British politicians on the Committee debating the UK government’s proposed Online Safety Bill tried to add an amendment to include “health-related misinformation and disinformation” as a recognised form of lawful but “harmful” speech.
On June 14, Conservative Minister Chris Philp said that the government would not support the amendment, though it agrees “with the intention behind the amendment.”
“We agree with the intention behind the amendment. However, the way to handle it is not to randomly drop an item into the Bill and leave the rest to a statutory instrument. Important and worthy though it may be to deal with disinformation, and specifically harmful health-related disinformation, there are plenty of other important things that one might add that are legal but harmful to adults, so we will not accept the amendment,” said Philp….