Online Filter Bubbles: Misinformation and Disinformation

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

It is most unusual for me to called so early in a Westminster Hall debate, Sir Mark, so I am grateful to you.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on securing this debate. There is no question that preventing misinformation and disinformation is one of the great challenges of our time, and it will only become more and more challenging, as he has adumbrated in his remarks to the House this afternoon.

Unfortunately, we have many active theatres of conflict around the world at the moment, so I will begin by thanking all of those who take to social media to counter so much of the disinformation that exists. Whether it is about the war in Ukraine or about the situation in the Red Sea, Gaza and Israel, so much disinformation is doing the rounds. Some of it is clearly state-sponsored; some of it less so.

Indeed, there is also misinformation or disinformation about elections, so no doubt we will see more of that as the elections in this country and elsewhere in the west draw closer. Also, last week there were elections in Taiwan, when the Taiwanese political parties said it was the harshest election yet in terms of Chinese-sponsored disinformation against a democratic people. However, a great many people invest time, effort, energy, money and resources online to counter such disinformation and they do a public service.

I will mention the negative part first, if I may; there is no point in my going over all the various examples of disinformation that exist. I recall being in a conference a few years ago with the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) where one of the complaints that we had—it is so often a complaint—was that when there are conferences and workshops and think-tank events about disinformation, everybody wants to talk about examples of disinformation but few people want to talk about how we arm ourselves against it.

So, as I say, let me start with the negative part first. I do not mean any of what I say today to be against the Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, the hon. Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti)—who, I will confess, I do not think I have faced on this issue before. Nevertheless, the Government do not have a coherent strategy on this issue. There are a great many officials across Government and across Whitehall who are doing some sterling work on it; no question about that. At a political level, however, this issue has not been given the serious consideration that it deserves; although it may be uncharitable of me to say so, that was evidenced most of all by the fact that Nadine Dorries was put in charge of it. [Laughter.] Having said that, I will come on to a central problem that is less about personalities and more about the policy framework and the institutions that are required.

As I understand it, and the Minister may correct me in his remarks, misinformation is the responsibility of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport; some disinformation is also that Department’s responsibility. Foreign disinformation falls with a mixture of the Foreign Office, the intelligence services and the Home Office. Other parts of disinformation are the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence and defence intelligence. I spent five and a half years as my party’s spokesperson for defence and the type of question that I wanted to ask depended on whether or not the Ministry of Defence could answer it. Who does this madness—a madness of responsibility and lines of accountability lying all over Whitehall—benefit? Certainly not our constituents.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a very important point. I have tried repeatedly to find answers from the Government’s Counter Disinformation Unit. That specialist unit, set up in Whitehall to counteract some of this disinformation, is meant to be cross-departmental, but sadly it has been quite dormant. We have had very little information and transparency. Does the hon. Member agree that, if we had more transparency, we could see what Departments were working on across Government and seek to tackle the problem?

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[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Indeed. The hon. Lady is entirely correct. The fact that so much of this has spread like a great blob—some might say—around Whitehall benefits only our adversaries and those who wish to pursue disinformation in this country. That is before we get to the growing problem of the things the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare mentioned—deep fakes and AI-generated disinformation—all of which is going to get worse and worse. As long as responsibility and lines of accountability and policy formation are a bit all over the place, when in my mind the obvious place for them to lie would be with the Cabinet Office, that will be of benefit only to those who want to sow disinformation.

In June 2021, in the spirit of trying to be a helpful Scottish nationalist, which might be an oxymoron to some people, I published a report that made nine recommendations on how, in fairness to the UK Government and Scottish Government, they can better counter disinformation in public life. I want to go through a couple of those. First, we need a proper national strategy that is a whole-society national strategy, imitating the excellent work done in countries such as Finland and Latvia, where countering disinformation and hybrid threats is not the job of the Department of Defence or even the Government but involves public institutions, other public bodies, the private sector, non-governmental organisations, civil society and private citizens. There is much that can be done. Surely we saw that in the generosity people showed during the pandemic. There is so much good will out there among the population to counter hybrid threats when they arise.

Although we have the counter disinformation unit, I would suggest a commissioner, perhaps similar to the Information Commissioner, with statutory powers on implementing the national strategy and countering disinformation. There is a job for our friends in the media, too. The media need to open up to explain to the public how stories are made. There is a job to be done in newspapers and broadcast media. It would be to the benefit of mainstream media—that phrase is often used in a derisory way, although I like my media to be mainstream—as the more the media explain to the public how they make news, the better that would be for those of us who consume it.

There should also be an audit of the ecosystem. One thing I suggested in the report is an annual update to Parliament of a threat assessment of hostile foreign disinformation to this country. The better we understand the information ecosystem, the better we can equip ourselves to counter hostile foreign disinformation. I also suggest literacy programmes across all public institutions, especially for public servants, whether elected or unelected. My goodness, some of them could do with that in this House.

I also suggest we look to host an annual clean information summit. There is so much good work that goes on, especially in Taiwan, and right on our own doorstep in Europe. So much good work goes on that we could learn from, and hopefully implement here. If we do not have a whole-society approach, involving public bodies, faith groups, trade unions, private enterprise and even political parties, fundamentally any strategy will fail.

I will end on this: political parties need to get their acts together, and not just on some of the stuff that gets put out. I am not going into things that individual parties have put out. But at either this election or the next—I would argue that the upcoming election is already at risk of a hostile foreign disinformation attack—what will happen when that disinformation gets more sophisticated, better funded and better resourced than anything we have to see it off? I come back to the conference I attended with the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe, where we took part in a war game: it was a presidential election, and our candidate was subject to a hostile foreign disinformation attack to spread smears and lies about them. We need to get used to this now. Political parties need to set their arms to one side and work together so that we can preserve that thing we call democracy. I think it is worth fighting for. I look forward to the other suggestions we will hear in the rest of the debate.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

I note the number of people present, and ask Members to keep their contributions to around seven minutes so that we can get everybody in.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

I absolutely agree. That is exactly why the Prime Minister announced, just days ago, the establishment of a large language model taskforce to look at that and to ensure we can gain sovereignty in this particular area. Over the coming weeks, we will also publish the AI White Paper.

Earlier this month, I announced £110 million for AI technology missions. That funding, which we anticipate will be matched by equal private investment, will support the science behind some of the most important AI technologies of the future. We will also realise some of AI’s transformative applications, from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to increasing productivity in sectors such as agriculture, construction and transport.

Success in AI requires the UK to be a hub of the best and brightest AI minds in the world. We have already backed AI with £8 million to bring top talent into the UK. That is coming on top of £117 million in existing funding to create hundreds of new PhDs in AI research. In the Budget, the Chancellor took a further step forward with the announcement of the Manchester prize, which will back those harnessing the immense power of AI to break new ground.

The Chancellor also announced a staggering £900 million in funding for an exascale super-computer and a dedicated AI research resource, making the UK one of only a handful of countries in the world to have such a powerful computing facility. We are creating thousands of high-quality jobs and ensuring that the UK is going to be the home of the Al technologies that will directly help to address the priorities of the British public. These are not just jobs that will power our future; every single job will create these exciting fields—opportunities that will release the potential of thousands of talented people up and down the country.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

The Manchester-based physicist and Nobel prize winner Andre Geim has said that the top researchers around the world and in the UK are either not coming or looking to get out because living standards are so low; they can earn far better wages elsewhere. Does the Secretary of State not agree that all these aspirations, great though they are, will never be met so long as living standards in the UK fall well below those in other western European countries?

[Michelle Donelan]

I cannot believe the hon. Member is insisting on talking down our great nation. We are already attracting these people to our country. That is why we are third in the world when it comes to AI. That is why we are boosting that supply as well as growing our own talent.

The right skills, the right investment and the right infrastructure: these are the ingredients of a science and technology superpower, and perhaps nowhere is that more true than in our world-class research sector. In January, we launched the Advanced Research & Invention Agency, or ARIA—a new independent research body custom built to fund high-risk, high-reward scientific research, backed by £800 million in funding.

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[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a sign that God is shining on the House to see you back in the Chair—healthy and feisty as ever, I am sure. You will recall that, when I joined the House in May 2015, Conservative Members would regularly cheer the Chancellor and various Front-Bench Ministers when they uttered the words “long-term economic plan”. That was the No. 1 talking point of the Cameron Government, but of course, as we have seen since that Government left office, the Conservative party had no such thing. Indeed, it is somewhat telling that, in last week’s Budget, the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box, content to let the applause wash over him because

“the UK will not now enter a technical recession this year.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 833.]

Such is the mess that the Conservative party has created that it is managing to celebrate a slightly lower level of decline for the economy.

The Chancellor’s myopia is what worries me most, because he stood at the Dispatch Box like a sailor patching a leaky tap, not quite matching the moment in the way that one would expect from Britain’s Finance Minister. By stark contrast, the United States steams ahead with almost $400 billion of green subsidies to rewire its economy for the 21st century in the shape of the Inflation Reduction Act. The short-sightedness of this year’s Budget has instead condemned the United Kingdom to another year of falling living standards and slow economic decay. Closer to home, the European Union also announced bold and strategic plans in the shape of the Net Zero Industry Act, which will similarly mobilise billions and billions of euros to reshape the economy of the world’s largest single market so that it can produce at least 40% of the technology it needs in order to achieve its own climate and energy targets. While two of the world’s major economic powers set out plans to meet the moment, this Government instead celebrate—I quote again—that

“the UK will not now enter a technical recession this year.”

Rather than championing a bold economic plan to improve living and working conditions, the Chancellor—clearly unable to meet the moment—settled for tax breaks for research and development, urging us to cheer on his efforts to turn the UK into a life science superpower. While that aim is entirely laudable, and one that every single Member of the House could undoubtedly sign up to, the Chancellor needs to engage with the reality here in this country. As I mentioned earlier, the gulf between ambition and reality was summed up by the Manchester-based Nobel prize winner Andre Geim when he said that the reason that researchers are not staying in the UK or being attracted to the UK is the low living standards here. They can come here and suffer higher costs and lower salaries, or go elsewhere for better opportunities.

That neatly sums up the running theme of this Conservative Government, who seem oblivious to the fact that firms and institutions are made up of human beings—human beings who need modern public services, a healthy public realm, and a Government who can offer them the prospect of a bright future. What the reality looks like has been mentioned in this debate: to quote Torsten Bell from the Resolution Foundation,

“the worst parliament on record for living standards. By a country mile.”

The numbers were laid bare in today’s Financial Times. The Office for Budget Responsibility is predicting that UK households’ real income per person will still be below pre-pandemic levels in 2027-28, meaning hardly any improvement in living standards for the better part of 20 years. Jumana Saleheen, the chief economist at Vanguard Europe, has said that, on three key measures of living standards—household income, gross domestic product per capita, and real wages—

“we’ve seen stagnation over the last 15 years.”

According to the Office for National Statistics, average UK real household income is broadly unchanged since 2007. Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has said:

“We are in the middle of a decade in which incomes are barely rising at all, with very feeble growth for two…decades.”

UK wages adjusted for inflation increased by 23% in the eight years to 2008, but fell by 5% in the following eight years, again according to the ONS.

Having the ambition to be a life science superpower is one thing. It is perfectly laudable, and all of us can agree and sign up to it. However, so long as we have living standards in this country that are grossly behind our western European counterparts—we have higher costs, higher prices, lower wages and a public realm that physically just does not work, if we are completely honest—the Government can completely forget being a superpower in anything other than a brain drain. If anything that Ministers have said from the Dispatch Box is to mean anything, they need to fix the living standards problem every household is dealing with.