Ministry Of Truth: UK Government To Block 'False Information' During 'Crisis Events'
Authored by Steve Watson via modernity,
Vague new rules will allow UK regulators to pressure platforms over "legal but harmful" content whenever government ministers declare a crisis, while the same government ploughs ahead with mandatory phone scanning, digital ID lockdowns, and jail threats for tech bosses who refuse to spy on every device.
The latest move from Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn makes explicit what privacy campaigners have long warned: the Online Safety Act is being weaponised far beyond any child-protection claim.
Benn confirmed that the internet regulator will now wield enhanced powers to tackle "false information" online during "times of crisis," directly tying the recent Belfast unrest to this framework. The regulator has already contacted platforms, with ministers asserting that violence "appears to have been incited online."
Benn stated that if people put online 'false information,' "it is not acceptable and it may well be a criminal offence depending on the circumstances as the chief constable made clear yesterday."
When asked how a "time of crisis" would be defined, Benn said it "will be set out in due course."
The unrest followed a serious knife attack on a local man by an asylum seeker and escalated into protests involving vehicle fires, arson attacks on homes, and clashes with police that injured a dozen officers.
In addition, Ofcom, the UK's regulator for communications, responsible for overseeing broadcasting, telecommunications and - since the passage of the Online Safety Act - the major online platforms, is now using its powers to direct platforms toward enhanced, crisis-specific moderation measures whenever it or ministers identify spikes in 'illegal 'harmful' content during whatever it deems a 'crisis' event.
An Ofcom open letter published this week directly addresses the Belfast situation. It states: "Following a serious knife attack that took place in Belfast on Monday night, we have seen civil unrest in the city, some of which appears to have been incited online. This has included racially motivated incidents of violence, arson attacks on homes and vehicles, and attacks against police."
The letter goes on to remind online service providers of their duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 to assess and mitigate risks of 'illegal' content, including material amounting to offences of stirring up hatred or provoking violence.
It emphasises that "previous crises have shown how a sudden increase in the amount of illegal content circulating online can manifest in hate crime and violence in the real world" and that "usual content moderation systems and processes may not be sufficient in such circumstances."
Crucially, Ofcom confirmed new measures added to its online safety codes of practice under which platforms "should have procedures in place to respond to spikes in illegal content during a crisis." These measures, confirmed the day before the letter, are expected to be enacted by platforms immediately, without waiting for parliamentary approval. The letter stresses that services must "act now to address illegal content" and follow existing crisis protocols where they exist.
This directly engages the core claim in widely shared analysis on X that the Online Safety Act - repeatedly sold to the public as a child-protection measure - is now being applied to adult content and civil unrest with no reference to children in the regulator's own crisis guidance.
Given that the government and it's mouthpiece media has spent the entire week claiming Elon Musk and Nigel Farage, along with anyone commenting on the latest savage migrant attack, is inciting violence, you can see exactly where this is going.
The same analysis highlights how the definition of crisis has been stretched. Cabinet Office guidance in the Amber Book states that the terms "emergency" and "crisis" are used interchangeably under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.
An emergency covers events or situations which cause or may cause serious damage to human welfare, the environment or UK security - explicitly including situations that "have not yet been harmful but have the potential to be." No fresh parliamentary debate or vote was required for this expansive interpretation to underpin regulatory action during the Belfast unrest.
Statements from Technology Secretary Liz Kendall also indicate that the government intends to amend online safety laws to give the regulator stronger powers to require platforms to take tougher action on material that it says could incite violence or disorder during periods of "heightened social and political tension."
Critics argue this effectively allows the state to restrict access to real-time footage and non-government sources of information during such periods, framing it as a direct threat to freedom of expression and the public's ability to access unfiltered information.
These concerns sit alongside the Ofcom letter's call for platforms to have crisis response plans ready for spikes in 'illegal' content, including content that the government decrees could stir up hatred or provoke violence.
Further reports emerged of the UK government contacting journalists covering the Northern Ireland events to instruct their reporting, attributed to an anonymous government source.
According to the communications shared online, journalists were reportedly directed on the preferred framing of the unrest, including how to characterise the protests and the underlying causes.
This intervention occurred as Ofcom was simultaneously issuing its crisis guidance to platforms, prompting concerns that the government is attempting to align coverage across both traditional media and online spaces to limit unapproved narratives during periods of public disorder.
Alongside the new regulatory powers, the UK government is rolling out something called PoliceAI, a new National Centre for AI in Policing launched with £115 million in funding. This centralised body consolidates AI development and deployment across all 43 forces in England and Wales, focusing on tools such as live facial recognition, predictive analytics, automated data analysis and deepfake detection.
The government states that it is designed to speed up investigations and automate routine policing tasks while creating a single national framework for testing and rolling out the technology.
In the context of the new crisis powers, PoliceAI provides authorities with automated systems capable of scanning vast amounts of online content and communications in real time. These tools can flag material deemed to spread "false information" or incite disorder during government-designated crisis events, enabling rapid coordination with Ofcom for content removal.
Combined with facial recognition and predictive capabilities, the system allows police to identify and target individuals posting or sharing information the authorities wish to suppress, turning AI into a powerful mechanism for narrative control and the blocking of inconvenient facts.
These developments do not come in isolation. They connect directly to the surveillance architecture we've relentlessly detailed: plans to jail tech CEOs for up to five years if they refuse to build client-side scanning systems capable of reviewing every photo, video and message on user devices before encryption.
The same framework underpins the coming digital ID lockdown on every phone, under which biometric verification and government-issued ID would be required for full smartphone functionality, with non-compliant devices restricted to limited "child mode."
Encrypted messaging service Signal is resisting the wider demands for phone screening and content scanning. President Meredith Whittaker has stated Signal would "absolutely, 100% walk" from the UK rather than weaken its end-to-end encryption.
Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo has warned that the plans "will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops" and amount to "ID checks for the internet." She described the requirement as invoking "the death of anonymity and internet privacy" and the overall approach as "a crossing of the Rubicon that would make the UK one of the most authoritarian internet regimes in the world."
The UK digital ID scheme is the lynchpin of a dystopian mass surveillance grid to be implemented for all from cradle to grave.
The government is pressing ahead to expanded regulatory powers over online content during vaguely defined "crisis events," with platforms told to implement special moderation protocols immediately. At the same time the government is advancing device-level scanning, embedding digital ID requirements on every phone, and threatening executives with prison for non-compliance. Instructions to journalists and pressure on platforms complete the picture.
This is nothing less than the construction of a complete surveillance control grid that monitors devices, verifies identity for basic access, and suppresses inconvenient information whenever those in power declare an emergency.
Free speech, privacy and access to unfiltered reality are the direct targets. Resistance from platforms willing to exit rather than comply, and from citizens who refuse to accept the pretext, remains the only obstacle to its full dystopian implementation.
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