Tag Archives: Online Safety Act

It’s Sunday, 4 July 2027, three years since Labour’s historic landslide victory.

By Prem Raghvani | Fri 8th August 2025 - 9:40 am

Want to check how many seats they won before half the backbench got booted for defending something dangerous like, I don’t know, free school meals? Let’s pull up the Wikipedia article.

Oh, hang on… we’ll need to verify our ID first.

Can’t have children accidentally learning about something subversive like austerity. Not after Wikipedia was designated a “Category 1” site under the Online Safety Act.

They fought it, of course – took the government to court back in 2025. But after a year of legal ping-pong and mounting fees, they gave in.

Now you just need a passport, facial scan, your National Insurance number, and town of birth to access an article about the 2024 General Election. All in the name of protecting the children.

Anyway, silly me, I just remembered it’s Sunday. Time to visit my parents, as I do every week.

I figured I’d take the newly renationalised railway. It’s more environmentally friendly, and the pride of the country. Trains were invented here, after all. Thank you, George Stephenson. Silly me.

Oh wait. Half of Northern’s timetable has been scrapped again today for “essential maintenance”, including the train I had a ticket for.

The one that did show up just sort of gave up outside Rochdale. You can’t really blame it, it’s over 30 years old. No apology, just a poor railway worker left to deal with the backlash, quietly pointing us to the Delay Repay website.

Which I tried to use. After all, I paid £275 for my super-duper-extra-amazing off-peak train ticket that got me… precisely nowhere.

But naturally, the Delay Repay, and the complaints form is now behind an age verification wall too.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged digital ID | 4 Comments

A Defence of the Online Safety Act: Protecting children while ensuring effective implementation

By Tim Clement-Jones | Wed 6th August 2025 - 8:55 am

Despite no doubt good intentions, Liberal Reform’s recent piece on Lib Dem Voice seems to treat child protection online as an abstract policy preference. The evidence reveals something far more urgent. By age 11, 27% of children have already been exposed to pornography, with the average age of first exposure at just 13. Twitter (X) alone accounts for 41% of children’s pornography exposure, followed by dedicated sites at 37%.

The consequences are profound and measurable. Research shows that 79% of 18-21 year olds have seen content involving sexual violence before turning 18, and young people aged 16-21 are now more likely to assume that girls expect or enjoy physical aggression during sex. Close to half (47%) of all respondents aged 18-21 had experienced a violent sex act, with girls the most impacted.

When we know that children’s accounts on TikTok are shown harmful content every 39 seconds, with suicide content appearing within 2.6 minutes and eating disorder content within 8 minutes, the question is not whether we should act, but how we can act most effectively.

This is not “micromanaging” people’s rights – this is responding to a public health emergency that is reshaping an entire generation’s understanding of relationships, consent, and self-worth.

Liberal Reform’s abstract arguments about civil liberties need to be set against the voices of bereaved families who fought for the Online Safety Act. The parents of Molly Russell, Frankie Thomas, Olly Stephens, Archie Battersbee, Breck Bednar, and twenty other children who died following exposure to harmful online content did not campaign for theoretical freedoms – they campaigned for their children’s right to life itself.

These families faced years of stonewalling from tech companies who refused to provide basic information about the content their children had viewed before their deaths. The Act now requires platforms to support coroner investigations and provide clear processes for bereaved families to obtain answers. This is not authoritarianism – it is basic accountability

To repeal the Online Safety Act would indeed be a massive own-goal and a win for Elon Musk and the other tech giants who care nothing for our children’s safety. The protections of the Act were too hard won, and are simply too important, to turn our back on.

Posted in Op-eds | 22 Comments

We have a duty of care to speak out against the Online Safety Act

By The Board Of Liberal Reform | Mon 28th July 2025 - 6:30 pm

We are the party of civil liberties – that is what, we would argue, should be an uncontested fact. From the Snoopers Charter to campaigning for equal rights for minority communities, it is the raison d’être of the Liberal Democrats and the Liberal Party before us to stand up for civil liberties, recognising that the role of the state is not to micromanage or infringe on people’s core rights.

This belief is why we at Liberal Reform are so opposed to the Online Safety Act (OSA). Fundamentally, legislation should seek to make a positive difference to the lives of people it effects.

So why is this legislation so flawed?

There are a range of reasons why the OSA is so flawed.

Posted in News | 40 Comments

Stronger provisions of the Online Safety Act needed according to Lib Dem tech spokesperson

By Tim Clement-Jones | Tue 27th August 2024 - 3:00 pm

With the new government’s expansion of the scope and size of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, there is a real opportunity to accelerate the digital transformation of public services.

Bringing together officials from the Government Digital Service, the Incubator for AI, and the Central Digital Data Office under one Departmental roof ensures that it will be much better equipped to enable digital transformation in key areas, including justice, education and healthcare. The appointment of Lord Vallance as Science Minister is a real coup which testifies to the willingness of the new government to use external expertise.

Posted in Op-eds | 1 Comment