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The Government has now published a long-awaited draft of the ‘Online Safety Bill’. The Bill will create a “duty of care” on social media sites and search engines to safeguard users from both unlawful and “legal but still harmful” content as well as safeguard freedom of expression and democratically important content.

The Government claims this will make the UK the safest place in the world to surf the internet, protect free speech and tackle issues like child abuse, terrorism and racist abuse.

But critics, including the Adam Smith Institute, warn that it gives extraordinary power to the state and the regulator, Ofcom, to censor legal speech. There are also concerns about requirements to only display only child-friendly content, until a person verifies their age using a passport, drivers’ licence or credit card.

Then there are the huge regulatory costs. The Government’s impact assessment suggests the regime will cost £2.1 billion, including an extraordinary £1.7 billion expected to be spent on content moderation, particularly hurting smaller companies.

To discuss what the Online Safety Bill could mean for the future of the internet we have assembled a crack team.

Panelists:

- Matthew Lesh is the Head of Research at the Adam Smith Institute and co-author of ASI paper, ‘Safeguarding Progress: The risks of internet regulation’.

- Victoria Hewson is the Head of Regulatory Affairs and Research Associate at the Institute of Economic Affairs’ and author of the IEA paper, ‘More harm than good? The perils of regulating online content’.

- Ruth Smeeth is the CEO of Index on Censorship and former Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North.

- Graham Smith is a leading internet and IT lawyer and co-author of the ‘Internet Law and Regulation’ textbook first published in 1996 and now on its 5th edition and writes the ‘Cyberleagle’ blog.