Sarah Rogers — US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy; in the UK she’d be a DCMS junior minister* — says the GRANITE Act is now “before the House” for consideration:
I’ll start with: I hate that I’m having to retweet GBNews for this, but it’s important…
…because if the GRANITE Act passes then for websites which are wholly within the USA it is not going to be possible for Ofcom to protect people from using a web browser of their own volition to electively connect to those sites without development of a Great Firewall of Britain.
As I have written previously: “Ofcom, pursuing its lawful duties, is about to drive the UK over a cliff and into online censorship” — and UK media discussion desperately needs to diversify from “we must protect children” towards the civil liberties and human rights questions of “…do we really want the UK Government to tell UK Citizens what software they may run and what websites they may connect to…?” — and ideally before it happens, this time.
My audiobook this week is On the Law of Speaking Freely by Glaswegian professor Adam Tomkins. I’m not finished yet, but so far it’s a solid primer on why the state should not have power such as this.
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[*] justification: …”approximately”; DCMS carries roles for “soft power” (along with FCO) and “cultural diplomacy” (directly) — but this is clearly not an FCO-level thing yet. In the US this is an appointed position.
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