Full Fact – a ‘fact-checking’ website funded by Google, Facebook and George Soros – has been lobbying MPs to include “health misinformation” in the Online Safety Bill. This would force websites to remove “harmful” “misinformation” relating to health – including off-narrative information about COVID-19, lockdowns, masks and vaccines – or face crippling fines.
Last week Full Fact – which received 70% of its 2019 declared funding from Big Tech companies – sent an email to its subscribers urging them to write to their MP and ask him or her to address the “gap” left by the Government’s rejection of the Labour and SNP amendment that would have added “health misinformation” to the online ‘harms’ prohibited by the Bill. Full Fact’s Policy and Parliamentary Relations Manager Alison Trew wrote:
Two years on from the outbreak of a global pandemic, it should be obvious that false or misleading claims about our health should be included in the types of online content addressed by the Bill.
A few weeks ago Full Fact’s Chief Executive, Will Moy, warned MPs that as it stands, the Online Safety Bill fails to meet the Government’s aim to make the U.K. the safest place in the world to be online.
Our fact checkers have seen first hand how COVID-19 misinformation has undermined public health, conspiracy theories have led to offline attacks, and disinformation – including on the war in Ukraine – has spread unchecked.