Review the Online Safety Bill regarding free speech
Reform UK · what the evidence says
An independent, source-checked look at Reform UK’s policy “Review the Online Safety Bill regarding free speech” — what it would actually do across the things that affect your life. Every claim below quotes the source behind it. How this works.
Personal liberty & free speech — Little effect
minor · low confidence
The policy promises only a 'review' of the Online Safety Act, with no committed instrument to change or repeal it — so its real-world effect on free speech is unclear and likely small. The existing Act already contains statutory free-speech protections, meaning the marginal gain from a review alone is uncertain.
The evidence
- The policy commits only to reviewing the Online Safety Bill, framing social media platforms as having no role in regulating free speech. — reformparty.uk (manifesto) — “Reform UK will review the Online Safety Bill, asserting that social media giants pushing 'baseless transgender ideology and divisive Critical Race theory' should have no role in regulating free speech.”
- The Online Safety Act already removed 'legal but harmful' provisions for adults during its passage, specifically to protect freedom of expression. — en.wikipedia.org (media) — “the "legal but harmful" provisions for adults were removed from the Bill to safeguard freedom of expression.”
- The Act includes a statutory duty for platforms to protect users' lawful speech, enforceable by Ofcom. — avpassociation.com (media) — “Section 22, which introduces a statutory duty for online services to protect users' lawful speech and privacy, enforceable by the regulator Ofcom.”
- Ofcom can intervene if platforms over-block legal content, meaning the Act contains a mechanism against over-censorship. — avpassociation.com (media) — “Ofcom can intervene if platforms over-block legal content.”
- Critics from a free-speech perspective argue the Act still risks chilling expression through broad powers and the financial threat of fines incentivising over-removal of content. — matrixlaw.co.uk (media) — “it still risks curtailing free expression through its broad powers and the chilling effect of potential fines, incentivizing platforms to remove more content than legally required.”
- Party figures have indicated a preference to scrap the Act entirely, going beyond the stated 'review' commitment. — independent.co.uk (media) — “Party figures, including Nigel Farage, have indicated they would "scrap the Online Safety Act" entirely, labelling it "dystopian" and an infringement of free speech”
- The policy provides no detail on how child protection would be maintained if the Act were repealed. — the-independent.com (media) — “Reform UK has not detailed how this would be achieved if the existing Act were repealed.”
Biggest unknown: Whether 'review' would lead to actual repeal or amendment, and what replacement (if any) would be put in place — the policy specifies no mechanism beyond a review.
Our reading: The stated policy is a 'review' — a soft verb with no committed instrument, budget, statutory duty, or quantified target. Under the soft-verb rule, this defaults to negligible absent evidence that the review mechanism itself fires at scale. The existing Online Safety Act already contains meaningful free-speech protections: the 'legal but harmful' adult provisions were removed during passage, and Section 22 creates a statutory duty to protect lawful speech with Ofcom empowered to act against over-blocking. This means the baseline is not a pure restriction on free speech — the OSA has both protective and potentially chilling elements, with critics credibly arguing fines incentivise over-removal. A 'review' alone does not alter this balance. Party figures have signalled a desire to scrap the Act entirely, which would be a more material change — but that is not the stated policy, and assigning the verdict to rhetoric rather than stated text would violate party-blind evidence discipline. If the review led to repeal without replacement, O10 could improve (removing chilling-effect risk from fines) but O10 could also worsen if the statutory free-speech duty in Section 22 were lost. This genuine two-way uncertainty, combined with the absence of any committed mechanism in the stated policy, warrants negligible with low confidence rather than a directional verdict.
Equal treatment & democratic rights — Genuinely contested
n/a · low confidence
This policy promises only a 'review' of the Online Safety Act, with no committed changes specified — making its real-world effect on equal treatment and minority protections impossible to pin down. The policy's explicit singling out of transgender and race-related content raises questions about differential treatment of minority groups, but whether any review would actually change their legal protections is unknown.
The evidence
- The policy calls for a review of the Online Safety Bill, framing social media giants pushing 'baseless transgender ideology and divisive Critical Race theory' as having no role in regulating free speech. — reformparty.uk (manifesto) — “Reform UK will review the Online Safety Bill, asserting that social media giants pushing 'baseless transgender ideology and divisive Critical Race theory' should have no role in regulating free speech.”
- The Online Safety Act already includes a statutory duty on platforms to protect users' lawful speech, enforceable by Ofcom. — avpassociation.com (media) — “Section 22, which introduces a statutory duty for online services to protect users' lawful speech and privacy, enforceable by the regulator Ofcom.”
- The Act does not require platforms to remove legal content for adult users. — avpassociation.com (media) — “The Act does not obligate platforms to remove legal content for adults.”
- Party figures have indicated they would scrap the Act entirely, not merely review it. — independent.co.uk (media) — “Party figures, including Nigel Farage, have indicated they would "scrap the Online Safety Act" entirely, labelling it "dystopian"”
- No detail has been provided on how minority or child protections would be maintained if the Act were repealed. — the-independent.com (media) — “Reform UK has not detailed how this would be achieved if the existing Act were repealed.”
Biggest unknown: Whether the review would translate into legislative changes that alter platforms' duties in ways that materially affect protections for minority groups online.
Our reading: O9 covers equal treatment, minority protections, due process, and democratic rights — not free speech per se (that is O10). The relevant O9 question here is whether this policy would materially change the legal protections that currently govern how online platforms treat content relating to minority groups, particularly transgender people and racial minorities explicitly named in the policy text. The policy commits only to a 'review' — a soft verb with no specified instrument, target, or timeline. This alone would normally push the verdict toward negligible or too-uncertain under the soft-verb rule. The OSA is not primarily an anti-discrimination statute; it does not create positive equal-treatment rights for minorities. Its duties concern platform transparency, child protection, and illegal content removal. A review or repeal would therefore not directly strip anti-discrimination law. However, the policy's explicit framing — naming transgender and race-related content as ideological problems — is a stated element of the review's rationale. If the review led to weakening platform duties in ways that specifically deprioritised concerns raised by those communities (e.g. hate speech, coordinated harassment), that could have O9-relevant consequences. But this causal chain is speculative: no committed mechanism is provided, and the OSA's current anti-discrimination contribution is itself limited. Party figures are cited as wanting full repeal, but that remains projected and contested. Without knowing what a 'review' would actually change, and given the OSA's indirect relationship to formal equal-treatment law, no confident direction can be assigned. The verdict is too-uncertain.