The side that feared a censorship tool made the sharper case, yet Yes won by a modest margin. In this self-selected online chamber, No voters outnumbered Yes voices and earned the debate’s highest respect, making the verdict less a rout than a decision to act despite deep distrust of whoever would wield the ban.
Yes argued that the machinery already exists and only needs using. The floor’s strongest Yes case said, “It already can, Ofcom just need to enforce it properly”, while another called for scrutiny when platforms are owned by states with “a long history of undermining our society”. Their case was practical rather than expansive: foreign interference is not hypothetical, and regulation should catch up with the feed.
No answered that the cure would hand the state the very power it ought to fear. The chamber’s most-respected argument warned that giving politicians power to pull the plug “hands them an easy censorship tool”, while another insisted, “There should be almost no limits to free speech”. Other No voices asked who would define “undermining society”, defended X as a place for dissent, or preferred intelligence work and platform transparency; the sides were often arguing about different dangers.
The deeper argument was therefore not simply foreign ownership versus national security, but control versus confidence in the controller. Even some No voters accepted the misinformation problem while demanding platforms remove it, and one weary objection said “we are long past the point where bans could have helped”; Yes voters, meanwhile, distrusted fact-checkers but still wanted a regulator to draw the line.
The result gives intervention the mandate, but the debate gives it a warning label: the room voted for a ban while sounding far from comfortable with the people who would impose it.
18 Opinions
And who decides if a platform is being used to manipulate society? This would be nothing but authoritarian crack down on free speech that would be used by Labour to silence descent! X, for example, is a rare island where the right can express their true beliefs and yet it’s under attack by the mainstream media and government because of it!
This would be used to ban X and any platform that doesn't go along with the government's plans to censor and control the internet
It's pretty clear that Governments see misinformation everywhere and uses it to their advantage when it suits them. Fact-checkers are notoriously disreputable and manipulative, pushing other kinds of propaganda. A deeper investigation of who is involved is necessary, but the public will always need multiple sources of information to make up their own minds.
Secret service should monitor and deal with any foreign interference. Don't want government to have power to decide as they will find ways to ban anything they don't like
NO. Who would decide if society is being undermined? The labour party the snp or the tories?
And who gets to decide what is "undermining society"? Nebulous.
Some people believe that people are stupid and need a nanny state. Some people like their feeds curated and pre-chewed for them. Some people get nervous or furious when people disagree with them. Some people love to find bogeymen to frighten us with. Nope.
It already can, Ofcom just need to enforce it properly. When enough people have previously been influenced by Russian bots in social media to vote for the single worse act of self-harm
There should be almost no limits to free speech & its exercise thereof. Who decides that there is a threat to society ? We already have fetters on expression imposed to create fear & under the guise of protecting children. A socialist with a funny moustache did that. Currently loving your family children, country its flag, traditions history blind justice are all ‘Far Right’ as defined by the psychopathic Hard Left who lied their way into power in UK. They will try
No I like twitter even if it is full of foreign ai slop