Social Media and Health — House of Lords, 2019-04-30
Topic: Health
Nicola Blackwood (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat a Statement made today by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock. The Statement is as follows: "Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on yesterday’s social media summit and the progress we have made to tackle online harms to health. We called this summit to bring together principal social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Google, as well as Samaritans and the eating disorder charity, BEAT. Along with the Education Secretary and the Minister for Suicide Prevention, this was the second such meeting I have held on how we can protect people, particularly children, from online content that promotes eating disorders, self-harm and suicide, as well as on how we address the growing problem of anti-vaccination misinformation Social media companies have a duty of care for people on their sites. Just because they are global does not mean that they can be irresponsible. We have been resolute that we will act to keep the internet safe, especially for children. I am grateful to the companies for their engagement. We have all seen and heard about tragic cases of vulnerable children turning to self-harm, even taking their own lives, after accessing graphic images online promoting, even encouraging, suicide and self-harm. In the same way, we know that online content on eating disorders can be extremely harmful to vulnerable children and young adults. I have met the parents of children brought up in loving homes who had no idea of the dangers their child was being exposed to on their smartphone or tablet while they were supposed to be safe at home. We all know parents whose children have been affected. For all of us, this is very close to home. We must do everything we can to keep our children safe online I am pleased to inform the House that, as a result of yesterday’s summit, leading global social media companies have agreed to work with experts from Samaritans to speed up the identification and removal of suicide and self-harm content, and create greater protections online. Not only will they financially support Samaritans in its work but, crucially, Samaritans suicide prevention experts will determine harmful and dangerous content. The social media platforms committed to either remove it or prevent others seeing it, and help vulnerable people to get the positive support they need. The mainstream media already have well-established codes of practice and training to remove material that promotes suicide and self-harm. In my experience of the British media, they act with great responsibility. It is time that social media companies do the same This partnership marks, for the first time globally, a collective commitment to act, build knowledge through research and insights, and implement real changes that will ultimately save lives. Social media companies also gave us an update on the actions they have already taken. Following the first summit in February, Instagram now has a global policy of removing all graphic self-harm imagery. Other sites have also taken action but there is much more to do and much more content to remove Importantly, the commitments that companies made at yesterday’s summit are what Samaritans asked for and are a positive step forward. The progress we have made so far shows that we can effect positive change, but I know that this House feels strongly that just because these companies are global does not mean that we cannot determine society’s rules and expectations. We are prepared to act on this. My right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Culture Secretary recently published the online harms White Paper, which sets out the proposed regulatory framework for addressing online harms. It sets out a new statutory duty of care to require companies to take more responsibility for the safety of their users and tackle harm caused by content or activity on their services Compliance with this duty of care will be overseen and enforced by an independent regulator, which will be responsible for producing codes of practice that will explain what companies need to do to fulfil their duty and the robust action they need to take to remove illegal or harmful content. The White Paper also proposes sharing of information, research and best practice to improve the understanding of harmful content across the industry The summit also allowed us to discuss how we can work together to tackle another online danger: the spread of anti-vaccination misinformation. Since Edward Jenner’s discovery, vaccination has saved hundreds of millions of lives around the world. There are few innovations that have reduced human misery so much. After clean water, vaccination has prevented more deaths and disease than anything else in human history. The science is settled: vaccination saves lives. It not only protects your children, it protects other vulnerable people who cannot do anything about it themselves. Failure to vaccinate puts their lives at risk. The rise of social media now makes it easier to spread lies about vaccination, so there is a special responsibility on the social media companies to act Coverage for the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in England decreased for the fourth year in a row last year to 91%, and there was a steep rise in confirmed measles cases from 259 to 966. We forget that measles is a horrible disease. We have one of the most comprehensive vaccination programmes in Europe. The well-documented problems in America and on the continent are worse than here, but we are determined to get ahead of this problem because there are real and devastating consequences for people from the failure to vaccinate. Our action to promote vaccines is not limited to removing anti-vaccination misinformation. We are promoting the objective facts about the importance of vaccination. We are increasing funding to primary care to improve access, and our prevention Green Paper will set out further actions Social media can be a great force for good and can help us to promote positive messages, but it is the responsibility of us all that this new technology, with all its great potential and power, be moulded to the benefit of society. We will not duck this challenge. I commend the Statement to the House" My Lords, that concludes the Statement.