Draft Online Safety Bill Report

Carla Lockhart Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Like other hon. Members, I place on the record my sincere thanks to members and staff of the Joint Committee for their invaluable work. The Bill has huge potential for good and is so desperately needed. The Committee can take satisfaction that the recommendations in the report would most certainly assist in achieving the Government’s aim or stated objective of making the UK the safest place in the world to be online.

I will address some issues around the anonymous abuse that some describe as “legal but harmful”—the report offers some very constructive proposals to address that—as someone who has been on the receiving end of torrents of such abuse over many years, and in solidarity with a colleague and friend, Diane Dodds, who is a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, a former Member of the European Parliament, and the wife of the Lord Dodds of Duncairn. In his time in this place as the Member for Belfast North, Lord Dodds was a tireless campaigner for the fortification of flour with folic acid. Many will know that he did so as a father who had lost his beloved son Andrew, who was born with spina bifida and passed away aged eight.

Over the new year period, Diane shared a post on Twitter. In it, she was pictured with her two dogs, and extended best wishes to followers for the year ahead. An anonymous troll responded:

“Nice looking dogs, have they taken the place of your dead son?”

I know that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Members across this House, will share my revulsion that such a vile and callous remark was made to a mother who still grieves the loss of her child. Yet when the comment was reported, Twitter’s initial response was that it did not violate the rules. Only after three days of significant media attention did Twitter change its stance and suspend the account.

Will the Bill address that form of online abuse? Will it lift the cloak of anonymity and extend the veil of protection to people being attacked and abused online in such a callous, vindictive and cruel way? In that regard, I believe that the report of the Joint Committee and its recommendations make for better legislation and better protection for users online by rightly addressing issues with the lack of traceability by law enforcement, the frictionless creation and disposal of accounts at scale, the lack of user control over accounts they engage with, and the failure of platforms to deal with abuse. I endorse all the report’s recommendations in that regard.

I bring particular attention to the proposal that the higher-risk platforms such as Facebook and Twitter allow that choice of verified and non-verified accounts to be offered to users, and then subsequent options for the interaction of the two. Such an option would not only protect people like Diane; it would protect the schoolchild who is being abused because of their image. Verification is key and must be legislated for. Otherwise, the Bill is toothless.

The report also deals with the rather disturbing trend of multiple account creation and the use of such accounts to spread a message in a short time. In Northern Ireland, we see the method in action daily; it is used by foot soldiers or keyboard warriors of one political party to spread their message and falsehoods, and with the more sinister motive of silencing opponents. In our democracy, we need protection from such tactics, and I commend the Joint Committee for its proposals on that.

I wish briefly to mention the joint report and its approach to pornography. I believe that the Joint Committee should have offered a more robust approach to improving the legislation and safeguarding children in particular from the serious harm caused by pornography. First, if the report’s suggestion of replacing clause 11 of the Bill with a list of online harms is accepted by the Government, pornography should be listed as an online harm. For many of us in this House it was troubling that the Government in 2019 abandoned part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, leaving children with no protection online.

Secondly, it is welcome that the Joint Committee has proposed age verification through the age-appropriate design code. Two concerns remain: whether the provision is as robust as the Digital Economy Act, and the timeframe for enacting it and the children who will consequently stumble on this type of material. In the interim, the Government must implement part 3 of the 2017 Act, and then the design code and this Bill can be used to offer greater protection.