The Online Safety Act censors dissent, while letting paedophiles roam free

Telegraph

14 hours ago

Outrage over the Online Safety Act 's age-verification mandates has tended thus far to focus on amusing, if frustrating, hurdles the law has thrown up for ordinary citizens: issues playing music on streaming services, trouble ordering pizzas and the possibility of Wikipedia going offline for huge chunks of the population.
But missing amongst the discussion is a key point. It will fail to protect children because it misdirects attention and focus away from the real problem.
Which is that there is far too little investigating, charging, prosecuting and convicting actual paedophiles and child pornographers.
I'm not talking about the grooming gangs scandal, though of course that is germane to the discussion. The Online Safety Act has forced censorship of tweets about that particular vile series of incidents, including information that might better equip today's potential victims with information that could enable them to spot grooming behaviour and ultimately stay free of gangs' snares.
I'm talking about actual failures to investigate, charge, prosecute and convict those involved in creating, selling, and sharing child sex abuse material where the supposed big, bad guys in the room – the tech companies – have actually alerted the authorities and given them the information they need to arrest abusers and child pornographers.
Few policymakers, let alone laymen, are aware that tech giants – the overwhelming majority of which are US incorporated – are required by US law to report instances of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's (NCMEC) CyberTipline.
Still fewer are likely aware that when a report is made, 'geographic indicators related to the upload location of the CSAM are used to make the report available to the appropriate law enforcement '.
This is what that means in practice: the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children reported that there were 178,648 UK cyber tips made in 2023, overwhelmingly because of reporting by Big Tech firms. Yet Home Office data indicates only 39,640 child sexual abuse image offences in England and Wales in year 2023-2024. That's a small fraction of the volume of CSAM reports made through the CyberTipline.
It is true that an apples-to-apples comparison is not 100 per cent feasible. Data in respect of Scotland and Northern Ireland is not included in that 39,640 number. British Transport Police report their data separate to the Home Office. NCMEC compiles its data by calendar year, whereas Home Office data is compiled over a fiscal year. There are a few other wrinkles, too.
But the bottom line is, a small proportion of probable child-porn offences in Britain are being investigated by law enforcement, despite tech companies having reported them. If those crimes are not being investigated, the criminals responsible will never be charged, let alone prosecuted, convicted, or imprisoned. And that is a huge problem that no amount of social media regulation will ever fix.
What is being done about it?
As things stand, the Home Office budget is set to decline by 2.6 per cent by 2028-2029. And that decline comes on top of an already anticipated £1.2bn shortfall in police funding, according to the National Police Chiefs Council.
The fiscal picture in Britain seems to look increasingly bleak, and it's hard to believe that Rachel Reeves is going to conjure up more money for policing as opposed to pressing further cuts. It's a mathematical conundrum above most of our pay grades to sort through, but sort through it she must. Abused kids are counting on her doing so.
But as societies – whether in Britain, the EU, US or globally – we also need to hold the right actors to account, and place our focus squarely where it should sit.
That is law enforcement, and the politicians who determine how much money they will allocate to it, plus which policies our leaders will require police to adhere to in keeping our kids safe. As of right now, that means actually busting child predators, not engaging in misdirection targeting tech firms.