The Guardian view on online safety: don’t let Trump dictate the terms of debate | Editorial

IN 1858, when London is no longer able to withstand the smell of raw liquid waste in the Thames River, the city authorities cost a Sewage That works to this day. A century after a century, when the huge fog suffocated, the first parliament approved Clean air lawReducing the emissions of coal fire.

When the dangerous poison attacks the senses, polluting the public space at the expense of everything it uses, the issue of legislation is clear. The argument is more complicated when the poison does not have chemical properties; When it is in a virtual world. This is the conceptual challenge of regulating digital content. It has become more complicated by mixing with arguments about freedom of expression and control.

The United Kingdom has a law that is fighting with these questions. 2023 Online safety law It makes social media companies, web sites and search engines responsible for the harmful content published through their services. The violating materials called the statute are not seriously – violent pornography, incitement to violence and terrorism. Such things are prohibited even in very liberal states on the basis that, with some types of communication, the state’s duty to general protection is crucial. No one argues that images of child abuse, for example, is a legitimate expression of freedom of expression.

However, the implementation of the online safety law has become a question because the Donald Trump government has identified it as a symptom of the broader European violation of freedom of expression. as The guardian revealed This week, US State Department officials have expressed concern at an Offcom meeting, the organizer responsible for imposing new digital regulations.

This intervention should be observed in the context of an aggressive commercial policy that cannot tolerate any foreign restriction to extend American economic interests abroad. Which – which Frankly includes The regulations that “stimulate American companies to develop or use products and technology in ways to undermine freedom of expression or enhance control.”

Protest by the liberal principle here is cynical and ideological. the Trump administration It defines freedom of expression as the right to propaganda for the president. Any effort to correct deliberate misconceptions or conducting a public discourse based on a verified fact is subject to control.

Mr. Trump’s strength is strengthened in alliance Few technology industry. The unwritten deal is that the president’s issue is strengthened on social media and that commercial interests of platforms are paid by the president. For this reason, the American trade policy is spread against European organizers who tried to make the Internet – or part of them who have legal jurisdiction – is less legally.

Going to this pressure would give up control over the digital information space for people who actively sabotage it because of the cause of the American performance. This means accepting that a vital part of the digital infrastructure of a free society operates according to the rules set by companies that poison the wells of public discourse.

There is a legitimate discussion that must be about the borders between online safety and control. The two issues are intertwined because the organization of the information space involves distinguishing between the permitted and not allowed content. But no European democracy can conduct this debate on the conditions dictated by the United States administration, which sees all the digital space in its sovereign field, which carries the principles of liberal democracy in contempt.