Digital Economy Bill

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 29th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Janke]

33A: After Clause 95, insert the following new Clause—
“Duties on providers of social media services
After section 131 of the Communications Act 2003 (statement of policy on persistent misuse) insert—“131A Duties on providers of social media services(1) In this section “social media service” means a website or application that enables users to create and share content, to communicate publicly and privately with other users, and to participate in social networking.(2) Social media services have a general duty to respond to reports of material shared or communicated via their website or application (“the content”) that passes the “criminal test” set out in subsection (3).(3) The criminal test is whether the content would, if published by other means, or communicated in person, cause a criminal offence to be committed.(4) Social media services have a duty to provide a means for users to report content which, in the view of the user, meets the criminal test.(5) Social media services have a duty to remove content which demonstrably meets the criminal test within the prescribed period, and to inform the police.(6) The prescribed period must be set out in regulations made by the Secretary of State within 120 days of the commencement of this section.(7) Regulations under subsection (6) may prescribe different periods for different categories of social media services, to be determined by the number of users that service has at the time a report is made under the provisions of subsection (4).(8) Regulations made under this section must be made by statutory instrument, and may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”

[Baroness Janke]

My Lords, this amendment has already been debated. Although the assurances the Minister gave in the previous debate were very interesting and will bring forward some new issues and some reassurances, this is a very urgent matter and I would like to hear what he has to say. I therefore beg to move.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness said, this has been debated. However, I will respond briefly. First, on 27 February the Government announced work on an internet safety strategy which aims to make the UK the safest place in the world for children and young people to go online. With the help of experts, social media companies, tech firms, charities and young people, we aim to publish a Green Paper in June. We need the time to do this.

Secondly, on 20 March this House agreed the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on a code of practice for social media. The House has already debated this issue. To accept Amendment 33A would create overlap and duplication between the two amendments. It simply does not make sense to have agreement to both amendments.

Thirdly, defining “social media service” is difficult, but I regret that the noble Baroness’s definition is very wide, and therefore unworkable and disproportionate.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it should not be left to social media companies or their users to judge whether or not content is criminal.

However, we know that there is more to do and I give a firm commitment to the House that we will consider all available options through our internet safety strategy, which will be published in June, and that we will implement its proposals as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Janke]

I thank the Minister for his comments. The difference between this amendment and the one that he mentioned is that the previous amendment referred to children, whereas this amendment covers a much wider range of adults, particularly vulnerable adults and adults who are subject to bullying, criticism and unfair treatment on the internet.

Having heard what the Minister said, I look forward to the Green Paper and to participating in discussions on it. I hope that the Government see this as a very serious issue and that they are committed to doing something about it. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 33A withdrawn.