Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th March 2017 Lords Chamber

In conclusion, we believe that whatever discussions are now taking place with social media sites—and of course any discussions are welcome—they would be more fruitful if they concentrated on a draft code of practice that would ultimately be binding on them. Surely we owe our children and young people reassurance if we are finally to act on this issue.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 25YR and will speak to Amendment 33A, which is in my name. We certainly need to look much more closely at the duty of online providers and their responsibilities. Amendment 25YR refers to the overarching duty of care that agencies must have to children. Both amendments address the need to oblige these online providers to report incidents on content that are likely to contravene existing regulations and likely to come up to the criminal test as used in prosecutions.

The obligations also include that the content should be removed with immediate effect. As we have already heard, this has proved difficult in many cases and very many people say that they have tried to have offensive material removed unsuccessfully. Amendment 25YR refers to a code of practice, and mentions that it needs specific terms that prohibit cyberbullying and provide a mechanism for complaints, as well as for the removal of the offending material. The other thing I particularly welcome about this amendment is the obligation to work with educators, technical professionals and parents to ensure that young people have safe use of the internet.

Amendment 33A would extend this principle rather wider. I am sure we all support measures to prevent cyberbullying of children. It is also fair to say that it is not just children who suffer in this way. Many members of minority groups, disabled people and people with learning difficulties—in fact, people who are in some way different—come in for regular forms of abuse. People just like you and me, having disagreed with somebody, come in for torrents of vile, unpleasant and absolutely unacceptable bullying on the internet. I believe that this would not be allowed in newspapers. Somebody would not be allowed to abuse someone else in a pub. The landlord would be responsible and I believe that it is time we took the online providers to task and made them take some responsibility for what appears and what they allow.

The Minister, in replying to my amendment last time mentioned the fact that existing legislation already provides the means to do this. In fact, I think over 30 statutes refer to these measures and have not yet been consolidated—added to which, there are laws coming online that will make it even more difficult to have a consolidated approach, such as the revenge porn legislation and law on streaming of child abuse. It is becoming increasingly complex and we need a much firmer approach.

It was also mentioned that the Home Office had £4.5 million to address this issue; I understand that this was largely for the measures and resources that the police needed to prosecute criminal acts in this way. The last thing the Minister referred to was that the Law Commission was consulting on this issue. My understanding of that consultation is that it is about improving people’s behaviour on the internet. It does not at all address the online providers. This Bill offers an opportunity to address an appalling practice that is becoming even more prevalent, and I hope that the Minister will agree to incorporate these amendments in the Bill.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I am very happy to support the amendment—to which I have added my name—which would bring in a statutory code of practice for media platforms with the important aim of preventing online abuse.

As I said earlier, Part 3 is a child protection measure. Young people use social media. The 2016 Ofcom children and media report devoted an entire chapter to YouTube, social media and online gaming. Around 72% of 12 to 15 year-olds have a social media profile, with Facebook being their main social media profile, and three in 10 of these 12 to 15 year-olds visit their social media account more than 10 times a day. In the last few weeks we have heard about Facebook not taking down child sexual abuse images. Last week, the Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place grilled representatives of Google, Facebook and Twitter on their response to online abuse and hate crime as part of their inquiry into hate crime and its violent consequences.

This amendment is in line with the Government’s objectives to keep children safe. I am expecting the Government to come back and tell us that the UK Council for Child Internet Safety produced guidance for social media sites in 2015, entitled Child Safety Online: A Practical Guide for Providers of Social Media and Interactive Services, and that therefore this code of practice is just not needed. While I commend the good work of UKCCIS, the news of the last few weeks leaves me convinced that without a statutory code we are not doing enough to protect children and to support parents. Parents have to navigate completely new technological terrains. They have no reassurance that there are consistent standards across social media sites, nor what they are. Last year a third of parents said they were concerned about their child being the subject of cyberbullying. Part of the requirements of the code would ensure that social media sites worked with,

“education professionals, parents and charities to give young people the skills to use social media safely”.

I fully support this initiative. Ofcom reports that 52% of parents of eight to 11 year-olds and 66% of parents of 12 to 15 year-olds talked to their children about cyberbullying. This is encouraging, but how much more encouraging if parents know that if they talk to their child about Facebook, the same rules apply on other social media sites and vice versa.

We expect to make our children safe in the physical spaces they occupy every day and have no hesitation in using the law to do so. We need to be doing the same online so I fully support Amendment 25YR to introduce a statutory code of practice for social media platforms.