UK's Online Safety Bill On Pause Pending New PM

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A major populist but controversial piece of U.K. legislation to regulate internet content through a child safety-focused frame is on pause until the fall when the government expects to elect a new prime minister, following the resignation of Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader last week. PoliticsHome reported yesterday that the Online Safety Bill would be dropped from House of Commons business next week with a view to being returned in the autumn. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) denied the legislation was being dropped altogether but the fate of the bill will clearly now rest with the new prime minister -- and their appetite for regulating online speech. Reached for comment, DCMS confirmed that the bill's final day of report stage will be rescheduled to after the summer recess -- suggesting it had lost out to competing demands for remaining parliamentary time (without specifying to what). The department also made a point of reiterating that the legislation intends to deliver on the government's manifesto commitment to make the U.K. the safest place in the world to be online while defending freedom of speech. But critics of the bill continue to warn it vastly overreaches on content regulation while saddling the U.K.'s digital sector with crippling compliance costs.

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