We are increasingly becoming aware of the dangers that digital technologies pose to us. Yet, the usual focus of legislators on the potential harms that online communications can cause is misguiding. What we should be focussing on is the wrongness of particular actions, rather than their potential consequences, which can be harmful in some contexts but completely harmless in others, argues Onora O'Neill.

A standard approach to uses of digital technologies aims to prohibit those that harm others, and to allow those that do not.  However, it is not always possible to identify which uses harm and which do not. In the early days of digital technologies, many hoped that they would prove highly beneficial—for example, by supporting the spread of information and democracy. Today there are widespread worries about the harms they can create. In the US, concern about their possible (mis)use to influence electoral outcomes illustrates the point. And in the UK, the Online Safety Bill currently before Parliament aims to prohibit and penalise online communication that harms, without restricting harmless online content. Can this be done? And is a focus on harms enough?

Online technologies have indeed made it easier to inflict and spread a great variety of harms.  They can be used to distribute pornography, to incite violence; to promote anorexia, to denigrate others; to defraud and deceive. However, the link between specific online activities and resulting harms is variable. Some online communication that respects relevant ethical and epistemic norms harms others; some does not. Telling the truth benefits in many cases but may cause distress in others; honesty may harm recipients in some cases but be liberating in others. Many types of online content are neither systematically harmful, nor systematically harmless.

This makes legislating to prevent online harms difficult. Circumstances alter cases, and online communication of specific types may harm in one context but not in another. Communication that harms the vulnerable or the immature may be risible and harmless for others. Joking and lying are often harmless, but, if mistakenly taken to be accurate or evidenced, can do serious harm. False claims that are honestly held may harm: witness the claims of anti-vaxxers. 

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We need to prevent and limit communication that is inaccurate or false, that slanders, defrauds, or deceives, whether or not it can be shown to harm in each particular case.

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Since circumstances alter the effects of online communication, it is often hard to tell whether online harms will arise and whom they will affect. This suggests that discussions of acceptable and unacceptable communication need to focus not solely on the harmful or harmless effects of communication, but also on the norms and standards that speech and communication respect or flout, whether or not harm can be predicted in a particular case. 

In the digital world, as in the pre-digital world, we need to prevent and limit communication that is inaccurate or false, that slanders, defrauds, or deceives, whether or not it can be shown to harm in each particular case. Similarly, we need to ensure that online communication does not violate privacy or damage reputations, that it aims to be informative and accurate, and not to mislead or slander. Most of this work is done by legislation and regulation that prescribes norms and standards for action, rather than by trying to divide online content into the prospectively harmful and the prospectively harmless.