How to exploit a crisis

The phrase ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ is often attributed to Winston Churchill, but it’s something the left is better at than the right. Take the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a lobby group that campaigns for more online censorship run by Imran Ahmed, a former adviser to Hilary Benn and Angela Eagle. Earlier this month, the CCDH held an ‘emergency’ meeting to discuss the role of social media in fuelling the public disorder that followed the murder of three girls in Southport, and on Tuesday it published the policy recommendations that emerged from that meeting.

The most eye-catching of these is that the Online Safety Act should be amended so Ofcom can apply for ‘emergency powers’ during a crisis that would allow it to demand social media companies remove content that poses a threat to national security or the health or safety of the public.