Censorship is nothing new to Great Britain. The latest addition comes under the guise of the Online Safety Act, a law which came into force this Summer.

Concerns arise as alternative and heavy metal communities could be unfairly affected by ever-growing laws, similarly to how our cousins in the US, Germany and Australia have been over the years.

Our current Labour government has finally brought the Online Safety Act into law. The results have been arguably both disastrous and farcical as we have seen the broad scope of restricted “adult material” range from news reporting on the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, addiction support sub-Reddits, and recently, even Wikipedia has had to defend itself in court to remain open and free to all.

Image Credit: The Internet Commission

Over on Spotify, it has been reported that users trying to watch music videos rated 18, by either the record label or Spotify themselves, are being greeted with a message demanding that they hand over biometric data. If they do not comply, users may face their accounts being suspended and deleted.

Imagine that in 2025, you have to prove to the government that you are old enough to watch the music video for Cannibal Corpse’s Inhumane Harvest or Motörhead’s Killed By Death, and thereby also proving you are old enough to access art.

This is not the first time that censorship has affected our communities. From the 1960s through to the 1980s, Britain faced the scourge of Mary Whitehouse. Mary was responsible for crusading against all that she perceived as “immoral”, in accordance with her own Conservative and Christian Values.

Infamously, she helped Alice Cooper achieve a number one single with ‘School’s Out’ by forcing the BBC to ban Alice from appearing on Top of the Pops, inadvertently driving popularity to this forbidden song. Later in her career, she helped to champion the Video Nasties moral panic of the 1980s, which saw numerous horror movies banned or severely edited down. This only pushed them underground, allowing such films to develop a cult following. I don’t know about you, but I’m seeing a pattern here.

There have also been allegations that Mary had meetings with then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about their joint interest in moral crusades and how to move forward in the interest of “saving the children”.

At the same time, the United States saw the Satanic Panic in full swing. Yet again, Christian and Conservative voices were rallying against what they perceived as moral indecency and petitioning to bring in censorship “for the children”.

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Whilst all the wild claims and conspiracy theories around the Satanic Panic subsided and were disproved, the era did see the birth of the Parents Music Resource Centre (PMRC), spearheaded by Tipper Gore. Tipper and her friends created a “Filthy Fifteen” list of songs they deemed the most offensive. This included W.A.S.P.’s ‘Animal’, Twisted Sister’s ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ and Mercyful Fate’s ‘Into The Coven’.

The subsequent Senate hearing led to the “Parental Warning” stickers on albums, which many fellow Millennials will have fond memories of seeing. Again, these did not slow sales down, instead making these albums out to be forbidden fruits that our rebellious teen selves yearned for to rebel.

This brings us to my main point. In my opinion, the Online Safety Act has and will continue to impact Free Speech, Freedom of Expression and access to the arts which, in turn, will affect individuals in alternative communities and subcultures.

Freedom of speech and expression has given artists in our spaces the ability to create songs, movies and art that deal with subjects such as mortality, sexual expression, blasphemy and the human condition. We choose to engage with these subjects because we find a connection with the art and, just as importantly, the communities built around them.

We have all felt outcast and othered at some point in our lives, but we found ourselves and were supported by alternative communities. There is potentially a new generation that will struggle to find the same communities as easily as we did.

Image Credit: Unsplash

The Online Safety Act was initially grounded in a good place, but the responsibility lies with the parents to educate and to guide, rather than with the government to make sweeping decisions. Our Freedoms of Speech and Expression are being infringed on by this Act. As a Metalhead, I fully support and intend to protect these freedoms because I would be hypocritical not to.

Yes, freedom of speech does not and should not mean freedom from consequence. However, the way we perceive the world is objective and subjective to us, the individual. It is built in a spectrum of greys rather than black and white. I believe that the Online Safety Act needs to be severely revised or repealed before art and music, and the communities built around them, are irreversibly damaged.

Featured Image Credit: Jonathan Cooper / Pexels