The UK Government Watch this space green paper wants your thoughts on trustworthy news. If you are considering a response, before you write it, here’s what the state has been doing with your thoughts and viewpoints for years.

In March 2020, SPI-B, the government’s behavioural science advisors, wrote that public messaging needed “the perceived level of personal threat” to be raised among people who were complacent, “using hard-hitting emotional messaging.” [1]

To be fair, the same sentence goes on to say this only works if it also empowers people with clear actions to take. Both halves are relevant, but the state was, in its own paperwork, designing how frightened to make the general public.

The Covid Inquiry’s Module 2 report raised a point, it also raised my eyebrow: “The lack of transparency of this economic and social advice, together with the repeated use of ‘following the science’ and similar phrases in communications to the public, gave a misleading impression that decisions were being taken solely on the basis of advice from SAGE.” [2]

Advice and directive messaging became the same thing, and nobody involved seems entirely sure when that happened.

So who was watching? In January 2023, then Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the Commons that 77th Brigade “uses publicly available data, including material shared on social media platforms, to assess UK disinformation trends,” and insisted the unit wasn’t regulating or policing opinion. [3] Six months later, a DSIT minister told the Lords the Counter Disinformation Unit “does not monitor individuals or political debate,” in the same breath as admitting that parliamentarians’ “thinking and writing could end up in all kinds of departmental media summaries.” [4] That rings alarm bells with me.

Big Brother Watch’s “Ministry of Truth” report, published that same January, named the MPs and journalists whose criticism of government policy showed up in those summaries. [5] The government later apologised to the broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer for branding her a “vaccine sceptic.” [6] Which is especially ripe, being as she made no bones about the fact that she was, in fact, double vaccinated.

Why do I care really? Well, I have personal experience in this time and know personally, many who were removed from platforms for posts that drew exclusively on mainstream media and the government’s own published material, including documents the MHRA itself had put out. Not a rumour or a foreign influence account. The state’s own record, cited back at it, was enough to warrant removing a UK Citizens social media account.

So when the green paper asks the public to watch this space and share their thoughts on what counts as trustworthy, it’s worth asking what the same state was doing while it was building the apparatus now proposing to judge the rest of us. [7] I find it a bit rich that the same people who exaggerated and politicised threats, are now proposing to be the adjudicators of what classifies as truth. Basically the Government wants to decide what classifies as an approved news outlet, and they have the incoming legislation to back it up.

Watch this space. It’s already been watching you.

Consultation is open until August 31st 2026. [7]

References

[1] Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures, paper submitted to SAGE, 22 March 2020. Published on assets.publishing.service.gov.uk. Crown copyright, Open Government Licence. Verified live 21 August 2026. The full passage reads that the perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging, and that to be effective this must also empower people by making clear the actions they can take to reduce the threat.

[2] UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Modules 2, 2A, 2B and 2C: Core decision-making and political governance, Volume I, Chair the Rt Hon Baroness Hallett DBE, published 20 November 2025. Crown copyright, Open Government Licence, quotable in full. Verified live 21 August 2026. https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/reports/modules-2-2a-2b-2c-core-decision-making-and-political-governance-volume-i/

[3] Hansard, House of Commons, Topical Questions, 30 January 2023. Ben Wallace, Secretary of State for Defence, on the Army’s counter-disinformation unit in 77th Brigade. Verified live 21 August 2026. https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-01-30/debates/F9CB0534-C804-4014-90C0-7B6809AA8B28/TopicalQuestions

[4] Hansard, House of Lords, Counter Disinformation Unit, 18 July 2023. Viscount Camrose, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Carries both quoted passages in the same exchange. Verified live 21 August 2026. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2023-07-18/debates/E7127600-965F-4B89-A91A-2B4AE3369B06/CounterDisinformationUnit

[5] Big Brother Watch, Ministry of Truth, published 30 January 2023.

https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk

[6] Big Brother Watch, Government apologises after “counter disinformation” unit spread misinformation about journalist to UK and US governments, October 2023. https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/press-releases/government-apologises-after-counter-disinformation-unit-spread-misinformation-about-journalist-to-uk-and-us-governments/ Supporting: AWO, instructed solicitors, Julia Hartley-Brewer: Challenging government monitoring, https://awo.agency/case-studies/julia-hartley-brewer-challenging-government-monitoring/ Also reported in The Times, 27 October 2023.

[7] Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Watch this space: a new strategic direction for UK media, green paper and public consultation, published 23 June 2026. Consultation closes 11:59pm on 31 August 2026. Verified live 21 August 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/watch-this-space-a-new-strategic-direction-for-uk-media-green-paper-and-public-consultation