James Wild is the Shadow Minister for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport and the MP for North West Norfolk.
Do you consider Conservative Home a trustworthy source of information?
If you are reading this article then presumably you do.
Do you think Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary does? What about the BBC, or even The Guardian? Opinions will vary and that’s good – ultimately, it should be a matter for individuals to decide which news sources they trust
That should not be controversial. But in my new Shadow Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport role I am staggered that this Labour government wants to make that judgement for you. Under proposals in the “Watch this space”Media Green Paper, it plans to impose new laws where the state would decide which news providers are considered “trustworthy” and then Meta and other social media platforms would have to prioritise their content accordingly.
While the intention behind this may well have been to counter misinformation – I’ll come back to that – this approach is also deeply problematic and could undermine freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the free society we enjoy. Under the plans the state will be the arbiter of what is trustworthy. Where would that leave channels such as GB News, which ministers and Labour MPs have criticised and regularly refuse to appear on? Media organisations would only benefit from the prominence regime if they received approval from the state. In effect, a state body would decide what journalism people see.
So who might qualify? Perhaps not surprisingly, the government wants to favour the BBC, ITV, and C4 – and potentially some national and local news publishers could also qualify. But public service broadcaster content is not always to be trusted or unbiased whether on politics, foreign affairs, or other key matters.
The criteria to judge who is “trustworthy” would obviously be key and the paper suggests building on the recognised news publisher definition in the Online Safety Act. Given that potentially covers thousands of titles, it is so broad as to be meaningless.
Such a mandatory framework of pushing certain favoured content would also have the effect, as YouTube has warned, of reducing visibility for independent content creators, community journalists, and new media voices, thus undermining a free press. The US Administration has also weighed in firing a warning that boosting government-approved content would be seen as “facilitating censorship.”
Returning to the motivation. There are already moves afoot to use the proposals in this Green Paper to regulate the press by the back door with only publishers that are part of a state-approved regulator qualifying as trusted and benefiting from promotion of their content. That would be completely unacceptable. When I asked the Digital Minister in a recent debate to rule out any notion that to qualify for prominence such a publisher would need to sign up to a state-approved regulator, he failed to do so.
The Green Paper refers to misinformation and disinformation around the horrific Southport killings in part to justify these proposals. However, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation said the information released by authorities after those appalling attacks was “inadequate” and led to those who wanted to spread disinformation being able to do so. Police forces now share more information more rapidly as a result.
More broadly, Ofcom found that more than three quarters of people think it important to check different sources if they are unsure whether a news story is true. That should be reassuring.
Competition for poor policy ideas coming from this government is fierce but the state deciding which news sources are trustworthy and must be promoted on social media and video sharing sites is a strong contender.
The Conservative Party supports a free press and freedom of speech. The government directing the journalism people see is an illiberal attack on a free press and free speech. As this was an idea from Sir Keir Starmer’s time, perhaps the new Prime Minister will do the right thing and consign it to the policy dustbin. Watch this space.
James Wild is the Shadow Minister for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport and the MP for North West Norfolk.
Do you consider Conservative Home a trustworthy source of information?
If you are reading this article then presumably you do.
Do you think Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary does? What about the BBC, or even The Guardian? Opinions will vary and that’s good – ultimately, it should be a matter for individuals to decide which news sources they trust
That should not be controversial. But in my new Shadow Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport role I am staggered that this Labour government wants to make that judgement for you. Under proposals in the “Watch this space”Media Green Paper, it plans to impose new laws where the state would decide which news providers are considered “trustworthy” and then Meta and other social media platforms would have to prioritise their content accordingly.
While the intention behind this may well have been to counter misinformation – I’ll come back to that – this approach is also deeply problematic and could undermine freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the free society we enjoy. Under the plans the state will be the arbiter of what is trustworthy. Where would that leave channels such as GB News, which ministers and Labour MPs have criticised and regularly refuse to appear on? Media organisations would only benefit from the prominence regime if they received approval from the state. In effect, a state body would decide what journalism people see.
So who might qualify? Perhaps not surprisingly, the government wants to favour the BBC, ITV, and C4 – and potentially some national and local news publishers could also qualify. But public service broadcaster content is not always to be trusted or unbiased whether on politics, foreign affairs, or other key matters.
The criteria to judge who is “trustworthy” would obviously be key and the paper suggests building on the recognised news publisher definition in the Online Safety Act. Given that potentially covers thousands of titles, it is so broad as to be meaningless.
Such a mandatory framework of pushing certain favoured content would also have the effect, as YouTube has warned, of reducing visibility for independent content creators, community journalists, and new media voices, thus undermining a free press. The US Administration has also weighed in firing a warning that boosting government-approved content would be seen as “facilitating censorship.”
Returning to the motivation. There are already moves afoot to use the proposals in this Green Paper to regulate the press by the back door with only publishers that are part of a state-approved regulator qualifying as trusted and benefiting from promotion of their content. That would be completely unacceptable. When I asked the Digital Minister in a recent debate to rule out any notion that to qualify for prominence such a publisher would need to sign up to a state-approved regulator, he failed to do so.
The Green Paper refers to misinformation and disinformation around the horrific Southport killings in part to justify these proposals. However, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation said the information released by authorities after those appalling attacks was “inadequate” and led to those who wanted to spread disinformation being able to do so. Police forces now share more information more rapidly as a result.
More broadly, Ofcom found that more than three quarters of people think it important to check different sources if they are unsure whether a news story is true. That should be reassuring.
Competition for poor policy ideas coming from this government is fierce but the state deciding which news sources are trustworthy and must be promoted on social media and video sharing sites is a strong contender.
The Conservative Party supports a free press and freedom of speech. The government directing the journalism people see is an illiberal attack on a free press and free speech. As this was an idea from Sir Keir Starmer’s time, perhaps the new Prime Minister will do the right thing and consign it to the policy dustbin. Watch this space.