Social Media

Lord Ashton of Hyde Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, I have greatly enjoyed this debate and am grateful to the right reverend Prelate. I would not dream of calling him by his nickname, although I can say that he is not the only one—after a debate on algorithms, my daughter was pleased to tell me that I was called “Lord of the Nerds” on social media—but I am grateful to him.

In our view, the Church of England’s social media guidelines are a commendable example of the steps individual institutions can take to help support online users to have more positive conversations. That also applies to the users themselves. We welcome the guidelines. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford said, the expectations they imply encourage us to be the best we can. We all know that the digital world plays an ever-increasing role in all aspects of life. We agree with the Church of England that it is important that people apply the same common sense, kindness and sound judgment when they are online that they would use in face-to-face encounters. These precepts are not unhelpful in face-to-face encounters anyway.

The transformation of our lives to the online world also comes with risks. We have seen countless stories about the impact the internet is having on our politics, institutions and individual users. It is clear that something needs to change. That is why the Government are taking action to help shape an internet that is open and vibrant and encourages innovation but, importantly, also protects its users from harm. The Government believe the Church of England’s social media guidelines are well aligned with the plans we recently outlined in our online harms White Paper. I thank the right reverend Prelate and other noble Lords for welcoming it and the contributions they made to the consultation. It also aligns well with the 10 principles of the House of Lords Communications Committee, which were mentioned by my noble friend Lady Chisholm.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford asked about the digital authority. I commented on that at the end of my speech in the debate on that report. The Government will address that in our response to the consultation that has just ended. There were 2,000 replies, which we are going through at the moment. However, I made the slight warning that we are also conscious of the need for urgent action. Changing the whole regulatory landscape may be a step too far at this time, but we are considering it. That is illustrated by how, instead of a digital authority, the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, recommends Ofcom. There are issues to consider, but we agree that the overall regulatory landscape will have to be looked at in due course. We will come back to that.

Many noble Lords will be familiar with the White Paper, which sets out our plans to make the UK the safest place in the world to go online. In answer to the children who came to see the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, we will establish a new duty of care on companies for their users, overseen by an independent regulator, so they will no longer be able to say that they do not have responsibility for their actions. The regulator will have the power to take effective action against companies that breach their regulatory requirements. Expectations of companies will be outlined in codes of practice from the regulator.

Between April and July, there was a public consultation on the White Paper proposals. In addition to the responses that I mentioned, we conducted over 100 meetings with stakeholders and international partners. We will use all these contributions to inform our work on online safety. We intend to publish our response to the White Paper consultation by the end of the year and to introduce legislation as soon as possible thereafter.

However, we are conscious of doing what we can sooner, so we are also taking action now, which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, mentioned. In addition to the social media code of practice published alongside the White Paper, the Secretary of State recently announced that the Government will produce a draft code of practice on child online safety. We are also developing guidance about the use of technology to ensure that children are protected from inappropriate content online. These will both be published before the regulatory framework is in place.

The Church of England community guidelines set out the importance of behaving with kindness and respect. We agree that users, as well as tech companies, have a role in creating a positive online environment. The Government are developing an online media literacy strategy to ensure a co-ordinated approach to online media literacy education and awareness for children, young people and adults, but users must also be held to account when their behaviour falls short of the standards we would expect offline. It is, therefore, essential that our legal framework is fit for purpose in an increasingly online world. The Government have asked the Law Commission to complete a second phase of its review of abusive and offensive communications online. The commission will make recommendations about options for legal reform of current communications offences. The project is expected to report in the early part of 2021.

Truthfulness is another of the central principles of the Church of England’s community guidelines. The Government recognise the risks of disinformation and are committed to reducing the potential impact in the UK. The White Paper includes provisions for protecting the public from online disinformation. We will expect platforms to take proportionate and proactive measures to help their users understand the nature and reliability of information they find online. Platforms should take steps to minimise the likelihood of misleading and harmful disinformation going viral and increase the accessibility of trustworthy and varied news content. These measures focus on protecting users from harm by ensuring that there are good processes in place; it is not about judging what is true or not but having sensible precautions which make it harder for disinformation to spread.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, asked two questions. In answer to the first, I will develop what I said about action now. We do understand that, to protect children, we need to get on with it. I mentioned the social media code of practice, which sets out principles that companies should follow to tackle online bullying. We have also funded the UK Safer Internet Centre to develop cyberbullying guidance. That provides, via an online safety toolkit, advice for schools on understanding, preventing and responding to cyberbullying. Digital literacy is already taught but, to support young people further, we have been working closely with the Department for Education on the relationships and sex education guidance. That covers how to develop positive, respectful relationships, how to recognise risks, harmful content and contact and how to report them. Positive, respectful relationships relate absolutely to the Church of England guidelines that we are talking about today.

I mentioned the new online media strategy, the online safety guidance and guidance on how to use technology to keep children safe. We know that there is more to do. We are doing quite a lot now but are committed to developing these important aspects. For example, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, talked about terms and conditions. We will now expect online companies to develop age-appropriate terms and conditions that people can understand, and a complaints procedure that will work quickly. Ultimately, these will be enforced by significant penalties, on which we are consulting.

The second question was about the 13 to 16 year-olds who are left behind by the GDPR. We applied a derogation in the Bill, but I will check the exact details and write to the noble Baroness.

I again thank the right reverend Prelate and the Church of England for their community guidelines and digital charter and emphasise how aligned we are on some of the fundamental issues. We will continue to engage with the Church of England as this work progresses. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions. This is an opportunity to lead the way and work with others globally. Through this work we will protect citizens, increase public trust in new technologies and create the best possible basis on which the digital economy and society can thrive.