Big Brother, UK Style

A secretive government agency that spied on anti-lockdown activists during COVID is censoring free speech in the wake of violence in British cities

The Orwellian-named National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT) —formerly the Counter Disinformation Unit — has been tasked by the UK’s new Labour government to monitor social media following recent street violence in a number of British cities. The agency was created in 2019 under a Tory government to flag any foreign interference in the European elections. The following year it was redirected to spy on anti-lockdown activists during COVID and to look for sources of “false coronavirus information online.”

Few were surprised when it was later revealed that the unit went after anyone who disagreed with government COVID policy, including epidemiologists who argued against total lockdowns and campaigners who argued that schools should be open during the pandemic. The Counter Disinformation Unit employed an artificial intelligence firm to scan social media sites. It flagged many thousands of discussions that were lawful and accurate speech of scientists, journalists, politicians, and human rights advocates, among many others.

A UK-based civil liberties monitor, Big Brother Watch, issued a blistering report this past March that concluded that the unit was “one of the most opaque units in government outside of the security services.” The report cited a “lack of transparency and accountability” and urged that Parliament conduct an independent review of the unit’s activities. The following month, a House of Commons committee, highlighted “the lack of transparency and accountability of [NSOIT] and the appropriateness of its reach” and asked for a full government review (one that has not taken place).

The backdrop for the new powers given to NSOIT is widespread public disorder in the wake of the stabbing murder of three girls at a children’s dance class in Southport, in northwest England. Violence erupted in more than 20 cities after false reports went viral on social media that the killer was an immigrant. It turns out the accused killer is a British-born 17-year-old of Rwandan nationality. Prime Minister, Sir Kier Starmer, and his top ministers, wasted no time in blaming “the far right” for sparking and fueling the violence that left dozens of police injured in clashes with anti-immigrant and anti-Islamist protestors.

Labour’s Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, held emergency one-on-one talks with executives from Google, Meta, YouTube, X, and TikTok. Kyle released a warning that the social media companies had a “responsibility to continue to work with us to stop the spread of hateful misinformation and incitement.” For those “seeking to spread hate online,” Kyle said they must “have nowhere to hide.”

The government’s Home Office started highlighting social media content that might break the law by inciting violence. The National Security Online Information Team, meanwhile, was granted “trusted flagger status”, meaning it can influence social media platforms on deciding which posts should be deleted. It is not pinpointing posts that might break the law but rather speech that the government deems misinformation. Its “counter-disinformation policy” standard is subjective. Although the government has tried to minimize concern about NSOIT by claiming “it does not, and has never, tracked the activity of individuals, and no dossiers exist,” few informed observers believe that is accurate.

One of the reasons for concern with the new and expanded role for NSOIT is that during its COVID investigations, it covertly collaborated with Britain’s intelligence agencies. In fact, MI6, and MI5, the British equivalents of the CIA and FBI, developed a working relationship with NSOIT. The group’s twelve-person “disinformation board” included UK intelligence members. The British experience mirrored to a lesser extent the disclosures by Twitter after Elon Musk bought the company that exposed the extent to which the U.S. government had utilized a secret program to censor debate by scientists, doctors and public health experts on Covid.

The National Security Online Information Team has steadfastly refused to disclose the size of its staff. It would be “prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs.” Reports estimate about 50 employees. It does not require a large staff because it relies on its own AI-run data searches of online sites, with the assistance in most cases of the social media companies themselves. Twitter is the only online firm that has, to the anger of the UK government, refused to fully cooperate. It has rebuffed the NSOIT request to swiftly remove posts that the government flags as disinformation.

The National Security Online Information Team is a small but critical element in the government’s censorship-industrial complex. The previous UK government under the Tories passed the innocent-sounding Online Safety Bill in 2023, legislation that would empower the British telecom regulator to scan online conversations and postings of all users for child abuse content, even end-to-end encrypted messages. While the provisions of the act are still being put into place, critics fret that the focus on child abuse can be redirected quickly to search for discussions that the government deems hate, inflammatory, false, or exploitive speech. The government in power decides what crosses the line in each category.

All concerned with free speech should be alarmed at a mysterious government group that has no transparent oversight and has been given the authority to lean on social media platforms to control content. It provides the government with a powerful tool to censor and shape online information. Sir Keir Starmer has made it clear where he stands on the violence that has erupted in British cities. It is not pro-Hamas demonstrators that are to blame, nor gangs calling themselves the Muslim Defence League. It is instead, said Starmer, the fault of “far-right thuggery.” Reducing the complicated social unrest in many working class British neighborhoods to a simple soundbite might work in politics but it is a recipe, says Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother, that could “inflame tensions and distrust rather than promote social harmony.”

With the National Security Online Information Team targeting for censorship any posts that it deems far-right inflammatory disinformation, there is little chance that the recent unrest will be the last violence in Britain. It will only push some of the angriest sentiment underground and it is why censorship never works in the long term.