Ex judge blasts ill-defined Online Safety Bill

A distinguished lawyer and former Supreme Court judge has warned that aspects of the Online Safety Bill are a threat to civil liberties.

Lord Jonathan Sumption, who sat on the UK Supreme Court between 2012 and 2018, believes provisions targeting 'legal but harmful’ speech are dangerously vague and will chill free speech.

Writing for The Spectator Magazine, he said:

"The real vice of the bill is that its provisions are not limited to material capable of being defined and identified. It creates a new category of speech which is legal but ‘harmful’. The range of material covered is almost infinite, the only limitation being that it must be liable to cause ‘harm’ to some people.

"Unfortunately, that is not much of a limitation. Harm is defined in the bill in circular language of stratospheric vagueness...Many things which are harmless to the overwhelming majority of users may be harmful to sufficiently sensitive, fearful or vulnerable minorities, or may be presented as such".

The future of the UK Government's online safety regime is uncertain given the ongoing Tory leadership contest. The next Prime Minister may choose to edit aspects of the bill.

At the beginning of the contest, both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss said they were conscious of free speech concerns and would ensure that civil liberties are not undermined.

Read more on what they said, and some analysis of the Online Safety Bill by our policy expert Tim Cairns, in this article:

What do the Tory leadership finalists think of the Online Safety Bill?