Online Harms White Paper

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The argument about whether such businesses are publishers or platforms takes up a great deal of time, and not necessarily to great purpose. It is better to ask how we can keep the focus on ensuring that online platforms take responsibility for what they do. We believe that the duty of care is the right method. It will not be sustainable any longer for online companies to say, “We have no responsibility for the harms that may appear on our platforms.” They will instead be required—by law if necessary—to look at what they can do to keep their users safe in any reasonably practicable way they can. If they do not do that, they will find that the regulator imposes sanctions upon them. That seems the right way forward.

I said earlier that it is appropriate for the United Kingdom to lead on this matter, and we should be proud that we are doing so, but I hope that other countries, including the United States, will see how we are approaching common challenges that the United States faces, too, and will seek to adopt similar proposals.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Forty or 50 years ago, the tobacco industry was largely responsible for driving up cancer in our country. It took the Department of Health many years to start to regulate what was going on in the industry and deal with it on behalf of the taxpayer. It is clear from looking at some drill music and its relationship with knife crime and gang culture, and self-harm among young people, that mental ill health is being driven by much of this social media. Will the Secretary of State say something about the intersection between the Department of Health and Social Care, the chief medical officer and the new regulator?

[Jeremy Wright]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. As he will recognise, the White Paper deals with some of the harms that he mentions—serious violence and self-harm, in particular. It is right that all of government is behind the strategy. It is important that we ensure that the links between what this regulator does, what the health service does and what many other bodies within and outside Government do are sustained.

On social media, we all recognise that we cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Social media will continue to be a significant element in the lives of young people, in particular, with all the challenges to their mental health that we know it brings. Those who promote platforms for the kind of user-generated interaction that we are concerned with in this White Paper must accept that they can do something about some of the harmful material on those platforms. If they choose to do so, they will have nothing to fear from our proposals; if they choose not to, they will find that consequences follow.