Online Safety Bill — House of Commons, 2022-07-12
Topic: Technology
Kirsty Ann Blackman (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I want to talk about several things, but particularly new clause 7. I am really pleased that the new clause has come back on Report, as we discussed it in the Bill Committee but unfortunately did not get enough support for it there—as was the case with everything we proposed—so I thank the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for tabling it. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) for his lobbying and for providing us with lots of background information. I agree that it is incredibly important that new clause 7 is agreed, particularly the provisions on consent and making sure that participants are of an appropriate age to be taking part. We have heard so many stories of so many people whose videos are online—whose bodies are online—and there is nothing they can do about it because of the lack of regulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) has covered new clause 33 in an awful lot of detail—very good detail—so I will not comment on that The right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) mentioned how we need to get the balance right, and specifically talked about the role of the regulator. In many ways, this Bill has failed to get the balance right in its attempts to protect children online. Many people who have been involved in writing this Bill, talking about this Bill, scrutinising this Bill and taking part in every piece of work that we have done around it do not understand how children use the internet. Some people do, absolutely, but far too many of the people who have had any involvement in this Bill do not. They do not understand the massive benefits to children of using the internet, the immense amount of fun they can have playing Fortnite, Fall Guys, Minecraft, or whatever it is they happen to be playing online and how important that is to them in today’s crazy world with all of the social media pressures. Children need to decompress. This is a great place for children to have fun—to have a wonderful time—but they need to be protected, just as we would protect them going out to play in the park, just the same as we would protect them in all other areas of life. We have a legal age for smoking, for example. We need to make sure that the protections are in place, and the protections that are in place need to be stronger than the ones that are currently in the Bill I did not have a chance earlier—or I do not think I did—to support the clause about violence against women and girls. As I said in Committee, I absolutely support that being in the Bill. The Government may say, "Oh we don’t need to have this in the Bill because it runs through everything," but having that written in the Bill would make it clear to internet service providers—to all those people providing services online and having user-generated content on their sites—how important this is and how much of a scourge it is. Young women who spend their time on social media are more likely to have lower outcomes in life as a result of problematic social media use, as a result of the pain and suffering that is caused. We should be putting such a measure in the Bill, and I will continue to argue for that We have talked a lot about pornographic content in this section. There is not enough futureproofing in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire and I tabled amendment 158 because we are concerned about that lack of futureproofing. The amendment edits the definition of "content". The current definition of "content" says basically anything online, and it includes a list of stuff. We have suggested that it should say "including but not limited to", on the basis that we do not know what the internet will look like in two years’ time, let alone what it will look like in 20 years’ time. If this Bill is to stand the test of time, it needs to be clear that that list is not exhaustive. It needs to be clear that, when we are getting into virtual reality metaverses where people are meeting each other, that counts as well. It needs to be clear that the sex dungeon that exists in the child’s game Roblox is an issue—that that content is an issue no matter whether it fits the definition of "content" or whether it fits the fact that it is written communication, images or whatever. It does not need to fit any of that. If it is anything harmful that children can find on the internet, it should be included in that definition of "content", no matter whether it fits any of those specific categories. We just do not know what the internet is going to look like I have one other specific thing in relation to the issues of content and pornography. One of the biggest concerns that we heard is the massive increase in the amount of self-generated child sexual abuse images. A significant number of new images of child sexual abuse are self-generated. Everybody has a camera phone these days. Kids have camera phones these days. They have much more potential to get themselves into really uncomfortable and difficult situations than when most of us were younger. There is so much potential for that to be manipulated unless we get this right.