The latest move from Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn makes explicit what privacy campaigners have long warned: the Online Safety Act is being weaponised far beyond any child-protection claim.

Benn confirmed that the internet regulator will now wield enhanced powers to tackle "false information" online during "times of crisis," directly tying the recent Belfast unrest to this framework. The regulator has already contacted platforms, with ministers asserting that violence "appears to have been incited online."

Benn stated that if people put online 'false information,' "it is not acceptable and it may well be a criminal offence depending on the circumstances as the chief constable made clear yesterday."

When asked how a "time of crisis" would be defined, Benn said it "will be set out in due course."

The unrest followed a serious knife attack on a local man by an asylum seeker and escalated into protests involving vehicle fires, arson attacks on homes, and clashes with police that injured a dozen officers.

In addition, Ofcom, the UK's regulator for communications, responsible for overseeing broadcasting, telecommunications and - since the passage of the Online Safety Act - the major online platforms, is now using its powers to direct platforms toward enhanced, crisis-specific moderation measures whenever it or ministers identify spikes in 'illegal 'harmful' content during whatever it deems a 'crisis' event.

An Ofcom open letter published this week directly addresses the Belfast situation. It states: "Following a serious knife attack that took place in Belfast on Monday night, we have seen civil unrest in the city, some of which appears to have been incited online. This has included racially motivated incidents of violence, arson attacks on homes and vehicles, and attacks against police."

The letter goes on to remind online service providers of their duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 to assess and mitigate risks of 'illegal' content, including material amounting to offences of stirring up hatred or provoking violence.

It emphasises that "previous crises have shown how a sudden increase in the amount of illegal content circulating online can manifest in hate crime and violence in the real world" and that "usual content moderation systems and processes may not be sufficient in such circumstances."