Online Safety Bill

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, it is a huge honour to speak immediately after the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. She is one of my sheroes; she did not know that but she does now—and it will be recorded in Hansard. I declare my interest as CEO of the Muslim Women’s Network UK. Let me start by saying that the speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, was heartfelt; I will support the amendments that she plans to put forward.

I will focus on four areas of concern: the abuse of women and girls; pornography; extremist and misogynistic content; and digitally altered body images. First, I share the concerns that have been raised many times today by noble Lords on the gaps in this Bill to tackle the online abuse and harassment of women and girls sufficiently. I therefore support the call from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, to introduce a code of practice.

Secondly, on pornography, I strongly support the recommendations from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. I will also support any amendments that he plans to table. Inaction by successive Governments to tackle easy access to pornography by children has led to harmful sexual behaviour towards women and girls. This Government must go further to strengthen age verification. There is plenty of technology to do this. It can and should be implemented without delay.

Thirdly, there is a lack of accountability when it comes to publishing extremist and misogynistic online content. I am concerned that, according to the vague definition in the Bill, any online platform can call itself a recognised news publisher and then be exempt from complying with any requirement in the Bill. This will result in online platforms being free to promote harmful hate speech, including misogynistic content, and not having to remove it.

Finally, another urgent concern is the digital alteration of body images and sizes in advertising. Although boys are exposed to digitally altered images of men, girls are exposed to a far greater number of images of women that are highly manipulated and altered. Editing images of models involves taking inches off bodies and faces. The manipulation of images in this way is causing serious long-term harm, contributing to low self-esteem, anxiety, depression and self-harm and driving young people to cosmetic surgery. Given that advertisers are promoting an unattainable body size, this type of online communication is fraudulent and harmful; it therefore can and should be addressed in this Bill.

Earlier, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, raised concerns about disinformation and misleading material being widely available and causing harm. This is a prime example of that, but it is often overlooked. I know that Luke Evans has introduced a Private Member’s Bill in the other place; however, this Online Safety Bill provides a prime opportunity to tackle this issue now. I urge the Government to listen to the serious concerns being raised by many campaigners, including Suzanne Samaka, founder of the campaign #HonestyAboutEditing. Other countries, such as Israel, France and Norway, have already taken decisive action by legally requiring altered images to carry a label. The UK has been left behind the curve. How will advertisers be held accountable? Will the Government consider legally requiring advertisers to label digitally altered images? Can the Minister inform the House of any alternative plans to tackle this harmful practice by advertisers, such as introducing a code of practice?

There is a common thread in all the concerns that I have shared today: how the weaknesses in this Bill will have a disproportionately negative and harmful impact on the lives of women and girls. If this Government are serious about protecting women and girls from harm, they must take a more holistic, robust approach to their safety.

Online Safety Bill

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow some very knowledgeable speakers, whose knowledge is much greater than mine. Nevertheless, I feel the importance of this debate above and beyond any other that I can think of on this Bill. However, I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, who said that women should not be victims. They are not victims; they are being victimised. We need a code—the code that is being proposed—not for the victims but for the tech companies, because of the many diverse strands of abuse that women face online. This is an enabler for the tech companies to get their heads around what is coming and to understand it a lot better. It is a helpful tool, not a mollycoddling tool at all.

I strongly agree with everything else, apart from what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, which I will come on to in a second. I and, I am sure, other noble Lords in this Chamber have had many hundreds of emails from concerned people, ordinary people, who nevertheless understand the importance of what this code of practice will achieve today. I speak for them, as well as the others who have supported this particularly important amendment.

As their supporters have pointed out in this Chamber, Amendments 97 and 304 are the top priority for the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, who believes that, if they do not pass, the Bill will not go far enough to prevent and respond effectively to domestic abuse online. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, spoke about the need to keep a sense of proportion, but online abuse is everywhere. According to the charity Refuge—I think this was mentioned earlier—over one-third of women and 62% of young women have experienced online abuse and harassment.

I am sure that the Minister is already aware that a sector coalition of experts on violence against women and girls put together the code of practice that we are discussing today. It is needed, as I have said, because of the many strands of abuse that are perpetuated online. However, compliance with the new terms of service to protect women and girls is not cheap. In cost- driven organisations, the temptation will be to relax standards as time goes by, which we have seen in the past in the cases of Facebook and Twitter. The operators’ feet must be held to the fire with this new, stricter and more comprehensive code. People’s lives depend on it.

In his remarks, can the Minister indicate whether the Government are at least willing to look at this code? Otherwise, can he explain how the Government will ensure that domestic abuse and its component offences are understood by providers in the round?

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Baronesses, Lady Morgan and Lady Kidron, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, on Amendment 97 to Clause 36 to mandate Ofcom to produce codes of practice, so that these influential online platforms have to respond adequately to tackle online violence against women and girls.

Why should we care about these codes of practice being in the Bill? Not doing so will have far-reaching consequences, of which we have already heard many examples. First, it will threaten progress on gender equality. As the world moves to an increasingly digital future, with more and more connections and conversations moving online, women must have the same opportunity as men to be a part of the online world and benefit from being in the online space.

Secondly, it will threaten the free speech of women. The voices of women are more likely to be suppressed. Because of abuse, women are more likely to reduce their social media activity or even leave social media platforms altogether.

Thirdly, we will be failing in our obligation to protect the human rights of women. Every woman has the right to be and feel safe online. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who highlighted online abuse due to intersecting identities. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, mentioned that this could cause divisions; there are divisions already, given the level of online abuse faced by women. Until we get an equal and just society, additional measures are needed. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is worried about censorship, but women also have the right to feel safe online and offline. The noble Baroness is worried about whether this is a proportionate response, but I do feel that it is.

Relying on tech companies to self-regulate on VAWG is a bad idea. At present, the overwhelming majority of tech companies are led by men and their employees are most likely to be men, who will be taking decisions on content and on moderating that content. So we are relying on the judgment of a sector that itself needs to be more inclusive of women and is known for not sufficiently tackling the online abuse of women and girls.

I will give a personal example. Someone did not like what I said on Twitter and posted a message with a picture of a noose, which I found threatening. I reported that and got a response to say that it did not violate terms and conditions, so it remained online.

The culture at these tech companies was illustrated a few years ago when employees at Google walked out to protest against sexism. Also, research a couple of years ago by a campaign group called Global Witness found that Facebook used biased algorithms that promoted career and gender stereotypes, resulting in particular job roles being seen by men and others being seen by women. We know that other algorithms are even more harmful and sinister and promote hatred and misogyny. So relying on a sector that may not care much about women’s rights or their well-being to do the right thing is not going to work. Introducing the VAWG code in the Bill will help to make tech companies adequately investigate and respond to reports of abuse and take a proactive approach to minimise and prevent the risk of abuse taking place in the first instance.

Online Safety Bill

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

If we are mindful of these practical considerations, we should be able to deliver very useful age-assurance tools. I hope the Minister will agree with that. I look forward to hearing the Government’s description of how they think all this will work, because that bit is missing from the debate. I know other Lords will have heard from Ofcom, which started putting out information about how it thinks it will work. The age assurance community has started putting out information. The gap in all this is that it is not clear what the Government think this future world will look like. I hope they can at least start to fill that gap today by trying to explain to us, in response to these amendments, their vision for the new world of age assurance, not just for the pornography sites but, critically, for all these other sites that millions of us use that certainly aim to be gateways not to pornography but rather to other forms of communication and information.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I am still getting used to the rules in Committee. I did not get up quickly enough before the noble Lord, Lord Allan, so I hope I am able to add my voice to the amendments.

I support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, to bring about robust age verification for pornography wherever it is found online and the need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the user is above the age of 18. I also support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, which would mean that content that is prohibited and illegal offline would also be prohibited online, and the other amendments in this group, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and the noble Lord, Lord Allan.

The impact that pornography has on violence against women and girls is well documented, yet the Bill does not address it. What is considered mainstream pornography today would have once been seen as extreme. In fact, swathes of content that is readily available online for all to view in just a few clicks would be illegal and prohibited by the British Board of Film Classification to possess or supply offline, under the powers given to it by the Video Recordings Act 1984. But because online pornography has been allowed to evolve without any oversight, pornographic content that includes overt sexual violence, such as choking, gagging and forceful penetration, is prevalent. This is alongside content that sexualises children, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, which includes petite, young-looking adult actors being made to look like children, and pornography which depicts incest.

This content is not just available in niche corners of the internet or the dark web; it is presented to users on mainstream websites. Research by the academics Clare McGlynn and Fiona Vera-Gray into the titles of videos that were available on the landing page of three of the UK’s most popular pornography websites revealed that one in eight titles used descriptions such as “pain”, “destroy”, “brutal”, “torture”, “violate”, “hurt”, and many others that are too unpleasant to mention in this Chamber. To reiterate, these videos were available on the landing pages and presented to first-time visitors to the site without any further searching necessary. We have to acknowledge that the vast majority of online pornographic content, viewed by millions across the globe, is directly promoting violence against women and girls.

A very real example of this impact is Wayne Couzens, the murderer of Sarah Everard. In court, a former colleague set out how Couzens was attracted to “brutal sexual pornography”. Indeed, it is not hard to find an addiction to violent pornography in the background of many notorious rapists and killers of women. While not all men will jump from violent pornography to real-life harm, we know that for some it acts as a gateway to fulfilling a need for more extreme stimulation.

A study published in 2019 in the National Library of Medicine by Chelly Maes involving 568 adolescents revealed that exposure to pornographic content was related to individuals’ resistance towards the #MeToo movement and increased acceptance of rape myths. Even the Government’s own research found substantial evidence of an association between the use of pornography and harmful attitudes and behaviours towards women and girls, yet the Bill does nothing to bring parity between the way that pornography is regulated online and offline. That is why I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, to address this inconsistency.

We must remember that while this pornography has an effect on the viewer, it also has an effect on the performers taking part. Speaking to the APPG on Commercial Sexual Exploitation’s recent inquiry into pornography, Linda Thompson, the national co-ordinator at the Women’s Support Project, said:

“We know pornography is a form of violence against women. It is not just fantasy; it is the reality for the women involved. It is not just a representation of sex, it is actual sexual violence that is occurring to the women”.


There is currently no obligation for pornography companies to verify that a performer in pornographic content is over the age of 18 and that they consent. Once the videos are uploaded on to platforms, they go through little moderation, meaning that only the most overtly extreme and obviously illegal and non-consensual content is readily identified and reported. This means that for many girls and women, their sexual abuse and rape is readily available and is viewed for pleasure. The Bill is an opportunity to rectify this and to put this duty on pornography companies. For that reason, I am supportive of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, to put this duty on them.

Finally, we must remember the impact that having access to this content is having on our children right now. A recent report by the Children’s Commissioner for England about pornography and subsequent harmful sexual behaviour and abuse demonstrates this. Using data from children’s own testimonies about cases of child sexual abuse committed against them by another child, references to specific acts of sexual violence commonly found in pornography were present in 50% of the cases examined.

Pornography is how children are receiving a sex education. We know the impact that this type of pornographic content is having on adults, yet we are allowing children to continue having unfettered access as their attitudes towards sex and relationships are forming. In 2021, the singer Billie Eilish spoke out about her experiences of watching pornography from the age of 11, saying:

“The first few times I … had sex, I was not saying no to things that were not good. It was because I thought that’s what I was supposed to be attracted to”.


Children are seeing violent sexual acts as normal and expected parts of relationships. This cannot continue. That is why I am supporting the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, to bring in robust age verification for pornography wherever it is found online. I thank them and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, for their hard work in raising awareness of the online risks posed to children. I also express gratitude to all the children’s charities such as Barnardo’s which work tirelessly day and night to keep children safe. The Government also have a duty to keep children safe.

Online Safety Bill

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

The only other thing I would add is that as far as the accountability of news publishers is concerned, I, too, think this is important. It is an important element of their proper editorial oversight that they control and oversee online comments sections and that they are subject to the same sort of self-regulation and regulation by IPSO as has been described. However, it is also important to say to these news publishers and any organisations that rely on the support and continued use and subscription of their users that they ought to have in place good-quality customer service regimes. If people want to raise complaints and concerns, not necessarily just about content but about the way in which they manage their subscriptions, their inability to cancel their subscriptions or indeed a demand for a more flexible approach to their subscriptions, I would like to see much better accountability in the way that these organisations look after and service the people who are their readers. The future of news publishers ultimately relies on them meeting the expectations of their readers and giving voice to the perspective of their readers, and for as long as they do that, I think they should enjoy the freedom to operate without statutory control, and therefore I do not support the amendments in this group.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 124, 126 and 227. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord McNally, for proposing these amendments and I wish them well.

A number of far-right websites already exist across the internet which are capable, with minimal reform, of meeting the requirements to qualify as recognised news publishers and benefit from the exemption. Some of these websites host content from known high-profile racists. These extreme websites feature anti-Semitism, hatred of women and hatred of Muslims. The Centre for Media Monitoring, part of the Muslim Council of Britain, has criticised the Bill’s media exemption. The threat of far-right and anti-Muslim websites arguing that they constitute a news publisher is not only inevitable but very dangerous. As news publishers, they would have the freedom to propagate fake news, disinformation and conspiracy theories about Islam and Muslims.

The thought that UK-based racist outlets would be able to access this exception is horrific enough, but there is also a risk that extremist news websites currently based in the USA and elsewhere around the world will seek to relocate to Britain to benefit from the exemption in future. This is because while the exemption does not require publishers to abide by any specific set of standards, it does require publishers to have a UK office. Perversely, this creates an incentive for an extremist website based the US, for example, from where many of the internationally most popular racially hateful websites currently operate, to establish an office here in the UK. In doing so, it may then be able to post content under the terms of the exemption. Indeed, this exemption risks paving the way for a catastrophic scenario in which, on account of this exemption, the UK becomes less safe. It is critical that the Government listen and engage with these concerns.

Amendment 124 seeks to ensure that newspaper comment sections are properly regulated. Anyone can be a target of hatred in a newspaper comment section, but they are most likely to have Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, racist and misogynistic content. Without the amendment, the Bill’s provisions on the media will endanger those it is intended to protect. These amendments propose a compromise which is the right approach and will ensure that people are protected from abuse while also retaining the media exemption for responsible newspaper publishers. I hope the Government will engage more on these matters and work towards a solution.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I regret that my noble friend Lord Lipsey is unable to be here. I wish him and the noble Lord, Lord McNally, well. I also regret that my noble friend Lord Stevenson is not here to wind up this debate and introduce his Amendment 127. Our inability to future-proof these proceedings means that, rather than talking to the next group, I am talking to this one.

I want to make four principal points. First, the principle of press freedom, as discussed by the noble Lords, Lord Black and Lord Faulks, in particular, is an important one. We do not think that this is the right Bill to reopen those issues. We look forward to the media Bill as the opportunity to discuss these things more fully across the House.

Secondly, I have some concerns about the news publisher exemption. In essence, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, set out, as long as you have a standards code, a complaints process, a UK address and a team of contributors, the exemption applies. That feels a bit loose to me, and it opens up the regime to some abuse. I hear what the noble Baronesses, Lady Gohir and Lady Grey-Thompson, said about how we already see pretty dodgy outfits allowing racist and abusive content to proliferate. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on whether the bar we have at the moment is too low and whether there is some reflection to be done on that.

The third point is on my noble friend Lord Stevenson’s Amendment 127, which essentially says that we should set a threshold around whether complaints are dealt with in a timely manner. In laying that amendment, my noble friend essentially wanted to probe. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is here, so this is a good chance to have him listen to me say that we think that complaints should be dealt with more swiftly and that the organisation that he chairs could do better at dealing with that.

My fourth comment is about comments, particularly after listening to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, about some of the hateful comment that is hidden away inside the comments that news publishers carry. I was very much struck by what she said in respect of some of the systems of virality that are now being adopted by those platforms. There, I think Amendment 227 is tempting. I heard what the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said, and I think I agree that this is better addressed by Parliament.

For me, that just reinforces the need for this Bill, more than any other that I have ever worked on in this place, to have post-legislative scrutiny by Parliament so that we, as a Parliament, can review whether the regime we are setting up is running appropriately. It is such a novel regime, in particular around regulating algorithms and artificial intelligence. It would be an opportunity to see whether, in this case, the systems of virality were creating an amplification of harm away from the editorial function that the news publishers are able to exercise over the comments.

On that basis, and given the hour, I am happy to listen with care to the wise words of the Minister.