In vindication of U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s warnings of encroaching authoritarianism in Britain and Europe, a report has found that hundreds of people in the United Kingdom have been charged under the 2023 Online Safety Act, including for spreading “fake news.”
According to Crown Prosecution Service data obtained by The Telegraph in a Freedom of Information request, 292 people in Britain have been charged with “speech crimes” under the Online Safety Act passed into law by the previous Tory government.
Those charged include 23 for ‘illegal false communications’, often referred to as “fake news” offences. The controversial clause banned the spreading of so-called disinformation that could lead to “non-trivial psychological or physical harm”. A conviction under the legislation comes with a maximum penalty of 51 weeks in prison.
The report found that several were charged with the offence following the mass stabbing attack at a children’s Taylor Swift dance party in Southport for spreading claims online that the attacker was a Muslim migrant.
After initial silence from police in the aftermath of the attack that left three young girls dead, it was later revealed that the attacker, Axel Rudakubana, had been born in the UK to migrant parents from Rwanda and had possession of Islamist jihadi material.
Since 2023, at least 67 people have been convicted under speech codes, the first of which came in the wake of the anti-mass migration riots and protests following the Southport stabbings.
At the time, the leftist Labour Party government faced criticism for freeing prisoners to make room in Britain’s overcrowded jail system for people who merely made posts online rather than actually engaging in violence.
Conservative peer and founder of the Free Speech Union, Lord Young of Acton, commented: “The number of people who’ve been charged with this offence is deeply concerning. The problem with trying to criminalise ‘disinformation’ is that it empowers the state to decide what is and isn’t true.”
In addition to criminalising so-called fake news, the Online Safety Act also introduced penalties for “threatening communications”, “revenge porn”, and “cyberflashing”. Perhaps more politically significant, however, is that the legislation will empower broadcasting regulator Ofcom to impose fines of up to ten per cent of a large online platform’s global revenue if it fails to police content according to the whims of the British state.
The powers — which will come into force next month — also empower the UK to launch criminal charges against senior management and to ban platforms from the country altogether.
The law has reportedly become a significant sticking point for the Trump administration for future trade talks with the UK, with concerns that it will be used to punish major American social media companies such as X, which key Trump ally Elon Musk owns. While there have been reports that Downing Street may consider walking back some of the online speech restrictions, Britain’s Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has asserted that the Online Saftey Act is “not up for negotiation”.
A government spokesman said: “We will not let the internet serve as a haven for those seeking to sow division and harm in our communities. That is why we are taking decisive action through the Online Safety Act, ensuring that social media platforms remove illegal content and prevent the spread of illegal disinformation.
“The false communications offence, introduced in January 2024, reinforces this approach by targeting those who knowingly spread false information with intent to cause significant harm, without reasonable excuse. We will not stand by while online activity fuels real-world harm, and we remain committed to protecting the public from such threats.”
The revelations come in the wake of U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, in which he chastised Europe and the UK for failing to live up to Western ideals of liberty, particularly on freedom of speech, lamenting: “In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”
While the Conference was ostensibly intended to focus on the ongoing war in Ukraine, Vance noted that Europe and the UK likely have less to fear from external threats like China or Russia but rather from the “enemy within” of creeping authoritarianism.
