Online Safety Bill -
continuation of committee stage in the House of Lords
Extracts
Schedule 11: Categories of regulated user-to-user services and
regulated search services: regulations
Amendment 192
Moved by
of Cotes
192: Schedule 11, page 216, line 30, after “service” insert “,
including significant risk of harm,”
Member’s explanatory statement
There are some platforms which, whilst attracting small user
numbers, are hubs for extreme hateful content and should be
regulated as larger user-to-user services.
of Cotes (Con) (column
1097)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady
Parminter and Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, , for their support. After a
miscellaneous selection of amendments, we now come back to a
group of quite tight amendments. Given the hour, those scheduling
the groupings should be very pleased because for the first time
we have done all the groups that we set out to do this afternoon.
I do not want to tempt fate, but I think we will have a good
debate before we head off for a little break from the Bill for a
while.
6.30pm
I am very sympathetic to the other amendments in this grouping:
Amendments 192A and 194. I think there is a common theme running
through them all, unsurprisingly, which I hope my noble friend
the Minister will be able to address in his remarks. Some of
these amendments come about because we do not know the exact
categorisation of the services we are most concerned about in
this House and beyond, and how that categorisation process is
going to work and be kept under review. That is probably the
reason behind this group of amendments.
As noble Lords will be aware, the Bill proposes two major
categories of regulated company, category 1 and category 2, and
there is another carve-out for search services. Much of the
discussion about the Bill has focused on the regulatory
requirements for category 1 companies, but—again, we have not
seen the list—it is expected that the list of category 1
companies may number only a few dozen, while thousands and
thousands of platforms and search engines may not meet that
threshold. But some of those other platforms, while attracting
small user numbers, are hubs for extremely hateful content. In a
previous debate we heard about the vile racist abuse often aimed
at particular groups. Some of these platforms are almost outside
some of our own experiences. They are deliberately designed to
host such hateful content and to try to remain under the radar,
but they are undoubtedly deeply influential, particularly to
those—often vulnerable—users who access them.
Platforms such as 8kun, 4chan and BitChute are perhaps becoming
more well known, whereas Odysee, Rumble and Minds remain somewhat
obscure. There are numerous others, and all are easily accessible
from anyone’s browser. What does the harm caused by these
platforms look like? Some examples are in the public domain. For
example, the mass shooting in Buffalo, in America, was carried
out by a terrorist whose manifesto was inspired by 4chan’s board
and who spoke of its influence on him. Later in this debate we
are going to hear about specific content related to suicide,
self-harm or eating disorders, which we have already debated in
other contexts in these Committee proceedings.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate revealed that the four
leading forums it analysed for incels—involuntary celibates—were
filled with extreme hatred of women, glorification of violence
and active discussion of paedophilia. On Gab, an “anti-Jewish
meme repository”, grotesque anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews are
shared from an account with an offensive name that seeks to deny
the Holocaust. Holocaust denial material is similarly shared
across BitChute, where it is also possible to find a video on the
supposed
“Jewish Plan To Genocide The White Race”
and, of course, 9/11 conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, on Odysee,
other than discussion of the supposed “fake Holocaust” one can
find discussion of the “Jewish problem”. On Minds, both President
Zelensky and President Putin are condemned for having “kike”—an
offensive term for Jews—inner circles, while other posts state
that communism is Jewish control and the vessel to destroy our
freedom.
The Government and many others know very well that these small,
high-harm platforms are a problem. MPs in earlier debates on this
Bill raised concerns repeatedly. The noble Lord, Lord Austin,
raised this at Second Reading in your Lordships’ House and,
nearly a year ago, the then Secretary of State issued a
ministerial Statement indicating that, while the Government
appreciated that small high-harm platforms do damage,
“more research is required before such platforms can be assigned
to the category 1 designation for the online safety regime”.
This was despite Ofcom’s road map for online safety making it
clear that it had already identified a number of small platforms
that are clearly giving cause for concern.
So the case for action, as set out in my remarks and elsewhere,
is proven. The antisemitism Policy
Trust has given evidence to the Joint Committee on the draft Bill
and the Bill Committee in another place about this. The Community
Security Trust, HOPE not hate and many others have data that
demonstrates the level of hateful anti-Semitic and other racist
and misogynistic abuse on these platforms. I know others will
refer to the work of the Samaritans, the Mental Health Foundation
and Beat in raising issues around suicide, self-harm and eating
disorder content.
Extraordinarily, these are not platforms where this content is
stumbled on or somehow hidden. They are set up deliberately to
spread this content, to get people to look at it and to amplify
this deeply harmful material. These sites act as feeders for
hateful messages and activity on mainstream platforms or as
receptors for those directed away from those larger services to
niche, hate-filled rabbit holes. We need to think about this as
the Bill is implemented. As we hope that the larger platforms
will take action and live up to the terms of service they say
they have, without action this content will unfortunately
disappear to smaller platforms which will still be accessed and
have action in the online and offline worlds. I hope my noble
friend the Minister will say something about post-implementation
in relation to these platforms.
Amendment 192 is a small, technical amendment. It does not compel
Ofcom to add burdens to all small platforms but provides a
specific recourse for the Secretary of State to consider the
risks of harm as part of the process of categorisation. A small
number of well-known, small high-harm sites would be required to
add what will ultimately be minimal friction and other measures
proportionate to their size. They will be required to deliver
enhanced transparency. This can only be for the good, given that
in some cases these sites are designed specifically to spread
harm and radicalise users towards extreme and even terrorist
behaviours.
The Government accept that there is a problem. Internet users
broadly accept that there is a problem. It must be sensible, in
deciding on categorisation, to look at the risk of harm caused by
the platforms. I beg to move.
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(LD)
My Lords, I am going to be extremely brief given the extremely
compelling way that these amendments have been introduced by the
noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the noble Lord, , and contributed to by the
noble Baroness, Lady Bull. I thank her for her comments about my
noble friend Lady Parminter. I am sure she would have wanted to
be here and would have made a very valuable contribution as she
did the other day on exactly this subject.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has illustrated, we have a very
different view of risk across this Committee and we are back, in
a sense, into that whole area of risk. I just wanted to say that
I think we are again being brought back to the very wise words of
the Joint Committee. It may sound like special pleading. We keep
coming back to this, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and I
are the last people standing on a Thursday afternoon.
We took a lot of evidence in this particular area. We took the
trouble to go to Brussels and had a very useful discussion with
the Centre on Regulation in Europe and Dr Sally Broughton Micova.
We heard a lot about interconnectedness between some of these
smaller services and the impact in terms of amplification across
other social media sites.
We heard in the UK from some of the larger services about their
concerns about the activities of smaller services. You might say
“They would say that, wouldn’t they?” but they were pretty
convincing. We heard from HOPE not Hate, the antisemitism Policy
Trust and Stonewall, stressing the role of alternative services.
Of course, we know that these amendments today—some of them
sponsored by the Mental Health Foundation, as the noble Lord,
, said, and Samaritans—have a
very important provenance. They recognise that these are big
problems. I hope that the Minister will think strongly about
this. The injunction from the noble Lord, Lord Allan, to consider
how all this is going to work in practice is very important. I
very much hope that when we come to consider how this works in
practical terms that the Minister will think very seriously about
the way in which risk is to the fore— the more nuanced approach
that we suggested—and the whole way that profiling by Ofcom will
apply. I think that is going to be extremely important as well. I
do not think we have yet got to the right place in the Bill which
deals with these risky sites. I very much hope that the Minister
will consider this in the quite long period between now and when
we next get together.
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(column 1082)
...I wanted to reflect on the kind of dilemmas I am having around
this in relation to the story of Mizzy that is doing the rounds.
He is the 18 year-old who has been posting his prank videos on
TikTok and has caused quite a stir. People have seen him
wandering into strangers’ homes uninvited, asking random people
in the street if they want to die, running off with an elderly
lady’s dog and making fun of Orthodox Jews—generally speaking,
this 18 year-old is obnoxious. His TikTok videos have gone viral;
everybody is discussing them.
Extract from Business Questions in the
Commons
(Bury South) (Lab)
The city of Manchester has a rich and vibrant history, in which
those of different faiths and backgrounds have lived together, as
well as stood together through difficult times and times of
division, so I am concerned that Roger Waters is due to play at
the AO Arena in Manchester next month. Mr Waters performed in
Berlin this week and used the name of Anne Frank to stoke
division, performed while dressed as an SS soldier and used the
star of David on a giant pig to insinuate that Jewish people run
the world, forcing the Jewish Representative Council of Greater
Manchester to issue a statement condemning his divisive actions.
Will the Leader of the House agree that such concerts have no
place in our society and should not go ahead? Will she agree to a
debate in Government time on the record levels of anti- Jewish
hatred in this country?
I think the whole House was shocked by what the hon. Gentleman
said. I shall make certain that the Home Office has heard the
hon. Gentleman’s concerns. This House has made great efforts,
particularly in recent years, to ensure that the scourge
of antisemitism is
addressed and stamped out from our country. I shall make sure
that all relevant Departments have heard the hon. Gentleman’s
concerns.
