Asked by: Crispin Blunt (Independent - Reigate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that online content which is offensive and not harmful is not wrongly identified as harmful under the Online Safety Bill.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The draft Online Safety Bill delivers the government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression.
Regulation will not prevent adults from accessing or posting legal content, nor require companies to remove specific pieces of legal content. We recognise that adults have the right to upload and access content that some may find offensive or upsetting.
The largest and riskiest services will be required to set out their policies regarding content that is legal but harmful to adults and enforce these consistently. They will no longer be able to arbitrarily remove controversial viewpoints.
Users will have access to effective mechanisms to appeal content that is removed without good reason.
Our approach will empower adult users to keep themselves safe online, while ensuring children are protected and maintaining robust protections for freedom of expression.
Asked by: Crispin Blunt (Independent - Reigate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what consideration he has given in the drafting of the Online Safety Bill to the case of Handyside v the United Kingdom (1976) which concluded that expressions that offend, shock, or disturb are protected under Article 10 (2) of the European Convention of Human Rights.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The draft Online Safety Bill delivers the government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression.
Regulation will not prevent adults from accessing or posting legal content, nor require companies to remove specific pieces of legal content. We recognise that adults have the right to upload and access content that some may find offensive or upsetting.
The largest and riskiest services will be required to set out their policies regarding content that is legal but harmful to adults and enforce these consistently. They will no longer be able to arbitrarily remove controversial viewpoints.
Users will have access to effective mechanisms to appeal content that is removed without good reason.
Our approach will empower adult users to keep themselves safe online, while ensuring children are protected and maintaining robust protections for freedom of expression.
Asked by: Crispin Blunt (Independent - Reigate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Online Safety Bill whether he plans ordinary sensibilities to have any regard to the adult's membership of a class or group of people with a certain characteristic targeted by the content.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The draft Online Safety Bill delivers the government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression.
Regulation will not prevent adults from accessing or posting legal content, nor require companies to remove specific pieces of legal content. We recognise that adults have the right to upload and access content that some may find offensive or upsetting.
The largest and riskiest services will be required to set out their policies regarding content that is legal but harmful to adults and enforce these consistently. They will no longer be able to arbitrarily remove controversial viewpoints.
Users will have access to effective mechanisms to appeal content that is removed without good reason.
Our approach will empower adult users to keep themselves safe online, while ensuring children are protected and maintaining robust protections for freedom of expression.
Asked by: Crispin Blunt (Independent - Reigate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Online Safety Bill, whether it is his Department's policy that discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, or insult of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents are likely to have an adverse psychological impact on an adult of ordinary sensibilities.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The draft Online Safety Bill delivers the government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression.
Regulation will not prevent adults from accessing or posting legal content, nor require companies to remove specific pieces of legal content. We recognise that adults have the right to upload and access content that some may find offensive or upsetting.
The largest and riskiest services will be required to set out their policies regarding content that is legal but harmful to adults and enforce these consistently. They will no longer be able to arbitrarily remove controversial viewpoints.
Users will have access to effective mechanisms to appeal content that is removed without good reason.
Our approach will empower adult users to keep themselves safe online, while ensuring children are protected and maintaining robust protections for freedom of expression.
Asked by: Crispin Blunt (Independent - Reigate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made on whether online content that is considered to be blasphemous would fall within the remit of lawful but harmful content as defined within the Online Safety Bill.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The draft Online Safety Bill delivers the government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression.
Regulation will not prevent adults from accessing or posting legal content, nor require companies to remove specific pieces of legal content. We recognise that adults have the right to upload and access content that some may find offensive or upsetting.
The largest and riskiest services will be required to set out their policies regarding content that is legal but harmful to adults and enforce these consistently. They will no longer be able to arbitrarily remove controversial viewpoints.
Users will have access to effective mechanisms to appeal content that is removed without good reason.
Our approach will empower adult users to keep themselves safe online, while ensuring children are protected and maintaining robust protections for freedom of expression.
Asked by: Crispin Blunt (Independent - Reigate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what protections his Department plans to place in the Online Safety Bill to ensure that nothing within the Bill shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, or insult of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The draft Online Safety Bill delivers the government’s manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression.
Regulation will not prevent adults from accessing or posting legal content, nor require companies to remove specific pieces of legal content. We recognise that adults have the right to upload and access content that some may find offensive or upsetting.
The largest and riskiest services will be required to set out their policies regarding content that is legal but harmful to adults and enforce these consistently. They will no longer be able to arbitrarily remove controversial viewpoints.
Users will have access to effective mechanisms to appeal content that is removed without good reason.
Our approach will empower adult users to keep themselves safe online, while ensuring children are protected and maintaining robust protections for freedom of expression.
Asked by: Crispin Blunt (Independent - Reigate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, for what reason covid-19 restrictions remain on the number of people who can sing together indoors.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
I know that the restrictions on singing are frustrating to large numbers of amateur choirs and performance groups across the country and that many people have made sacrifices in order to drive down infections and protect the NHS over the last year. I can assure you that everyone across Government wants to ease these restrictions as soon as possible.
However, it is important that we take a cautious approach in easing restrictions. We have followed the views of public health experts on singing. We are aware, through the NERVTAG and PERFORM studies that singing can increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission through the spread of aerosol droplets.this was backed up by a consensus statement from SAGE, resulting in the suggested principles of safer singing being published.
We will continue to keep guidance and restrictions under review, in line with the changing situation. Further detail on step 4 will be set out as soon as possible.