Online Harms Consultation — House of Commons, 2020-12-15
Topic: Technology
Oliver James Dowden (Conservative, Centre-right): Mr Speaker, we now conduct a huge proportion of our lives online. People in the UK spend an average of four hours and two minutes on the internet every day, and we know that for children it is even longer. That technology has improved our lives in countless ways but, as hon. Members on both sides of the House know, too many people are still exposed to the worst elements of the web: illegal content, racist and misogynistic abuse, and dangerous disinformation Those interactions may be virtual, but they are causing real harm. More than three quarters of UK adults express concerns about logging on, while a declining number of parents believe the benefits for their children of being online outweigh the risks. Trust in tech is falling. That is bad for the public and bad for the tech companies, so today the Government are taking decisive action to protect people online Through our full response to the online harms White Paper, we are proposing groundbreaking regulations that will make tech companies legally responsible for the online safety of their users. That world-leading regime will rebuild public trust and restore public confidence in the tech that has not only powered us through the pandemic, but will power us into the recovery I know that this legislation is highly anticipated on both sides of the House. I want to reassure hon. Members that, when drafting our proposals, I sought to strike a very important balance between shielding people, particularly children, from harm and ensuring a proportionate regime that preserves one of the cornerstones of our democracy—freedom of expression. I am confident that our response strikes that balance Under our proposals, online companies will face a new and binding duty of care to their users, overseen by Ofcom. If those platforms fail in that duty of care, they will face steep fines of up to £18 million or 10% of annual global turnover. A number of people, including Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, have expressed concerns about that point; I want to reassure him and Members of this House that the maximum fine will be the higher of those two numbers, and platforms will no longer be able to mark their own homework To hold major platforms to their responsibilities, I can also announce to the House that they will be required to publish annual transparency reports to track their progress, which could include the number of reports of harmful content received and the action taken as a result. This will be a robust regime, requiring those at the top to take responsibility. I can therefore confirm that we will legislate to introduce criminal sanctions for senior managers, with Parliament taking the final decision on whether to introduce that. Of course, we hope not to use those powers, and for tech companies to engineer the harm out of their platforms from the outset, but people should have no doubt that they remain an option and we will use them if we need to Together, those measures make this the toughest and most comprehensive online safety regime in the world. They will have a clear and immediate effect: a 13-year-old should no longer be able to access pornographic images on Twitter; YouTube will not be allowed to recommend videos promoting terrorist ideologies; and antisemitic hate crime will need to be removed without delay. Those are just a few examples, but the House will take a keen interest in the details of the legislation, so I shall lay out a few key areas of action Our first focus is on illegal content, including child sexual abuse, terrorism and posts that incite violence and hatred. Sadly, many Members present today have been the target of online abuse, some of which might have been illegal, such as threats of violence. Unfortunately, that is particularly true for female Members of the House. This is not a problem suffered only by people in the public eye; close to half of adults in the United Kingdom say that they have been exposed to hateful content online in the past year Under the new laws, all companies in scope will need to take swift and effective action to remove criminal posts—if it is illegal offline, it is illegal online. Users will be better able to report this abhorrent content and can expect to receive more support from platforms. Crucially, the duty of care will apply even when communications are end-to-end encrypted. Encryption cannot serve as a protection blanket for criminals. Given the severity of certain threats, Ofcom will also be given powers to require companies to use technology proactively to identify and remove illegal content involving child sexual abuse or terrorism—that is a power of last resort Of course, not all harmful content is illegal. Every day, people are exposed to posts, images and videos that do not break any laws, but still cause a significant amount of harm. We all know that cyber-bullying can ruin a child’s life, but I want first to address one particularly horrific form of legal content. Sadly, too many Members present will be aware of cases in which children are drawn into watching videos that can encourage self-harm. Some find themselves bombarded with that content, sometimes ending ultimately in tragedy. It is unforgivable that that sort of content should be circulating unchecked on social media. Given the severity of its consequences, I believe that there is a strong case for making it illegal I can therefore announce that the Government have asked the Law Commission to examine how the criminal law will address the encouragement or assistance of self-harm. This is an incredibly sensitive area. We need to take careful steps to ensure that we do not inadvertently punish vulnerable people, but we need to act now to prevent future tragedies Many Members are particularly concerned about the effect online harm has on children. We have reserved our strongest and toughest protections for them. All companies will need to consider seriously the risks their platforms may pose to children and to take action. They will no longer be able to abdicate responsibility by claiming that children do not use their services when that is manifestly untrue—we all know examples of that—and we also expect them to prevent children from accessing services that pose the highest risk of harm, including online pornography. Cutting-edge age assurance or verification technologies will be a vital part of keeping children safe online At the same time, we are going further than any other country to tackle other categories of legal but harmful content accessed by adults. Major platforms will face additional obligations to enforce their own terms and conditions against things such as dangerous vaccine misinformation and cyber-bullying. Where the platforms fall short, they will face the legal consequences I know that some hon. Members are worried that the regulations may impose undue burdens on smaller, low-risk companies, so I can reassure them that we have included exemptions for such companies. As a result, less than 3% of UK businesses will fall within the scope of the legislation In this House we have always ardently championed freedom of expression. Robust and free debate is what gives our democracy its historic strength. So let me be clear: the purpose of the proposed regime is not to stop adults accessing content with which they disagree. It is not our job to protect people against being offended. I will not allow this legislation to become a weapon against free debate. Therefore, we will not prevent adults from accessing or posting legal content. Companies will not be able arbitrarily to remove controversial viewpoints, and users will be able to seek redress if they feel that content has been removed unfairly Nor will I allow this legislation to stifle media freedoms or become a charter to impose our world view and suppress that of others. I can confirm that news publishers’ own content on their sites is not in scope, nor are the comments of users on that content. This legislation is targeted exactly where it needs to be and tightly focused on delivering our core manifesto pledge to empower adult users to stay safe online while ensuring that children are protected We have engaged extensively to get to this point and this process is by no means over. We want all parliamentarians to feed into this significant piece of work and will continue to listen to their concerns as we go through pre-legislative scrutiny and beyond. However, I am confident that today’s measures mark a significant step in the continual evolution of our approach to life online, and it is fitting that this should be a step that our country takes. The world wide web was, of course, invented by a Brit, and now the UK is setting a safety standard for the rest of the world to follow. I commend this statement to the House.