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https://thecritic.co.uk/labours-gagging-acts/

The network that most troubles our Labour overlords is Web 2.0 and its pesky social media meeting places. Pitt was appalled by the lower middle classes daring to involve themselves in political discourse, and terrified by where it might lead. Labour appears equally alarmed at the prospect of the great unwashed encountering anything but approved narratives. The assumption underlying its proposals is that users of X are incapable of weighing conflicting claims and reaching an informed judgement for themselves. Hence the plan to require social media companies to prioritise approved sources, such as the BBC, over less established voices. Many of those less established voices are, of course, unreliable. But anyone relying solely on the BBC to tell them what a woman is, or what has been happening in the Israel-Hamas war, would be equally ill-served. In a free society, the burden of separating the wheat from the chaff falls on the citizen, not the state.

The final irony is that another of Pitt’s legislative innovations — the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800 — sought to suppress workers combining to demand better conditions. They inhibited precisely the sort of organisation of workers that the Labour Party — the Labour Party! — was founded to champion. Truly, we can look from pig to man, and once again it is impossible to say which is which.