Online Safety Bill

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th May 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

96: After Clause 35, insert the following new Clause—
“Suicide or self-harm content duties
(1) This section sets out the duties about harmful suicide or self-harm content which apply to all regulated user-to-user services and providers of search services.(2) This section applies in respect of all service users.(3) A duty to include provisions in the terms of service specifying the treatment to be applied in relation to harmful suicide or self-harm content.(4) The possible kinds of treatment of content referred to in subsection (3) are—(a) taking down the content;(b) restricting users’ access to the content;(c) limiting the recommendation or promotion of the content.(5) A duty to explain in the terms of service the provider’s response to the risks relating to harmful suicide or self- harm content by reference to—(a) any provisions of the terms of service included in compliance with the duty set out in subsection (3), and(b) any other provisions of the terms of service designed to mitigate or manage those risks.(6) If provisions are included in the terms of service in compliance with the duty set out in subsection (3), a duty to ensure that those provisions—(a) are clear and accessible, and(b) are applied consistently in relation to content which meets the definition in section 207.”Member’s explanatory statement
This creates a duty for providers of regulated user-to-user services and search services to manage harmful suicide or self-harm content, applicable to both children and adults.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I am particularly grateful to the noble Lords who co-signed Amendments 96, 240 and 296 in this group. Amendment 225 is also important and warrants careful consideration, as it explicitly includes eating disorders. These amendments have strong support from Samaritans, which has helped me in drafting them, and from the Mental Health Foundation and the BMA. I declare that I am an elected member of the BMA ethics committee.

We have heard much in Committee about the need to protect children online more effectively even than in the Bill. On Tuesday the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, made a powerful speech acknowledging that vulnerability does not stop at the age of 18 and that the Bill currently creates a cliff edge whereby there is protection from harmful content for those under 18 but not for those over 18. The empowerment tools will be futile for those seriously contemplating suicide and self-harm. No one should underestimate the power of suicide contagion and the addictive nature of the content that is currently pushed out to people, goading them into such actions and drawing them into repeated viewings.

Amendment 96 seeks to redress that. It incorporates a stand-alone provision, creating a duty for providers of user-to-user services to manage harmful content about suicide or self-harm. This provision would operate as a specific category, relevant to all regulated services and applicable to both children and adults. Amendment 296 defines harmful suicide or self-harm content. It is important that we define that to avoid organisations such as Samaritans, which provide suicide prevention support, being inadvertently caught up in clumsy, simplistic search engine categorisation.

Suicide and self-harm content affects people of all ages. Adults in distress search the internet, and children easily bypass age-verification measures and parental controls even when the have been switched on. The Samaritans Lived Experience Panel reported that 82% of people who died by suicide, having visited websites that encouraged suicide and/or methods of self-harm, were over the age of 25.

Samaritans considers that the types of suicide and self-harm content that are legal but unequivocally harmful include, but are not limited to, information, depictions, instructions and advice on methods of self-harm and suicide; content that portrays self-harm and suicide as positive or desirable; and graphic descriptions or depictions of self-harm and suicide. As the Bill stands, platforms will not even need to consider the risk that such content could pose to adults. This will leave all that dangerous online content widely available and undermines the Bill’s intention from the outset.

Last month, other parliamentarians and I met Melanie, whose relative Jo died by suicide in 2020. He was just 23. He had accessed suicide-promoting content online, and his family are speaking out to ensure that the Bill works to avoid future tragedies. A University of Bristol study reported that those with severe suicidal thoughts actively use the internet to research effective methods and often find clear suggestions. Swansea University reported that three quarters of its research participants had harmed themselves more severely after viewing self-harm content online.

Amendment 240 complements the other amendments in this group, although it would not rely on them to be effective. It would establish a specific unit in Ofcom to monitor the prevalence of suicide, self-harm and harmful content online. I should declare that this is in line with the Private Member’s Bill I have introduced. In practice, that means that Ofcom would need to assess the efficacy of the legislation in practice. It would require Ofcom to investigate the content and the algorithms that push such content out to individuals at an alarming rate.

Researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate set up new accounts in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia at the minimum age TikTok allows, which is 13. These accounts paused briefly on videos about body image and mental health, and “liked” them. Within 2.6 minutes, TikTok recommended suicide content, and it sent content on eating disorders within eight minutes.

Ofcom’s responsibility for ongoing review and data collection, reported to Parliament, would take a future-facing approach covering new technologies. New communications and internet technologies are being developed at pace in ways we cannot imagine. The term

“in a way equivalent … to”

in Amendment 240 is specifically designed to include the metaverse, where interactions are instantaneous, virtual and able to incite, encourage or provoke serious harm to others.

We increasingly live our lives online. Social media is expanding, while user-to-user sites are now shopping platforms for over 70% of UK consumers. However, online is also being used to sell suicide kits or lethal substances, as recently covered in the press. It is important that someone holds the responsibility for reporting on dangers in the online world. Harmful suicide content methods and encouragement were found through a systematic review to be massed on sites with low levels of moderation and easy search functions for images. Some 78% of people with lived experience of suicidality and self-harm surveyed by Samaritans agree that new laws are needed to make online spaces safer.

I urge noble Lords to support my amendments, which aim to ensure that self-harm, suicide and seriously harmful content is addressed across all platforms in all categories as well as search engines, regardless of their functionality or reach, and for all persons, regardless of age. Polling by Samaritans has shown high support for this: four out of five agree that harmful suicide and self-harm content can damage adults as well as children, while three-quarters agree that tech companies should by law prevent such content being shown to users of all ages.

If the Government are not minded to adopt these amendments, can the Minister tell us specifically how the Bill will take a comprehensive approach to placing duties on all platforms to reduce dangerous content promoting suicide and self-harm? Can the Government confirm that smaller sites, such as forums that encourage suicide, will need to remove priority illegal content, whatever the level of detail in their risk assessment? Lastly—I will give the Minister a moment to note my questions—do the Government recognise that we need an amendment on Report to create a new offence of assisting or encouraging suicide and serious self-harm? I beg to move.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)]

My Lords, I particularly support Amendment 96, to which I have added my name; it is a privilege to do so. I also support Amendment 296 and I cannot quite work out why I have not added my name to it, because I wholeheartedly agree with it, but I declare my support now.

I want to talk again about an issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, set out so well and that we also touched on last week, about the regulation of suicide and self-harm content. We have all heard of the tragic case of Molly Russell, but a name that is often forgotten in this discussion is Frankie Thomas. Frankie was a vulnerable teenager with childhood trauma, functioning autism and impulsivity. After reading a story about self-harm on the app Wattpad, according to the coroner’s inquest, she went home and undertook

“a similar act, resulting in her death”.

I do not need to repeat the many tragic examples that have already been shared in this House, but I want to reiterate the point already made by the BMA in its very helpful briefing on these amendments: viewing self-harm and suicide content online can severely harm the user offline. As I said last week when we were debating the user empowerment tools, this type of content literally has life or death repercussions. It is therefore essential that the Bill takes this sort of content more seriously and creates specific duties for services to adhere to.

We will, at some point this evening—I hope—come on to debate the next group of amendments. The question for Ministers to answer on this group, the next one and others that we will be debating is, where we know that content is harmful to society—to individuals but also to broader society—why the Government do not want to take the step of setting out how that content should be properly regulated. I think it all comes from their desire to draw a distinction between content that is illegal and content that is not illegal but is undoubtedly, in the eyes of pretty well every citizen, deeply harmful. As we have already heard from the noble Baroness, and as we heard last week, adults do not become immune to suicide and self-harm content the minute they turn 18. In fact, I would argue that no adult is immune to the negative effects of viewing this type of content online.

This amendment, therefore, is very important, as it would create a duty for providers of regulated user-to-user services and search engines to manage harmful suicide or self-harm content applicable to both children and adults, recognising this cliff edge otherwise in the Bill, which we have already talked about. I strongly urge noble Lords, particularly the Minister, to agree that protecting users from this content is one of the most important things that the Bill can do. People outside this House are looking to us to do this, so I urge the Government to support this amendment today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to everyone who has contributed to this debate. It has been a very rich debate, full of information; my notes have become extensive during it.

There are a few things that I would like to know more about: for example, how self-harm, which has been mentioned by the Minister, is being defined, given the debate we have had about how to define self-harm. I thought of self-harm as something that does lasting and potentially life-threatening damage. There are an awful lot of things that people do to themselves that others might not like them doing but that do not fall into that category. However, the point about suicide and serious self-harm is that when you are dead, that is irreversible. You cannot talk about healing, because the person has now disposed of their life, one way or another.

I am really grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, for highlighting how complex suicide is. Of course, one of the dangers with all that is on the internet is that the impulsive person gets caught up rapidly, so what would have been a short thought becomes an overwhelming action leading to their death.

Having listened to the previous debate, I certainly do not understand how Ofcom can have the flexibility to really know what is happening and how the terms of service are being implemented without a complaints system. I echo the really important phrase from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara: if it is illegal in the real world, why are we leaving it on the internet?

Many times during our debates, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has pushed safety by design. In many other things, we have defaults. My amendments were not trying to provide censorship but simply trying to provide a default, a safety stop, to stop things escalating, because we know that they are escalating at the moment. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, asked whether it was an amplification or a reach issue. I add, “or is it both?”. From all the evidence we have before us, it appears to be.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for pressing that we must learn from experience and that user empowerment to switch off simply does not go far enough: people who are searching for this and already have suicidal ideation will not switch it off because they have started searching. There is no way that could be viewed as a safety feature in the Bill, and it concerns me.

Although I will withdraw my amendment today, of course, I really feel that we will have to return to this on Report. I would very much appreciate the wisdom of other noble Lords who know far more about working on the internet and all the other aspects than I do. I am begging for assistance in trying to get the amendments right. If not, the catalogue of deaths will mount up. This is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 96 withdrawn.