Independent Reviewer of Terrorism and State Threat Legislation

Any improvements you can suggest - I agree there is a lot of noise hence the attempt

Also linking my State Threat report published yesterday in case of interest - it is quite technical but I hope measures and inquisitive about how law does and might work: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69411a...

What does the UK Online Safety Act actually do? I've tried to summarise in a neutral one-pager for interested members of the public (OFCOM's website is very complex). That's the goal. Suggestions for improvements (to the one-pager, not the Act!) gratefully received.

Independent review on Separation Centres after HMP Frankland attack. Views welcome on attached issues paper

To which the British retort might be: disinformation can have an impact on the battlefield. At the moment this feels like an unbridgeable divide…/ends

Even then, will tech companies operating under First Amendment decide to remove because of British squeamishness? Vice President Vance might say, and he has a point where low trust in institutions, why would you let a tech company or regulator decide what is disinfo?…/6

And assume it has capacity to remove adapted disinformation as bad actors respond to moderation efforts…/5

Where tech companies must remove content amount to foreign interference as a *priority offence*. Even if assume tech company has capacity to identify a foreign link, not just commercial click-bait (major assumption)…/4

…under section 13 National Security Act 2023. But in the real world they will be untraceable and abroad, which points to need for prevention. Enter the Online Safety Act 2023…/3

For sake of argument, assume Russia had a plan. If Russian operatives used X/Twitter to try to influence UK political leaders in their decision-making that would be foreign interference triable in the UK…/2

President Zelenskyy’s comments that President Trump is living in a disinformation space created by Russia exposes a key national security fault line between US and Europe if you believe online content is not just fluff…/1

Thank you

Have already benefited from content from @danieldesimone.bsky.social @lizziedearden.bsky.social @kenanmalik.bsky.social and many others on this topic.../ends

Danyal Hussain (Satanism), Jake Davison (incel beliefs), Mohammed Al Swealmeen (Liverpool Women's Hospital), the Northallerton teenagers (Columbine plot), Gotterdammerung teenager (mass shooting plot), Thomas Huang (school hammer attack), Damon Smith (unexploded tube bomb)…/2

Grateful for suggestions for recent UK edge-cases, not categorised as terrorism but intuitively on the cusp. Although relevant to the definitional question ("What is terrorism"), these are of course real cases resulting in death or serious injury, so a solemn task. As starter…/1

My op-ed in Weekend FT on definition of terrorism and practical solutions after Southport

J Rowe QC's independent reviews of terrorism legislation for 1997 and 1998 are now on my website under this link: terrorismlegislationreviewer.independent.gov.uk/category/rep...

Double Jeopardy - The Law and Politics Podcast Politics Podcast · 83 Episodes · Updated weekly

I am discussing Musk and Begum (including the Supreme Court decision) on this week’s episode.

But also how platforms will deal with organic ie normal human-distributed viral content that happens to be false and is used to drive violence or is calculated to have interference effect…/ends

The question I have on fact-check demise is whether these capabilities of scanning for coordination will be canned…/9

However State Threat actors can also amplify true information - eg true details of a terror attack - to suggest Broken Britain…/8

But in practice Meta has major capabilities for spotting ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ on its platforms - think Russian controlled bot farm putting out and amplifying disinformation…/7

Net effect of removing fact-checking but not moderation could make it relatively easier than before for online foreign interference…/6

Of course this is crude because some content that encourages terrorist violence could have strong truth value eg reporting from warzone…/5

But moderation meaning removal is about content-status rather than truth value: is it badged propaganda from proscribed terror group, or encourages violence?…/4

Since fact-checking is truth evaluation, its removal means in principle more disinformation (though Zuckerberg right about risk of human fact-checking bias) and therefore greater risk of state exploitation…/3

Both terrorism content and foreign interference content are now priority illegal content under Online Safety Act in the UK…/2

Meta: fact-checking (being removed) versus content moderation (here to stay) means *what* for terror and state threats?…/1

Basis for my comments in today’s Times on feasibility of return from Syria camps is in my 2023 paper Risk and Response here: terrorismlegislationreviewer.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/u...

The Musk intervention and what didn’t happen in 2024