In Defence of Nigel Farage
Today the UK Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle, accused Nigel Farage of being on the side of Jimmy Saville. Jimmy Saville was one of the UK's most prolific sexual predators, using his celebrity status to target children and young people. Peter Kyle has reached this conclusion because Farage has stated that one of Reform's first acts in government would be to repeal the Online Safety Act 2023.
The Online Safety Act 2023 is a set of laws which requires tech companies to, amongst other duties, put in place mechanisms to restrict children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content. The most obvious implementation has been the introduction of age verification checks. The media has focused on this in the context of accessing pornography, but there are plenty of examples where age verification is now required when accessing other online services. For example, to access direct messaging on Bluesky, or certain reddit forums including "stopdrinking", which describes itself as a "support group in your pocket".
I'm as surprised as anyone to find myself writing anything in defence of Nigel Farage. I think he's a charlatan, pretending to be a man of the people, selling simple solutions to complex problems. I don't believe the project of leaving the EU he has dedicated his life to has borne any of the fruits he promised it would. Similarly, I don't believe a Reform government will solve the challenges that are facing the UK and the world today.
That said, I find it completely asinine to accuse Nigel Farage of being on the side of paedophiles and sexual predators for stating that his party wishes to repeal the Online Safety Act 2023. To suggest the issue is so binary is ludicrous, and insulting to the intelligence of many people who have valid reasons to be against the act. I am aware that Nigel Farage is well known for deploying equally poor tribal arguments to subjects which require thought and nuance, but two wrongs don't make a right.
I believe there are many valid reasons to be against the act. It is too far reaching, as evidenced by the examples above of sending private direct messages or accessing a support group for potential alcohol addicts. Its implementation, left to the tech companies, has been universally terrible. Many implementations require the user to upload their personal data to third parties based in the USA. This in itself is a privacy nightmare. Furthermore, by encouraging the uploading of private documents to access many websites, it normalises incredibly bad security and privacy practices.
On the flip side, I do agree that something needs to be done. I've written before about the dangers that unregulated tech firms pose. People often forget that when a child goes online, there are thousands of very well paid behavioural psychologists and million dollar advertising businesses on the other side of the screen trying to squeeze ever increasing amounts of attention from the child. Algorithms learn that the most harmful, controversial and misleading content is what maximises this engagement. To suggest a child just needs a bit more will power or that parents just need to parent better strikes me as a very one sided fight. Besides, is collective action by parents through government regulation not a valid response?
So there are definitely many facets to this debate and it is far from black and white. But on balance, I believe the current implementation has many issues, and to say so does not imply any sympathy for or siding with criminals.
Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgery3eeqzxo https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/ https://bsky.social/about/blog/07-10-2025-age-assurance https://postx.bearblog.dev/understanding-social-steering/