Netflix and…chilled? New UK rules target ‘harmful or offensive’ streaming content

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The United Kingdom isn’t just focused on age-gating and regulating what its citizens can see and do on the internet through its Online Safety Act. Now, officials are setting their sights on what people can stream, expanding their regulatory focus beyond local television channels and into the workings of non-UK companies like Netflix.

If the censorial headaches unleashed by the Online Safety Act’s attempts to crack down on “harmful content” on the web are any indicator, residents of the UK — as well as the streaming companies officials intend to regulate and their global audiences who watch them — have reason to worry.

This week, communications regulator Ofcom announced “enhanced” regulation for video-on-demand services with more than 500,000 UK-based users. Some of the requirements will address accessibility features such as subtitles, but there will also be a significant focus on the aired material itself: specifically “harmful or offensive material.” Platforms with user bases of this size will be subject to a forthcoming video-on-demand code modeled on rules already in place against stations like the BBC.

“Similar to the Broadcasting Code, this will ensure that news is reported accurately and impartially and audiences are protected against harmful or offensive material,” a UK government press release explains. “Audiences will be able to complain to Ofcom if they see something concerning, and Ofcom will have powers to investigate, and take action, where they consider there has been a breach of the code.”

The Broadcasting Code, which will no doubt influence the upcoming rules for streaming services, explains that TV and radio stations must “provide adequate protection for members of the public from the inclusion in such services of harmful and/or offensive material.”

Programs containing “harmful” material including “offensive language, violence, sex, sexual violence, humiliation, distress, violation of human dignity, [and] discriminatory treatment or language” must be “justified by the context.” That context can include the time and service during which the material is aired but also much more nebulous concepts like “the degree of harm or offence likely to be caused by” it or “the effect of the material on viewers or listeners who may come across it unawares.”

This will very likely mean bad news for UK citizens who don’t want this kind of government overreach into the streaming services they watch and who can, in theory at least, decide for themselves what material is too offensive or harmful for their TVs and tablets. But it also could be bad news for the rest of the world.

The risk of fines for ambiguously defined harmful content — and fines will no doubt be a penalty for breaches of the not-yet-written code — could very well pressure streamers like Amazon Prime and Netflix to make editorial decisions not to greenlight content that might be perceived as offensive by UK regulators, including shows and projects intended for a global audience. Companies might decide it isn’t worth the risk of either fines in the UK or the production cost of creating content that will be inaccessible to its UK-based audience.

And that can affect far more people than just UK citizens. As FIRE recently explained in its principles for defending speech on the global internet, the interconnectedness of today’s world means that regulations passed in one country can have significant “potential to bleed across borders,” including into the U.S.

We’ll keep an eye on these forthcoming regulations to see what it means for streaming companies — and, perhaps, what airs on our screens, too.