Hacked Off analysis: Russell Brand’s Rumble channel may benefit from press loophole in Online Safety Bill
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The video platform Rumble appears to be close to benefiting from the “press loophole” in the Online Safety Bill which was lobbied for by national newspapers.
The Online Safety Bill was designed to hold social media platforms accountable for what their users post.
However, national newspapers successfully lobbied for a loophole in the bill which will prevent their content from facing any kind of remedial action on platforms.
Indeed, platforms will be actively prevented from removing posts which qualify as “recognised news publisher” content, without first going through an appeal process.
This means that national newspapers and any other publisher which meets the statutory criteria (set out below) effectively enjoy a “right to post”.
National newspapers have been highly critical of platforms hosting videos posted by Russell Brand, who has been accused of sexual assault and rape.
However, Brand’s Rumble videos could be advertised on X (formerly Twitter) or Facebook – thanks to the “recognised news publisher loophole” which newspapers persuaded the Government to insert into the bill.
Hacked Off and other civil society organisations warned the Government that there was a very high risk that harmful publishers would take advantage of this loophole. Our views were ignored as the Government, once again, gave in to the press lobby.
Rumble is primarily a video-hosting platform. But the criteria for an organisation to become a “recognised news publisher” in the Online Safety bill are so loose that the platform may also be able to qualify. If it does then it can rely on the press loophole to avoid its content being removed.
Indeed, the only criterion that Rumble appears to fail to meet is its absence of a UK address. But this could be easily dealt with by the establishment of business address in the UK.
If Rumble meets the criteria, then content on the website could be posted to social media by Brand, or any of his followers, and the social media company involved would be initially banned from removing it.
This table sets out how Rumble comes up against the OSB’s criteria:
It is disappointing that legislators did not take action to address this loophole when they had the chance.
Amendments to the Online Safety Bill, which would have prevented Brand as well as extremist publishers (such as racists, misogynists and antisemitic publishers) from exploiting this exemption, were proposed, supported and argued for by Parliamentarians in the House of Lords, including backbenchers from all parties, and the spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.
But the Government rejected them.
We now have an online safety regime which not only fails to address extremist content, but actively protects it – thanks to this dangerous press loophole.
Any future administration which opposes extremism and hatred, and believes that social media platforms should be permitted – if not encouraged – to remove content from individuals facing criminal investigations, should make action on this loophole a priority.
2 Comments
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Wow, shouldnt Hacked off change its mission title to ‘campaign for a controlled and monitored press’? Whatever one thinks of Brand -the man or his opinions- How on earth did we get so deeply attched to mass corporate/state administered censorship that articles such as this are deemed reasonable rather what it is, an extremist call for unprecedented censorship of interenet platforms? Independent journalists have seen their reach decimated through big tech algorithms, comments which challenge mainstream narratives even when quoting academics and establishment figures disappear from threads.
Hi Martin,
Thanks for your comment. Our key point here is that the Government inserted a loophole into the OSB to protect the press, which will also shield almost any organisation calling itself a news outlet. This is reckless, unjustified and undermines the purpose of the Bill.
Regulated outlets – be they controlled by national publishing companies or run as a blog from a citizen journalist’s spare room – should not have their content unduly removed from social media platforms. But where the Government does plan to introduce regulation for social media, it should ensure that news outlets are not let off the hook just because they “look like a newspaper”.
Nathan, Hacked Off