The United Kingdom government has announced an expansion to the coverage of the controversial Online Safety Bill.
According to Gizmodo, the proposed amendment to the bill wants to criminalize online content that may indicate an encouragement of self-harm, making companies liable if they keep such content.
Self-Harm Sanctions Are Significant Extensions Of Censorship Laws
Under the legislation, should social media networks like Facebook or Twitter not promptly remove content inciting self-harm, they would be fined for their content moderation practices.
It is important to note that encouraging suicide online or offline is already a criminal offense, leading up to 14 years in prison for those who commit illegal activity.
However, this new provision to the Online Safety Bill extends the censorship laws on communications concerning self-harm.
The UK government says that they took this step further to tackle the tragic and avoidable deaths caused by self-harm content people consume online.
According to Tech Crunch, in-scope platforms will risk penalties under this legislation, and individuals posting such content will be held liable as well.
Those who encourage self-harm online will face prosecution, as the UK Secretary of State for Digital says that they are zeroing in on trolls targeting the young and vulnerable.
The Online Safety Bill has been a piece of proposed legislation for quite some time now, and it has gone through numerous setbacks throughout the year due to political turmoil.
At the moment, the passage of the bill to the parliament remains on pause, but it will return to the House of Commons for another round of consideration on December 5.
Last week, a separate addition to the Online Safety Bill has been announced by the Ministry of Justice, and it is focused on tackling the criminalization of deepfake pornography.
This means that any sexual images or videos altered to look like someone without their consent to be put on intimate content could face jail time upon sharing or creating them.
However, this certain addition has also been shelved until further changes happen around the "legal but harmful" content so the legislation remains to be considered, Tech Crunch writes.
Read More: California Governor Passes Children's Online Safety Bill to Protect Underage Social Media Users
The Online Safety Bill Also Has The Backing Of Child Safety Groups
Child safety groups have been campaigning for the legislation of the bill, and they have also been raising concerns whenever they believe that the bill has been weakened.
However, the legislation still draws a lot of criticism from the public and the parliament for its possible sweeping impact on online speech and on the businesses of tech companies.
For instance, the current draft would require private messaging applications to detect child pornography, which means that they also need to review all private messages between users.
Should this happen, it violates users' privacy and it endangers the legality of end-to-end encryption in the country, according to Gizmodo.
Because of this, the free speech campaign group Index on Censorship questioned the bill's compatibility with the UK's human rights obligations last week.
Related Article: Apple's Child Protection Feature Explained: Is It Breaching Users' Privacy?
