Nadine Dorries has once again tried to impress social media, this time by making going one step further and making an unusual rap about her Online Safety Bill.
The culture secretary and loyal ally to Boris Johnson has regularly caused a stir ever since she was appointed to cabinet in September.
Aside from accidentally saying you can “downstream” movies, forgetting how Channel 4 is actually funded and getting confused about Microsoft’s algorithms, Dorries has made a name for herself for controversially trying to reconstruct the digital landscape. This includes calling for the BBC to be more neutral and privatising Channel 4.
Now she is championing the Online Safety Bill to protect users – and is trying to make it appeal to younger audiences through her new TikTok rap.
The lyrics – cut through with interesting angles of the culture secretary herself and some famous memes – read as follows:
“The UK is passing some new legislation/
“To make the internet safer for the younger generation.
“It’s effectively a framework to protect internet users/
“From scams, illegal content and anonymous abusers.
“It will force big tech to stop their terms being breaches/
“And puts in measures to defend free speech.
″But is it true it will impact freedom of expression?
“No, we put in legal protections in the 19th section.
“Another thing we’re doing through the laws we’re passing/
“Is tackling online crime and cyberflashing.
“If companies fail to comply with the law/
“and fail to protect the users that they’re responsible for,
″The regulator Ofcom will have the power to fine/
“So platforms must keep people safe online.”
At the end, she literally drops the mic.
The rap was so surprising that even Sooz Kempner, who regularly mocks Dorries on her social media accounts through impersonations, refused to share her own interpretation of the culture secretary.
In response to the video, she tweeted: “I ain’t touching this. No way.”
She later added: “I’m not gonna do it. It’s just a shit TikTok that nobody needs a shit parody of. She’s bound to say or do something that harms the industry I work in that she’s in charge of soon and then I’ll sadly run a brush through the wig.”
And here’s what everyone else has been saying about the TikTok...
The TikTok was also making the rounds on the day the BBC announced it was cutting several of its channels, including BBC Four and CBBC.
The BBC’s funding has been cut because Dorries has frozen the broadcaster’s licence fee for two years – prompting only more criticism in the culture secretary’s direction.