Secretive ‘Covid’-era ‘spy’ agency brought in to monitor social media during riots
A secretive
government agency already being used to “spy on” anti-lockdown campaigners
during the Covid pandemic has
been deployed to monitor social media amid the riots, The Daily Telegraph
has learnt.
The Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU), now rebranded as the
National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT),
has been given the task just months after MPs called for an independent review
of its activities.
Campaigners have expressed concern that NSOIT is playing a
central role in the riots response despite outstanding questions over whether
it is fit for purpose.
Peter Kyle, the Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary, has asked NSOIT to monitor online activity discussing the deaths of the three children killed in Southport and the rioting, after widespread public disorder followed untrue claims about the suspect on social media.
The unit has “trusted flagger status”, which effectively
gives it privileged access to social media moderators who make decisions on
whether posts should be taken down, it is understood.
The CDU was set up in March 2020 to combat what Boris
Johnson’s government described as “false coronavirus information online” but,
as The Telegraph later revealed, was also used to crack down on dissent from
those who disagreed with official policy.
Among those who were monitored by the unit were Carl Heneghan, the epidemiologist who opposed blanket lockdowns, Molly Kingsley, who campaigned to keep schools open during the pandemic, and David Davis, the Conservative MP who called for the CDU to be shut down.
Big Brother Watch, the civil liberties group, described the CDU as “one of the most opaque units in Government outside the security services” and accused it of “spying on” free speech.
Silkie Carlo, its director, has now questioned whether it, rather than another agency, should be used in the response to the riots.
She told The Telegraph: “There are serious questions as to whether NSOIT is fit for
this task, given its chilling track record of monitoring the lawful and
accurate speech of journalists, scientists, parliamentarians, human rights
advocates and members of the public during the pandemic when they rightly
questioned the government’s pandemic management.
“It’s worrying to see
NSOIT brought into action shortly after its controversial activities were
exposed, and before it has been subject to the important independent review the
culture committee called for.”
Ms Carlo
described NSOIT as “a deceptively-named shadowy Whitehall cell, which operates
far beyond national security” and said that if the Government were to
stray into censoring lawful free speech it could “inflame tensions and distrust
rather than promote social harmony”.
A report by the Commons culture, media and sport committee,
published in April, questioned “the lack of transparency and accountability of
[NSOIT] and the appropriateness of its reach”, and recommended that the
Government commission an independent review of “the activities and strategy” of
the unit to report back within 12 months.
However, Mr Davis said he had no real objection to NSOIT
being used to monitor social media during the riots because “it’s perfectly
legitimate for the state to monitor things that might incite violence”.
The remit
was then said to have widened to include posts being made about the riots more
widely as they began to spread across towns and cities in the last week.
A division of labour is understood broadly to have emerged.
Home Office figures are flagging up online content that could break the law,
such as incitement of violence. Officials in NSOIT are focusing on material
that could breach social media companies’ rules, but fall short of criminal
activity.
It is
unclear exactly where the unit is drawing the line when it comes to
disinformation, an area likely to be scrutinised in the days and weeks ahead if
the violence continues.
“We make no apology for monitoring publicly available
content that threatens public safety. The information is flagged up to social
media firms when it is likely to have breached their terms of service, and the
police when it meets a criminal threshold.
“That obviously requires monitoring within the rules of
privacy and human rights laws: which is exactly what teams across the
Government are doing.”
