The vital protections for press freedom in the Online Safety Bill must be maintained when the legislation is reintroduced to Parliament, the News Media Association’s legal director, Sayra Tekin told a Westminster Media Forum conference this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not want to see dilution of the protections for press freedom that the Bill provides. It is vital that the freedom of press is safeguarded and that the right of the public to receive news material is also protected,” she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is also critical to ensure that the platforms do not moderate news publishers\u2019 content, and that there are no barriers to news publication in the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment, the current draft of the Bill achieves that. Any amendments through Parliament must be very protective of these principles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sayra also stressed the importance of ensuring that \u201ctech platforms, Ofcom and the government through the back door, do not become any kind of state regulator for the press.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sayra spoke of three key ways in which journalistic content can be protected through the Bill. She said: \u201cThe first is that news publisher content is exempt from the new online safety duties, which disincentivises platforms to remove news publisher content as they will receive sanctions from Ofcom.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second point is that the majority of news publishers are already held accountable through the regulator IPSO and adhere to the editorial codes of conduct. Therefore we do not need an additional layer of regulation from government. Both Ofcom and tech platforms will need to have systems in place to take account of the importance of freedom of expression.<\/p>\n
\u201cThirdly, it is important that news content remains out of scope for below the line comments \u2013 this is a really important safeguard. As we\u2019ve already established, below the line comments are already subject to editorial control. If comments are defamatory, or any way harmful content, there is already a structure in place through IPSO or editorial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sayra also added that calls for government to publish a list of who it considered to be a recognised news publisher would \u201ccertainly create a barrier for new entrants\u201d to the industry and would amount to \u201ca state-sponsored press – antithetical to any functioning democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NMA legal director, Sayra Tekin, spoke of the importance of Government protecting press freedom in the UK within the Online Safety Bill when it is reintroduced to Parliament, during a Westminster Media Forum conference on the Bill this week.
\nSayra said: “We do not want to see the dilution…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-online-safety-bill","category-pressfreedom","news","online-safety-bill","pressfreedom"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n