United Kingdom: Passed Online Safety Bill including measures for harmful content regulation and minor protection
Description
Passed Online Safety Bill including measures for harmful content regulation and minor protection
On 17 January 2023, the Online Safety Bill was passed by the UK House of Commons and will now be considered by the House of Lords. The Bill sets up basic levels of content moderation regulation for user to user services and search services, with additional duties for services likely to be accessed by children, and services exceeding a certain user volume. The current version of the Bill employs what the government calls a "triple shield" approach to content moderation obligations of user to user services towards adults users, which requires service providers to remove illegal content and content that violates their terms of service, while providing adult users with wider control over the content that is shown. Notably, the current version of the Bill would also include a number of communications offences, while removing the "harmful communications offence" that was included in a previous version of the Bill.
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