Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge, told Newsmax on Monday that a new bill in the United Kingdom gives artificial intelligence the ability to regulate speech.
Appearing on "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE," the host of the "Judging Freedom" podcast warned the historic clampdown on free speech could find its way "across the Atlantic."
"It's actually worse than it appears," Napolitano said of House of Lords Bill 164, also known as the Online Safety Bill, which passed Parliament last week.
"First of all, this is the Conservative Party of Great Britain that controls Parliament that enacted this legislation, and a Conservative Prime Minister, [Rishi Sunak], who will present it to King Charles to sign it into law."
Napolitano pointed out that the bill "allows AI and bureaucrats who will manipulate AI" to decide what kind of speech is permissible or dangerous in the country and force social media platforms to act on it.
"If they fail to take it down in a timely manner – £18 million in a fine. That's about $15 million [in U.S. dollars]," said Napolitano, citing the bill's stated fines for platforms that do not comply.
He said his biggest caution was that progressives and other Democrats in the United States could take the legislation as a prototype for their own version.
"And it's not just the left, I'm sorry to tell you," he said. "The Patriot Act was passed by a Republican Congress. ... This is the big government uniparty – the pro-war party in both parties in both houses of Congress that want to give the intelligence community ... more power than it already has."
Great Britain's new law implements similar restrictions against speech that were imposed on much of continental Europe last year through the European Union's Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act.
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Luca Cacciatore ✉
Luca Cacciatore, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is based in Arlington, Virginia, reporting on news and politics.
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