Edam

UK speech regulator Ofcom wants the power to block websites in the UK before it has finished investigating them. Its chief executive compared this to putting a prisoner on remand. The website is the prisoner, and nobody has proved it did anything. The regulator also wants a lower bar for court orders that cut sites off from payment providers, ad networks, search engines and ISPs. It wants “proactive technology” to detect illegal content too. That category includes foreign interference, which UK law says can be committed by presenting information misleadingly even when all of it is true. Ofcom admits it can’t collect most of the fines it hands to companies abroad. Its answer is more power. Then MPs got to VPNs. The committee chair worried teenagers would dodge the under-16 social media ban. Dawes said there isn’t much anyone can do “short of taking action against VPNs” and called that a decision for the government. reclaimthenet.org/uk-ofcom-c…