Word reaches Guido that the government intends to publish a green paper on the future of broadcasting in the UK either in the coming week or the week after. More Ofcom expansion and pot shots at right-of-centre outlets incoming…
The main news, however, is set to be a range of measures to force private social media companies to ‘give prominence’ to public service content. Translated, that means giving the BBC preference in search results and on the algorithm of video sites such as YouTube. It’s not as if the BBC already has total dominance of the broadcast market or anything, holding as it does more than 75% of average viewing time…
Other platforms like TikTok will likely be affected. Could the timing have anything to do with the fact that YouTube overtook the total audience reach of the BBC recently?
Forcing British consumers to consume BBC and other public broadcasting content while they browse their phones is yet another government intervention in the free media market. It’s bad for content creators, will only increase antipathy to the BBC, and is an infringement on the freedom of scrollers everywhere. Starmer wants a legacy to justify his two disastrous years in Number 10. This is what it looks like…
The Northern Ireland Secretary has said ‘false information’ online will be clamped down on by Ofcom as part of new powers Labour is handing the internet regulator. All for dealing with “times of crisis“…
Hilary Benn criticised a second night of protest in Belfast last night: “If you are targeting people on the basis of the colour of their skin, how else can you describe them? That is racist thuggery. There’s no question about it at all.”
Ofcom said it had contacted X and other social media platforms because Labour ministers claimed violence “appears to have been incited online.” When asked what a “time of crisis” is on Times Radio, Benn said “that will be set out in due course” and confirmed that events in Belfast fall under the definition. He said people who put out “false information” will be targeted by new powers:
“If people are putting online false information – we have seen the chief constable spoke about this yesterday. We have seen people putting online addresses and the clear incitement is ‘that is an address you should go to because ethnic minority people live there’ and we have seen that in the past people being burned out of their homes because of the color of their skin. Now, it is not acceptable and it may well be a criminal offence depending on the circumstances as the chief constable made clear yesterday. It is not acceptable for that to be done.”
This is teeing up the government to take harsh action against ‘legal but harmful’ content online. Emergency brakes on free exchange of information and views when something out of the ordinary takes place…
The new chairman of Ofcom has suggested that the internet/broadcast regulator could take a much tougher approach against GB News. Two-tier regulation…
Former Channel 4 chairman Ian Cheshire was yesterday formally appointed as new chairman the regulator. He spoke to the Science, Innovation, and Technology Committee of MPs late last month about GB News. Asked whether he had seen The New World’s campaign against the channel, Cheshire said Rusbridger had been in contact with him…
He added that the regulator takes a programme by programme approach as opposed to looking at channels as a whole, but said he was“very open to being challenged about that, and I’m intending to meet up with Alan [Rusbridger] in due course.”
Worryingly, when asked about whether he agreed with the current Ofcom framework for allowing politicians to present programmes, Cheshire said: “It is literally the second question in my induction plan… it is very high on the list.” Activists and anti-GB News rags like The New World have been pushing that agenda hard…
Cheshire’s predecessor Lord Grade said those same activists are “embarrassed by the fact that there is a news organisation that has a different news agenda to them, that speaks to the agenda of the majority.“ And that it now beats Sky News and BBC News on the regular…
A new technical document from Ofcom has introduced the ability for the BBC to mark its own homework. All while it can go about hammering GB News…
Buried in its 11 May consultation response on assessing changes to the BBC’s public services, the internet/broadcast regulator has reserved the right to skip a full competition assessment of BBC changes if it judges it lacks the resources to do one:
“There may be times where, in line with our administrative priorities, we will need to consider whether we have the resources needed to conduct a competition assessment.”
Ofcom’s headcount has grown from 1,483 to 1,608 full-time equivalents between 2023-24 and 2024-25. On the very same day as publishing the document, Ofcom found the bandwidth to reopen a GB News investigation it had already cleared over a re-run of a Bev Turner – Trump interview aired twelve hours later on a different show. If Ofcom spent less time bowing to anti-GB News activists maybe it could find the time to scrutinise the BBC…
Lord Michael Grade, recently-departed Ofcom chairman, said anti-GB News critics are “embarrassed by the fact that there is a news organisation that has a different news agenda to them, that speaks to the agenda of the majority – if you look at the polls, a large swathe of the voting population, who have no voice on the BBC. Immigration, Brexit, these are all issues that don’t get the weight on the BBC, or haven’t been able to, that GB News will give, so what’s the problem?” Quite…
Ian Cheshire has been selected by the government as its preferred candidate to chair Ofcom. Can someone pass Margaret Hodge a tissue…
Cheshire will replace Lord Grade, whose term ends this month. Cheshire is former chairman of Channel 4 and CEO of retail group Kingfisher. He has also had stints as chairman of of Barclays UK, Debenhams plc, Maisons du Monde and Menhaden…
His quote:
“Across my career in e-commerce, telecoms and broadcasting I have seen first-hand how much effective regulation matters – for consumers, for businesses and for the wider economy. Ofcom has a critical job to do at a time of rapid change in how people communicate, access information and stay safe online. I look forward to setting out my vision for how Ofcom can meet those challenges when I appear before the Select Committee.”
Ofcom is responsible for enforcing the hated Online Safety Act and has attracted severe criticism for its two-tier treatment of GB News. The regulator’s reputation is in tatters…
Preston Byrne, known to co-conspirators as the 4chan lawyer who last week trolled Ofcom with a picture of a giant hamster, has co-authored a model ‘Free Speech Bill’ that would function as a British First Amendment.
Published by the Adam Smith Institute, the bill would repeal the Online Safety Act, Public Order Acts, and Malicious Communications Act in their entirety. In their place, it would establish a broad statutory right to expression including speech that is “offensive, grossly offensive, insulting, abusive, shocking, blasphemous, indecent, or otherwise objectionable”. It would also gut Ofcom’s content regulatory powers. Basic protections you’d expect in a free society…
Byrne has published an overview of the bill here. The key lines:
“In a free society, fools, bigots, and assholes get to speak and remain free men. That is not the price of liberty. It is liberty, and the rest of us get it too. The Model Bill’s authors are aware that this Model Bill, if enacted, would decriminalise expression that we find morally repugnant.
We accept and embrace that consequence. But we ask the reader to consider who these laws actually catch. Overwhelmingly, victims of the UK’s censorship state are not hardened extremists, who operate in encrypted channels beyond the reach of any statute, but ordinary people. The present state of the UK, where expressing an opinion that gives rise to even mild offence may result in arrest, and does result in arrest, for tens of thousands of people per year, is a heavy price that this country has been paying for two decades.”
Spot on. Good luck convincing Labour to listen…
Read the full bill below…
Continue reading “ASI Publishes First Amendment-Style British Free Speech Bill”
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”