A new Report warns that draft Government legislation on online
harms would fail to prevent the sharing of some of the most
“insidious” images of child abuse and violence against women and
girls.
Scrutiny by the DCMS Committee of the Government’s Draft Online
Safety Bill has found that in its current form, the legislation
is neither clear nor robust enough to tackle certain types of
illegal and harmful content on user-to-user and search services.
In the Report published today, MPs call on the Government to
address types of content that are technically legal - including
parts of child abuse sequences like “breadcrumbing” and types of
online violence against and women and girls such as tech-enabled
“nudifying” of women and deepfake pornography - by bringing them
into scope either through primary legislation or as types of
harmful content covered by the duties of care.
MPs reject a recommendation made by the Joint Committee to
include in the Bill the establishment of a permanent Committee of
both Houses on the grounds that such a development would
duplicate the existing constitutional role of the DCMS Committee.
Chair of the DCMS Committee said:
“In its current form what should be world-leading,
landmark legislation instead represents a missed
opportunity.
“The Online Safety Bill neither protects freedom of
expression nor is it clear nor robust enough to tackle illegal
and harmful online content.
“Urgency is required to ensure that some of the most
pernicious forms of child sexual abuse do not evade detection
because of a failure in the online safety law.
“These are matters of important public debate to which we
will return as the Bill makes its way through
Parliament.”
ENDS
MPs say that the Bill, as currently drafted, has not got the
balance right between protecting freedom of expression and
tackling harmful content. Proposed amendments to the Draft Bill
have been a missed opportunity in making the broader
definitions of harm compatible with international human rights
law and address harms like covid-19 disinformation. There are
concerns that an emphasis on remedial measures rather than
preventative measures on content could result in excessive
takedowns by service providers to avoid penalties.
The Government is also urged to provide greater clarity within
the Bill on plans to provide Ofcom as Regulator with powers and
users with redress. MPs describe current plans as unclear and
impractical.
Key recommendations - the Government should:
-
Respond to Committee’s concerns about the risk of
content and activity that falls below the threshold of outright
criminal activity but nonetheless forms part of the sequence
for online child sexual exploitation and abuse.
-
Reframe the definition of illegal content to
explicitly add the need to consider context as a factor, and
include explicitly definitions of activity like breadcrumbing,
on the face of the Bill.
-
Reframe the language around considerations for freedom of
expression to incorporate a 'must balance' test so Ofcom can
interrogate and assess whether providers have duly balanced
their freedom of expression obligations with their decision
making.
-
Scrap any plans to introduce a Joint Committee to
oversee safety and digital regulation.
Please see full list of conclusions and recommendations in
the attached report
Providing evidence of the need to tackle Child Sexual
Exploitation and Abuse content, the Internet Watch Foundation
(IWF) told MPs that despite removing over 150,000 webpages of
CSEA material constituting millions of images, there had been an
“exponential growth in the rise of self-generated content”.
On tackling Violence Against Women and Girls, the charity Glitch
made the point that women were 27 times more likely to be
harassed online.
The Online safety and online harms inquiry has taken evidence
from a range of witnesses including representatives of social
media platforms YouTube, Meta, TikTok and Twitter; IMPRESS; the
NUJ; and the NSPCC.
The DCMS Sub-Committee on
Online Harms and Disinformation launched its inquiry into the
Government’s approach to tackling harmful online content as
outlined in its draft Online Safety Bill in July 2021.
The DCMS Sub-Committee will continue to undertake evidence
sessions and produce further Reports on the online safety regime
and other areas of digital regulation as the Online Safety Bill
progresses through the House.
