little letters – VPN – or loading up a video game and pointing your camera at a character instead.
We’re used to politicians telling us up is down and night is day. But don’t be fooled: this isn’t working and it never will. We do need protections for children, so don’t follow Nigel Farage’s advice. Don’t repeal it. Rewrite the law.
