The online safety bill turns us all into predators. The lights of freedom are going out - Renee Hoenderkamp

This should herald the first warning, when Ofcom promise a “safer life online”, we should immediately ask them to define that.

To know who decides what is unsafe.

What role will we, the end user, the voting public, play in the decisions that form the actions, the penalties?

The answer is zero, not even net zero, just zero. People we don’t elect and some we do will help shape a world where there is increasingly less room for dissent, more power for institutions to define what counts as truth, and increasing barriers to open debate. They practised in Covid and honed their skills.

The new safe world will see the likes of Jo Rogan, Darren Grimes, Dan Wooton and the many new independent News outlets censored, their words unable to be heard by you or me, because we are not sensible enough to listen and decide what is right or wrong, or just not to our taste. The Government needs to step in and protect us.

But they are interested in protecting us, they want only to control us, and control comes from limiting and distilling ‘the right’ information.

There are, of course, winners in the censorship industry that has sprung up to assist.

Covid was the accelerant, and with its roots in the military and security apparatus, we saw the 77th Brigade, the Counter Disinformation unit, logically all charged with monitoring people like me and many other brave souls who asked questions that we were not meant to.

The internet has scared the elite by its ability to seed ideas, share those questions and galvanise movements, like the Together Declaration, that I am proud to be a founder of. Being part of the censorship apparatus is lucrative for those willing to be in it; they have much to protect, and it’s not for us.

These various bodies have resulted in people getting jailed for posts on social media; doorbells ringing with the police wanting to discuss something said online. And worse, we are paying the people who are monitoring us and changing lives with one doorbell ring.

In 2023 the Telegraph reported that Logically who conducted state surveillance of me and many others during covid, had been paid more than £1.2million of taxpayers’ money as well as another (contract) worth up to £1.4 million with the Department of Health and Social Care to monitor threats to high-profile individuals to the covid narrative and vaccine roll out.

Now, to underpin or support, (its symbiotic), the Online Safety Act, a new quango has been formed called the UK Internet Governance Forum (IGF) that defines itself as:

The national internet governance forum for the United Kingdom. A collaborative partnership that provides a local forum in the UK to engage industry, government, parliament, academia and civil society in debate on Internet Governance issues.

IGFs are an initiative led by the United Nations for the discussion of public policy issues relating to the internet. A key distinguishing feature of IGFs is that they are based on the multi-stakeholder model – all sectors of society meet as equals to exchange ideas and discuss best practices.

Note that there is no mention of the public; we are not stakeholders. But why would they include us when global bodies such as the UN are based on the conviction that the public is too child-like to know what is safe for them and their children?

And in that drive, they are examining questions such as "What is the impact of misinformation and disinformation on democracy and what can we do to prevent it?" In fact, this panel included members from institutions such as Full Fact (Simon Morris), which, despite their noble claims and aims, have proven themselves the least non-biased sources of information available. The last place I would go to check something is to one of these

The panellists’ main concern was the public's lack of trust in government and institutions.

Morris said: “The majority of people no longer believe what they read or see or hear. If they don't believe anything, they don't trust anything. And if you have no trust, you have no consent.”

They have no insight into people now doing their own research and forming their own decisions, they are just distressed by this and seek new ways to curb the ability of you and me to do that. If you can’t find information, surely you will forget it and believe them.

Henry Parker of Logically feels that the answer is through the use of AI to make sure people have the ‘correct’ information, and the Online Safety Act will facilitate this via more comprehensive regulation of the internet, social media, independent news outlets and sites like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

At no point do they address the tricky question of who decides what is safe, what is ‘disinformation’, and all of the topics they will seek to control; pandemics, pharmaceuticals, big food, climate, trans ideology and the like, are open to the power and money that each interested group will use, be it Bill Gates or George Soros, behind the scenes and will, as they have already.

All of this is completely out of our control, and will not protect children from harm, which is the claim they are pushing hard to force on us and stop us from questioning it.

None of us wants children to be harmed, I argue constantly to ban smartphones totally in schools, but Labour voted that bill down.

The tech lobby doesn’t want them to do it, so they didn’t. That’s how much they really care about children. Children are the Trojan horse; what they are interested in is hidden inside, and if you dare attack the horse, you are a predator, as has just been levied at Nigel Farage by Labour's Peter Kyle.

It's an accusation that nobody wants to be associated with; they know this, they are determined to censor us in ways we never believed possible, so the gloves are off.

Already, a Government petition has been signed by almost half a million concerned citizens who want the act repealed.

Already, the Government has replied that they won’t.

But we will fight, people will fight, and the organisation I founded with several other brave individuals, Together, are doing just this. They have lots of info, lots of suggestions, and you can find it at https://togetherdeclaration.org/inside-the-minds-of-the-speech-police/.

We must resist this pernicious bill and change the direction of travel. Freedom of expression is a right, not one I will give up easily.