As the Joint Select Committee on the Online Safety Bill publishes
their report today [Tuesday], Labour has criticised for breaking yet another
promise, to bring the Online Safety Bill to the Commons before
Christmas.
Current regulation is from the analogue age and lags far, far
behind the digital age in which most of us all now live.
At Prime Ministers Questions on 20 October 2021, promised to “ensure that we
bring forward [the online safety bill] before Christmas.”
After ten years of a ‘digital free for all’, and almost four
years after the Government promised action on online safety, the
Government has yet again delayed action.
Thanks to delays, children will not be protected from harmful
content, including extreme pornography, over the holidays. The
Bill also does not go far enough – older people doing their
Christmas shopping online will not be protected from fraud and
scams even once the Bill is in place.
The Joint Committee has today recommended:
- The Government should hold online services to account for the
design and operation of their systems. Regulation should be
governed by a democratic legislature and an independent
regulator, not Silicon Valley
- The Online Safety Bill be easy to understand for service
providers and the public, have clear objectives that lead into
precise duties on the providers, with robust powers for the
regulator to act when the platforms fail to meet those legal and
regulatory requirements
- The Government update criminal law relating to online
communications, in line with the Law Commission’s recommendations
, Labour's
Shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary,
said:
“The Joint Committee's report is welcome and will help improve
how the internet is governed.
"Social media companies have for too long gotten away with
facilitating harmful content online. Current regulation is from
the analogue age and lags far, far behind the digital age in
which most of us all now live.
“The Prime Minister's failure to bring forward the Online Harms
Bill by Christmas is yet another broken promise. The Government
must now urgently act to strengthen its proposals and bring them
to Parliament to prevent more and more people becoming victims
online."
Ends
Notes to editors
- The promise was made during Prime Ministers’ Questions, in
response to concerns raised by the Labour leader about the death
of Sir - Hansard
