Children: Exposure to Harmful Content

Baroness Benjamin Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran [V]]

I cannot agree with the noble Lord’s last remarks. The Government have worked very hard on the guidance that has been published, the funding we have made available to organisations supporting vulnerable people, and the work we have been doing with the sector. As I have already said, we believe that the way to protect children from accessing harmful online content is through the legislation that we will bring forward later this Session, but a number of other elements are also being brought forward, including our media literacy strategy and the safety by design framework.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the BBFC research shows a clear demand for age ratings online and the value that these can bring to parents around child protection, especially as, unbelievably, there is still no age verification in place for harmful material. It is good to hear that the Government are encouraging more video on demand services to follow the example of Netflix and adopt the trusted BBFC ratings, but what discussions have they had with the technology companies since the start of the crisis to ensure that they are allocating resources to tackling harmful activity online?

[Baroness Barran [V]]

My department, my colleague the Minister for Digital and Culture, and the Home Office have been actively working with the social media companies. We are concerned that, because of the crisis, there have been resource limitations on the human moderation elements, but we are working closely with them, and welcome the creation of the Online Safety Tech Industry Association.