The UK’s Online Safety Act has been in force for less than a year and it is again being used to censor political speech during an election.
TikTok blocked and then deleted a campaign video by Reform UK’s Spokesperson for Home Affairs, Zia Yusuf, after someone reported it under the OSA’s content reporting mechanism.
The video was about immigration policy and takes place during a period of campaigning for a by-election.
TikTok cited its “Hate Speech and Hateful Behavior” rules. The law that gave the complainant the reporting tool and that gives TikTok every financial reason to comply without asking too many questions, is the Online Safety Act.
The OSA was sold to the British public as child protection. The actual legislation requires platforms to police all content against UK law, including broadly defined “hate speech” provisions.
Companies that fail to comply face fines of up to £18 million ($24m) or 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater. For a platform the size of TikTok, that penalty could run into billions. The rational response to that kind of liability is to delete first and never think about it again.
Under the OSA, platforms must provide UK users with tools to report content they believe is illegal under British law.
TikTok confirmed this is what triggered the action against Yusuf’s video. The notification he received stated: “We have detected this policy violation based on a report that the content violated our Community Guidelines.”
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