Online Safety Bill

Dean Russell Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

We are in an era where our discussion forums have become polarised. We are crossing new frontiers but we cannot accept the status quo. Our democracy depends on this.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I rise to talk broadly about new clause 2, which I am pleased that the Government are engaging on. My right hon. and hon. Friends have done incredible work to make that happen. I share their elation. As—I think—the only Member who was on the Joint Committee under the fantastic Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), and on both Committees, I have seen the Bill’s passage over the past year or so and been happy with how the Government have engaged with it. That includes on Zach’s law, which will ensure that trolls cannot send flashing images to people with epilepsy. I shared my colleagues’ elation with my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) when we were successful in convincing the Government to make that happen.

May I reiterate the learnings from the Joint Committee and from the Committee earlier last year? When we took evidence from the tech giants—they are giants—it was clear that, as giants do, they could not see the damage underfoot and the harm that they were doing because they are so big. They were also blind to the damage they were doing because they chose not to see it. I remember challenging a witness from one of the big tech giants about whether they had followed the Committee on the harms that they were causing to vulnerable children and adults. I was fascinated by how the witnesses just did not care. Their responses were, “Well, we are doing enough already. We are already trying. We are putting billions of pounds into supporting people who are being harmed.” They did not see the reality on the ground of young people being damaged.

When I interviewed my namesake, Ian Russell, I was heartbroken because we had children of a similar age. I just could not imagine having the conversations he must have had with his family and friends throughout that terrible tragedy.

[Sir William Cash]

Is my hon. Friend aware that Ian Russell has pointed out that 26% of young people who present at hospital with self-harm and suicide attempts have accessed such predatory, irresponsible and wilful online content?

[Dean Russell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the real horrors is that, as I understand it, Facebook was not going to release—I do not want to break any rules here—the content that his daughter had being viewing, to help with the process of healing.

If I may, I want to touch on another point that has not been raised today, which is the role of a future Committee. I appreciate that is not part of the Bill, but I feel strongly that this House should have a separate new Committee for the Online Safety Bill. The internet and the world of social media is changing dramatically. The metaverse is approaching very rapidly, and we are seeing the rise of virtual reality and augmented reality. Artificial intelligence is even changing the way we believe what we see online and at a rate that we cannot imagine. I have a few predictions. I anticipate that in the next few years we will probably have the first No. 1 book and song written by AI. We can now hear online fake voices and impersonations of people by AI. We will have songs and so on created in ways that fool us and fool children even more. I have no doubt that in the coming months and years we will see the rise of children suing their parents for sharing content of them when they were younger without permission. We will see a changing dynamic in the way that young people engage with new content and what they anticipate from it.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend is making a valuable contribution to the debate, as I expected he would having discussed it with him from the very beginning. What he describes is not only the combination of heartlessness and carelessness on the part of the tech companies, but the curious marriage of an anarchic future coupled with the tyranny of their control of that future. He is absolutely right that if we are to do anything about that in this place, we need an ongoing role for a Committee of the kind he recommends.

[Dean Russell]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those comments. I will wrap up shortly, Mr Deputy Speaker. On that point, I have said before that the use of algorithms on platforms is in my mind very similar to addictive drugs: they get people addicted and get them to change their behaviours. They get them to cut off from their friends and family, and then they direct them in ways that we would not allow if we could wrap our arms around them and stop it. But they are doing that in their own bedrooms, classrooms and playgrounds.

I applaud the work on the Bill. Yes, there are ways it could be improved and a committee that looks at ways to improve it as the dynamics of social media change will be essential. However, letting the Bill go to the other place will be a major shift forwards in protecting our young people both now and in the future.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

Thank you for your patience, Siobhan Baillie.