\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he \u00a3950,000 fine imposed by Ofcom on a US-based suicide forum that is implicated in over 160 UK deaths marks an intensification of the regulator\u2019s efforts to make the internet safer. Campaigners against online harms, including relatives of people who have taken their own lives, are justifiably angry that it has taken so long to get to this point. Even now, Ofcom is giving the website\u2019s operator the chance to address \u201cconcerns\u201d and avoid a court order that would ban access to it.<\/p>\n But if enforcement remains a tortuous process, at\u00a0least the principle is clear. It is illegal to encourage or assist a suicide in England and Wales (in Scotland, such actions could lead to prosecution as reckless endangerment or a range of other offences). A situation\u00a0whereby behaviour is tolerated online, when it would carry criminal penalties if carried out\u00a0in\u00a0person, cannot be allowed.<\/p>\n There is a parallel with the government\u2019s recent pledge to bring the laws governing online pornography in line with analogue forms (DVDs and magazines). Belatedly, and in response to effective campaigning, ministers and regulators are making efforts to close the gap that divides the rules and norms of the offline world from the chaos of the internet.<\/p>\n No one should underestimate how hard this is. The\u00a0internet is dominated by a handful of enormously\u00a0wealthy US companies, over which the UK\u00a0government has limited sway. Some overseas platforms have reportedly refused to pay Ofcom fines. Earlier this month Meta announced that it is taking the\u00a0regulator to court over its fees and fines. Loopholes in the law make the regulator\u2019s task harder. Under the Online Safety Act, search engines are required to \u201cminimise the risk\u201d of people encountering illegal content, but not to prevent it. Last week the suicide forum\u2019s web address was searchable on Google, meaning that users could access it via a\u00a0virtual private network.<\/p>\n Exerting democratic control in the digital space is among the biggest challenges for governments. Rapid technological advances mean that the act already needs updating to take on board the rollout of AI. Rules governing the behaviour of chatbots, particularly in their interactions with children, urgently need to be agreed.<\/p>\n But even longer-standing issues are not being tackled, as last week\u2019s resignation letter from Jess\u00a0Phillips, who quit the role of safeguarding minister, made clear. The proliferation of child sexual abuse imagery, and the huge increase in arrests linked to such material, is one of the most disturbing trends in crime. Yet according to Ms\u00a0Phillips, detailed plans from the Home Office for a new law that would oblige tech companies to prevent the exchange of naked images on children\u2019s devices were stalled by\u00a0Downing Street.<\/p>\n Whatever other considerations may have contributed to Ms Phillips\u2019 decision in a febrile week of politics, her frustration on that score will be shared by others. The government has pledged to halve violence against women and girls, but lacks a convincing strategy. Campaigners were entitled to expect more from Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s premiership, particularly given his background as a former chief prosecutor. There is a debate to be had about the balance between online safety and free expression. But protecting children from sexual abuse, and blocking illegal material, should be among the priorities of any government. Working with Ofcom, ministers must ramp up their efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The \u00a3950,000 fine imposed by Ofcom on a US-based suicide forum that is implicated in over 160 UK deaths marks an intensification of the regulator\u2019s efforts to make the internet safer. Campaigners against online harms, including relatives of people who have taken their own lives, are justifiably angry that it has taken so long to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1914,1516,1510,3428,408,1145,14052,8912,1092,1511],"class_list":{"0":"post-49503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-content","9":"tag-editorial","10":"tag-guardian","11":"tag-harder","12":"tag-illegal","13":"tag-internet","14":"tag-ofcom","15":"tag-policing","16":"tag-push","17":"tag-view"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}