“Covid came from a Chinese lab” — “harmful because it causes ‘racism’”
“Pakistani grooming gangs in Rotherham are targeting young British girls” — harmful because it could promote social unrest.
“Eating meat can improve metabolic health” — harmful because it promotes behaviors that contribute heavily to climate change.
“Young motorcycle racers should be allowed to train on big tracks before the age of 16” — harmful because it promotes a ‘dangerous’ sport to kids.
I could go on and you could replace whatever I said to whatever you want to say and depending on who is the arbiter of “harmful,” that speech could be regulated in a way that creates criminals out of simply stating facts or opinions.
If the lead up to WW2 were today, if these regulations existed, then suggesting that a Germans in the U.K. were a national security risk could get you in trouble for “promoting harmful stereotypes about German people.”
In my mind, if we are to regulate speech at all, it should have a very very strict standard as to what speech is demonstrably harmful rather than politically uncomfortable. I’m not an Alex Jones fan at all, but for example, nobody died from anything he said, people have been offended and perhaps disgusted, but the ramblings of a conspiracy theorist aren’t causing anyone actual harm. In the US, we have libel and slander laws, we also have laws against speech that cause an imminent threat of danger — but we should never have laws that protect people from being offended, or even misinformed. We have websites supporting Chinese Traditional Medicine despite some practices in that field being demonstrably harmful and contrary to modern medical science — should those be banned? I would think most people would say not.
This online “safety” regulation is really a regulation to regulate political speech under the guise of “protecting the children.”