THE UK FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION SCORECARD
This is a crucial moment for free speech in the United Kingdom. For a country that prides itself on a long tradition of defending a free press and free speech, there are a number of laws andproposed laws that now place security and order above an open society. In the UK Freedom of Expression Scorecard, Index sets out its assessment of the state of free speech and pressfreedom in the UK
–
and the current outlook. Overall, it is a worrying and critical moment.For
Media Freedom
we see an uncertain outlook: in the next few weeks, Lord Justice Levesonwill announce his proposals for the future of the press in the UK. Many including Index onCensorship are opposed to government interference in the workings of the press
. Even ‘light’
regulation opens up the possibility of the government curtailing
the media’s ability
to stand up topower and hold government and politicians to account
–
a vital component of our democracy.On a more positive note on
Media Freedom
, the government has brought forward welcomelegislation to reform our libel laws. However, uncertainty remains as to whether the DefamationBill will extend media freedom as it still lacks a crucial public interest defence to protectscientists, medics, whistle-blowers and others.
It isn’t just press
freedom under threat; we also see an uncertain outlook for
Digital Freedom
. Aparliamentary committee is looking at proposals in the draft Communications Bill (aka
‘
S
noopers’ charter’)
that will bring in the possibility of state surveillance unparalleled in anywestern country and on par with Kazakhstan, China and Iran. If your emails are stored by thestate, people will self-censor. The possibility the government will significantly curtail freedom of expression with an ill-considered law in the UK is real. The criminalisation of online speech withhigh-profile cases brought against Facebook and Twitter users is also of growing concern. Morepositively, the UK actively takes down less content than other countries like Germany.Elsewhere, the picture is more mixed. On
Access and Security
, the Freedom of Informationlaws are strong and effective but the proposals in the Justice and Security Bill as drafted meansGovernment wrong-doing is less likely to be exposed. The UK continues to produce challengingart but
Artistic Freedom
is worryingly chilled by self-censorship in the face of social pressure,concern over offending religions and the use of public order laws by the police to remove art.While the
Freedom to protest
is well-established
, the use of “kettling” to deter protestors and
the
prosecution of “offensive” protest whether poppy burning or homophobic str
eet preachingshows people are less tolerant towards views they dislike.The scores are in the manner of a school report
–
they reflect our evidence-based analysis butin themselves are subjective: a score of 10 would signal a perfect, fully-democratic scenario, 0would be a totally restrictive scenario with no freedom whatsoever. In this way, we highlightwhere there are real concerns over free speech and where there is reason to be cheerful. In nocategory does the UK score highly. The UK is an open society
–
but challenges to free speechcan quickly cause citizens to self-censor and bad laws can lead to state censorship
–
we mustavoid this. The UK comes in with an overall score of 7 when a leading democracy ought to be at9 or 10.
DIGITAL FREEDOM
The UK is one of the most connected democracies on earth, with high take-up of social mediaand internet access. However, access is still not universal with exclusion from the internet for marginalised individuals a barrier to free speech. The draft Communications Data Bill and theincreasing criminalisation of social media both pose a very significant threat to free expression,hence the negative outlook.
The law and the internet
The Digital Economy Act and the draft Communications Data Bill present challenges that couldtake the UK to a position where it has some of the harshest laws governing online freeexpression in the Western world. The draft Communications Data Bill is particularly draconian,
as it would make the surveillanc
e and storage of UK citizens’ communications data the norm.
The collection and filtering of communications data from the whole British population wouldenable the government to get a detailed picture of
the population’s
habits, activities, interests,and opinions. It would represent a reversal of the presumption of innocence and an unwarrantedintrusion into the privacy of British citizens which would be very chilling to free expression.No other democracy has gone as far as these proposals do for widespread information-collection and storage of data from the whole population. These are aims normally found only inauthoritarian and totalitarian states, such as Iran and China.This bill, if it became law, would be
a direct encouragement and justification for authoritarian regimes to monitor their entirepopulations online as well as off. It would make it difficult for the UK to challenge these regimes.
Blocking and takedowns, corporate snooping
The Digital Economy Act passed under the last government contains a number of provisionsincluding the ability for the government to sanction Ofcom to order internet service providers(ISPs) to block websites and suspend accounts for customers accused of downloadingcopyrighted material. This will not be subject to judicial oversight. As yet, these provisions havenot been enacted.Judges in the UK remove relatively little online content through rulings in comparison with other democracies, but on the other hand, the police and executive bodies make more takedownrequests than other comparable democracies. According to the latest Google transparencyreport,the UK removes relatively little online content after rulings by judges (often Youtube, or the search engine) with only 18 requests in its last report, especially in comparison withGermany (180), Brazil (143) and the US (209). However, more executive and police takedownrequests were made than in Italy, France or relative to population than the US, India and Brazil.
The government requested information on Twitter users 11 times according to the company’s
last transparency report,neither Brazil, Germany, France nor Italy made more than 10 requests
in comparison.
Social media
The UK population has embraced social media with 52% of the population (65% of the online
population) on Facebook and 23% of the
using Twitter. With morepeople than ever before using social media, users are increasingly complaining to the policeover online content they find offensive.
Section 5 of the Public Order Act criminalises‘