Thread by @PaulbernalUK

A short thread on the #OnlineSafetyBill. I hope I’m wrong, but I get the impression that the bill is still getting effective support across most of the political spectrum: it really shouldn’t be. Opposition politicians all over have recognised many of the government’s bills… 1/n

…as being authoritarian, incoherent, insular, badly written, inappropriate and capable of massive misuse. We see it over policing - Steve Bray and ‘noisy protest’ - over the NI Protocol bill, over things like voter ID - but we don’t see it enough over the #OnlineSafetyBill. 2/n

…when in practice it has all those flaws, and all those *dangers* built in. It is incoherent. It is full of wishful thinking and full of misunderstandings of how the internet works. It will be counterproductive *making the internet less safe* - and it will be abused. 3/n

…and it will be misused. We saw how the policing bill was misused *on the first day* over Steve Bray. We should expect exactly the same over the #OnlineSafetyBill. It can and will be used to stifle freedom of speech on line - and used as a weapon in the culture wars. 4/n

…and is *very likely* to be used as a way to reduce the accessibility of encryption, to clamp down on anonymity and pseudonymity in ways that make the net much *less safe* for vulnerable people - and indeed for the opponents of this government. 5/n

So please, don’t treat this any differently from other government bills. It’s not a ‘technical’ piece of legislation, it’s not about online safety. It’s another piece of damaging, authoritarian and incoherent legislation that will be harmful for almost everyone. 6/6

P.S. When the bill’s champion is Nadine Dorries, that should ring alarm bells.