Online Harms
Debate between Guy Opperman and Damian Collins(2 years ago)
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Damian Collins
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The answer is yes, absolutely. It was always the case with the Bill that illegal content, including fraud, was in scope. The question in the original draft Bill was that that did not include advertising. Advertising can be in the form of display advertising that can be seen on social media platforms; for search services, it can also be boosted search returns. Under the Bill, known frauds and scams that have been identified should not appear in advertising on regulated platforms. That change was recommended by the Joint Committee, and the Government accepted it. It is really important that that is the case, because the company should have a liability; we cannot work just on the basis that the offence has been committed by the person who has created the advert and who is running the scam. If an intermediary platform is profiting out of someone else’s illegal activity, that should not be allowed. It would be within Ofcom’s regulatory powers to identify whether that is happening and to see that platforms are taking action against it. If not, those companies will be failing in their safety duties, and they will be liable for very large fines that can be levied against them for breaching their obligations, as set out in the Online Safety Bill, which can be up to 10% of global revenues in any one year. That power will absolutely be there.
Some companies could choose to have systems in place to make it less likely that scam ads would appear on their platforms. Google has a policy under which it works with the Financial Conduct Authority and does not accept financial product advertising from organisations that are not FCA accredited. That has been quite an effective way to filter out a lot of potential scam ads before they appear. Whether companies have policies such as that, or other ways of doing these things, they will have to demonstrate to Ofcom that those are effective. [Interruption.] Does my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) want to come in on that? I can see him poised to spring forward.
Damian Collins
I would like to touch on some of the other issues that have been raised in the debate. The hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) and others made the point about smaller, high-risk platforms. All platforms, regardless of size, have to meet the illegal priority harm standard. For the worst offences, they will already have to produce risk assessments and respond to Ofcom’s request for information. Given that, I would suspect that, if Ofcom had a suspicion that serious illegal activity, or other activity that was causing serious concern, was taking place on a smaller platform, it would have powers to investigate and would probably find that the platform was in breach of those responsibilities. It is not the case that if a company is not a category 1 company, it is not held to account under the illegal priority harms clauses of the Bill. Those clauses cover a wide range of offences, and it is important—this was an important amendment to the Bill recommended by the Joint Committee—that those offences were written into the Bill so that people can see what they are.
The hon. Member for Pontypridd raised the issue of violence against women and girls, but what I would say is that violence against everyone is included in the Bill. The offences of promoting or inciting violence, harassment, stalking and sending unsolicited sexual images are all included in the Bill. The way the schedule 7 offences work is that the schedule lists existing areas of law. Violence against women and girls is covered by lots of different laws; that is why there is not a single offence for it and why it is not listed. That does not mean that we do not take it seriously. As I said to the hon. Lady when we debated this issue on the first day of Report, we all understand that women and girls are far more likely to be victims of abuse online, and they are therefore the group that should benefit the most from the provisions in the Bill.
The hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) spoke about cyber-bullying. Again, offences relating to harassment are included in the Bill. This is also an important area where the regulator’s job is to ensure that companies enforce their own terms of service. For example, TikTok, which is very popular with younger users, has in place quite strict policies on preventing bullying, abuse and intimidation on its services. But does it enforce that effectively? So far, we have largely relied on the platforms self-declaring whether that is the case; we have never had the ability to really know. Now Ofcom will have that power, and it will be able to challenge companies such as TikTok. I have raised with TikTok as well my concern about the prevalence of blackout challenge content, which remains on that platform and which has led to people losing their lives. Could TikTok be more effective at removing more of that content? We will now have the regulatory power to investigate—to get behind the curtain and to see what is really going on.