Efforts to make the online environment safer are laudable but thank God the latest New Zealand proposal is still only a discussion document. As the proposal stands, it could add a new volume to the already burgeoning body of work on the law of unintended consequences.

The work that has been undertaken on harmful online content has been valuable and, no doubt, there will be improvements to an environment that has been wilder than the Wild West. However, the regulation that is now in the pipeline has the potential to cause as much harm as good because its approach has been limited by a particular digital mindset.

In short, the desire to prevent the harm that is all too evident in largely unregulated social media has blinded its authors to the impact of its countermeasures in other environments. Continue reading “We definitely need to talk about harmful speech proposals” →