Online Safety Bill

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Oxford]

My Lords, it is an honour and privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, and all those who have spoken in this debate. As a member of your Lordships’ Committee on Artificial Intelligence and a founding member of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, I have followed the slow progress of this Bill since the original White Paper. We have seen increasing evidence that many social media platforms are unwilling to acknowledge, let alone prevent, harms of the kind this vital Bill addresses. We know that there is an all too porous frontier between the virtual world and the physical world. The resulting harms damage real lives, real families, and real children, as we have heard.

There is a growing list of priority harms and now there is concern, as well as excitement, over new AIs such as ChatGPT; they demonstrate yet again that technology has no inherent precautionary principles. Without systemic checks and balances, AI in every field develops faster than society can respond. We are and for ever will be catching up with the technology.

The Bill is very welcome, marking as it does a belated but important step towards rebalancing a complex but vital aspect of public life. I pay tribute to the Government and to civil servants for their patient efforts to address a complex set of ethical and practical issues in a proportionate way. But the job is not yet fully done.

I will concentrate on three particular areas of concern with the draft Bill. First, removal of risk assessments regarding harm to adults is concerning. Surely every company has a basic moral duty to assess the risk of its products or services to customers and consumers. Removal can only undermine a risk-based approach to regulation. Can the Minister explain how conducting a risk assessment erodes or threatens freedom of speech? My second concern, mentioned by others, is the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to Ofcom. This country has a record of independence of our own media regulators. Others have touched on that, so I will not elaborate. The third area of concern I wish to raise is the Bill’s provision—or rather lack of provision—over disinformation of various kinds. I currently serve on your Lordships’ Environment and Climate Change Committee; climate disinformation and medical disinformation inflict substantial harms on society and must be included in user empowerment tools.

Other right reverend Prelates will raise their own concerns in the forthcoming Committee. My right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester believes that it is imperative that we prevent technology-facilitated domestic abuse, as well as bring in a code of practice to keep women and girls safe online. To help young people flourish, we should look at controlling algorithmically served content, restrictions on face and body-editing apps, as well as improving media literacy overall. She is unable to speak today, but will follow these issues closely.

The Bill is vital for the health of children and adults, and the flourishing of our whole society. I look forward to progress being made in this House.