When governments first began pushing “online safety” legislation, the justification was clear and hard to oppose: protect children from predators, stop cyberbullying, and crack down on exploitation. In principle, nobody objects to that. But over the last few years, these laws have morphed far beyond their original mandate. What began as protection has steadily crept into regulation of speech itself.
The UK’s Online Safety Act (2023) is only one piece of a much larger pattern. Around the world, governments have been rolling out their own versions—different names, different details, but the same trajectory: incremental expansion of state control over online speech.
From Safety to Suppression: The Steps of Creep
The pattern repeats itself across jurisdictions:
- Protect the children. Legislation is introduced with uncontroversial goals: shielding minors from grooming, bullying, or explicit content.
- Expand to “public safety.” Once the framework is in place, it broadens to cover terrorism, fraud, or organised crime.
- Target “harmful” or “false” speech. Definitions become vaguer—“misinformation,” “hate,” “offensive content”—handing regulators sweeping discretion.
- Entrench enforcement. Regulators gain powers to fine, block, and compel platforms to pre-emptively censor.
By the time the dust settles, the laws have crept far beyond their original scope. The result? A chilling effect on lawful speech and a concentration of power in unelected regulatory bodies.
Global Case Studies
United Kingdom
The Online Safety Act (2023) was pitched as protecting children. But it also created obligations for platforms to tackle “legal but harmful” content, giving regulators and ministers wide discretion over what may be published. Critics call it one of the most far-reaching censorship tools in the democratic world.
European Union
The Digital Services Act (2022) focused on transparency and platform accountability. Its enforcement, however, now centres on tackling “misinformation” and “election integrity”—areas where political subjectivity is unavoidable.
Australia
The Online Safety Act (2021) began with cyberbullying and abuse. By 2024, it expanded into outright bans on social media use by under-16s, potentially enforced with identity checks. What started as protection now edges toward surveillance.
Sri Lanka
The Online Safety Act (2024) created a state commission empowered to criminalise “false” or “offensive” statements online. Human rights groups warn this is political censorship cloaked in the language of safety.
Canada
The proposed Online Harms Act (2024) borrows heavily from the UK’s model. Its “duty of care” could oblige platforms to suppress lawful opinions if labelled “harmful.” Separately, the Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act seeks age-verification for all adult content—raising serious privacy concerns.
United States
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has bipartisan momentum. While framed as child protection, civil liberties groups argue it could force platforms to restrict controversial political content in the name of “safety.”
The True Cost to Freedom
The price of this mission creep is not abstract. Every new rule, every vague definition of “harm,” pushes societies closer to state-sanctioned speech. Once governments establish the principle that “safety” overrides free expression, the boundaries become political clay—shaped to suit whoever holds power.
It is no accident that so many governments have converged on the same model in the same timeframe. The creeping censorship is global, and the risk is universal: a future where citizens are not free to question, dissent, or even joke without fear of being silenced.
Final Thought
Protecting children online is necessary. But the road from protection to control is shorter than many realise, and it is one the world has already started walking. Unless societies draw a clear line, the noble goal of online safety will continue its drift into something far darker: a normalised system of global censorship.
Hope isn’t what they promise you. It’s how you carry on when they don’t deliver. — Dave Carrera
