Online Safety Bill (Seventh sitting)

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

Good morning, Ms Rees. It is a pleasure to serve once again under your chairmanship. I wondered whether the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd, wanted to speak first—I am always happy to follow her, if she would prefer that.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Always chivalrous!

[Chris Philp]

I do my best.

Clauses 17 and 27 have similar effects, the former applying to user-to-user services and the latter to search services. They set out an obligation on the companies to put in place effective and accessible content reporting mechanisms, so that users can report issues. The clauses will ensure that service providers are made aware of illegal and harmful content on their sites. In relation to priority illegal content, the companies must proactively prevent it in the first place, but in the other areas, they may respond reactively as well.

The clause will ensure that anyone who wants to report illegal or harmful content can do so in a quick and reasonable way. We are ensuring that everyone who needs to do that will be able to do so, so the facility will be open to those who are affected by the content but who are not themselves users of the site. For example, that might be non-users who are the subject of the content, such as a victim of revenge pornography, or non-users who are members of a specific group with certain characteristics targeted by the content, such as a member of the Jewish community reporting antisemitic content. There is also facility for parents and other adults with caring responsibility for children, and adults caring for another adult, to report content. Clause 27 sets out similar duties in relation to search. I commend the clauses to the Committee.

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[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I will talk about this later, when we come to a subsequent clause to which I have tabled some amendments—I should have tabled some to this clause, but unfortunately missed the chance to do so.

I appreciate the Minister laying out why he has designated the people covered by this clause; my concern is that “affected” is not wide enough. My logic is that, on the strength of these provisions, I might not be able to report racist content that I come across on Twitter if I am not the subject of that content—if I am not a member of a group that is the subject of the content or if I am not caring for someone who is the subject of it.

I appreciate what the Minister is trying to do, and I get the logic behind it, but I think the clause unintentionally excludes some people who would have a reasonable right to expect to be able to make reports in this instance. That is why I tabled amendments 78 and 79 to clause 28, about search functions, but those proposals would have worked reasonably for this clause as well. I do not expect a positive answer from the Minister today, but perhaps he could give consideration to my concern. My later amendments would change “affected person” to “any other person”. That would allow anyone to make a report, because if something is illegal content, it is illegal content. It does not matter who makes the report, and it should not matter that I am not a member of the group of people targeted by the content.

I report things all the time, particularly on Twitter, and a significant amount of it is nothing to do with me. It is not stuff aimed at me; it is aimed at others. I expect that a number of the platforms will continue to allow reporting for people who are outwith the affected group, but I do not want to be less able to report than I am currently, and that would be the case for many people who see concerning content on the internet.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

The hon. Lady is making a really important point. One stark example that comes to my mind is when English footballers suffered horrific racist abuse following the penalty shootout at the Euros last summer. Hundreds of thousands of people reported the abuse that they were suffering to the social media platforms on their behalf, in an outcry of solidarity and support, and it would be a shame if people were prevented from doing that.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I absolutely agree. I certainly do not think I am suggesting that the bigger platforms such as Twitter and Facebook will reduce their reporting mechanisms as a result of how the Bill is written. However, it is possible that newer or smaller platforms, or anything that starts after this legislation comes, could limit the ability to report on the basis of these clauses.

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[Kirsty Blackman]

rose—

[Alex Davies-Jones]

rose—

[Chris Philp]

I give way first to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North—I think she was first on her feet—and then I will come to the hon. Member for Pontypridd.

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[Chris Philp]

I think the shadow Minister wanted to intervene, unless I have answered her point already.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I wanted to reiterate the point that the hon. Member for Aberdeen North made, which the Minister has not answered. If he has such faith that the systems and processes will be changed and controlled by Ofcom as a result of the Bill, why is he so reluctant to put in an ombudsman? It will not be overwhelmed with complaints if the systems and processes work, and therefore protect victims. We have already waited far too long for the Bill, and now he says that we need to wait two to four years for a review, and even longer to implement an ombudsman to protect victims. Why will he not just put this in the Bill now to keep them safe?

[Chris Philp]

Because we need to give the new systems and processes time to take effect. If the hon. Lady felt so strongly that an ombudsman was required, she was entirely at liberty to table an amendment to introduce one, but she has not done so.

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[Chris Philp]

As I have said, at the moment there is nothing at all. Platforms such as Facebook can and do arbitrarily censor content with little if any regard for freedom of speech. Some platforms have effectively cancelled Donald Trump while allowing the Russian state to propagate shocking disinformation about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, so there is real inconsistency and a lack of respect for freedom of speech. This at least establishes something where currently there is nothing. We can debate whether “have regard to” is strong enough. We have heard the other point of view from the other side of the House, which expressed concern that it might be used to allow otherwise harmful content, so there are clearly arguments on both sides of the debate. The obligation to have regard does have some weight, because the issue cannot be completely ignored. I do not think it would be adequate to simply pay lip service to it and not give it any real regard, so I would not dismiss the legislation as drafted.

I would point to the clauses that we have recently discussed, such as clause 15, under which content of democratic importance—which includes debating current issues and not just stuff said by an MP or candidate—gets additional protection. Some of the content that my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley referred to a second ago would probably also get protection under clause 14, under which content of democratic importance has to be taken in account when making decisions about taking down or removing particular accounts. I hope that provides some reassurance that this is a significant step forwards compared with where the internet is today.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I share the Minister’s sentiments about the Bill protecting free speech; we all want to protect that. He mentions some of the clauses we debated on Tuesday regarding democratic importance. Some would say that debating this Bill is of democratic importance. Since we started debating the Bill on Tuesday, and since I have mentioned some of the concerns raised by stakeholders and others about the journalistic exemption and, for example, Tommy Robinson, my Twitter mentions have been a complete sewer—as everyone can imagine. One tweet I received in the last two minutes states:

“I saw your vicious comments on Tommy Robinson…The only reason you want to suppress him is to bury the Pakistani Muslim rape epidemic”

in this country. Does the Minister agree that that is content of democratic importance, given we are debating this Bill, and that it should remain on Twitter?

[Chris Philp]

That sounds like a very offensive tweet. Could the hon. Lady read it again? I didn’t quite catch it.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Yes:

“I saw your vicious comments on Tommy Robinson…The only reason you want to suppress him is to bury the Pakistani Muslim rape epidemic”

in this country. It goes on:

“this is a toxic combination of bloc vote grubbing and woke”

culture, and there is a lovely GIF to go with it.

[Chris Philp]

I do not want to give an off-the-cuff assessment of an individual piece of content—not least because I am not a lawyer. It does not sound like it meets the threshold of illegality. It most certainly is offensive, and that sort of matter is one that Ofcom will set out in its codes of practice, but there is obviously a balance between freedom of speech and content that is harmful, which the codes of practice will delve into. I would be interested if the hon. Lady could report that to Twitter and then report back to the Committee on what action it takes.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Yes, I will do that right now and see what happens.

[Chris Philp]

At the moment, there is no legal obligation to do anything about it, which is precisely why this Bill is needed, but let us put it to the test.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 20

Record-keeping and review duties

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.