PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Online Safety Bill (Sixth sitting) - 7 June 2022 (Commons/Public Bill Committees)

I am sorry, Ms Rees, but I am afraid that I cannot hear you very well.

Vote for them, then.

I was listening very closely to what the Minister was saying and I was hoping that he might be able to comment on some of the evidence that was given, particularly by Professor Lorna Woods, who talked about the importance of risk assessments being about systems, not content. Would the Minister pick up on that point? He was touching on it in his comments, and I was not sure whether this was the appropriate point in the Bill at which to bring it up.

Specifically on that, I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making and appreciate his clarification. However, on something such as Snapchat, if somebody takes a photo, it is sent to somebody else, then disappears immediately, because that is what Snapchat does—the photo is no longer present. It has been produced and created there, but it is not present on the platform. Can the Minister consider whether the Bill adequately covers all the instances he hopes are covered?

Will the Minister explain how we would be able to prove, once the image is deleted, that it was present on the platform?

Will the Minister stress again that in this clause specifically he is talking about facilitating any presence? That is the wording that he has just used. Can he clarify exactly what he means? If the Minister were to do so, it would be an important point for the Bill as it proceeds.

It is grouped, Chair. We were discussing clause 8 and the relevant amendments, then we were going to come back to clause 9 and the relevant amendments.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to amendments to clause 9 and to clauses 23 and 24, which I did not speak on earlier. I am also very grateful that we are being broadcast live to the world and welcome that transparency for all who might be listening.

On clause 9, it is right that the user-to-user services will be required to have specific duties and to take appropriate measures to mitigate and manage the risk of harm to individuals and their likelihood of encountering priority illegal content. Again, however, the Bill does not go far enough, which is why we are seeking to make these important amendments. On amendment 18, it is important to stress that the current scope of the Bill does not capture the range of ways in which child abusers use social networks to organise abuse, including to form offender networks. They post digital breadcrumbs that signpost to illegal content on third-party messaging apps and the dark web, and they share child abuse videos that are carefully edited to fall within content moderation guidelines. This range of techniques, known as child abuse breadcrumbing, is a significant enabler of online child abuse.

Our amendment would give the regulator powers to tackle breadcrumbing and ensure a proactive upstream response. The amendment would ensure that tens of millions of interactions with accounts that actively enable the discovery and sharing of child abuse material will be brought into regulatory scope. It will not leave that as ambiguous. The amendment will also ensure that companies must tackle child abuse at the earliest possible stage. As it stands, the Bill would reinforce companies’ current focus only on material that explicitly reaches the criminal threshold. Because companies do not focus their approach on other child abuse material, abusers can exploit this knowledge to post carefully edited child abuse images and content that enables them to connect and form networks with other abusers. Offenders understand and can anticipate that breadcrumbing material will not be proactively identified or removed by the host site, so they are able to organise and link to child abuse in plain sight.

We all know that child abuse breadcrumbing takes many forms, but techniques include tribute sites where users create social media profiles using misappropriated identities of known child abuse survivors. These are used by offenders to connect with likeminded perpetrators to exchange contact information, form offender networks and signpost child abuse material elsewhere online. In the first quarter of 2021, there were 6 million interactions with such accounts.

Abusers may also use Facebook groups to build offender groups and signpost to child abuse hosted on third-party sites. Those groups are thinly veiled in their intentions; for example, as we heard in evidence sessions, groups are formed for those with an interest in children celebrating their 8th, 9th or 10th birthdays. Several groups with over 50,000 members remained alive despite being reported to Meta, and algorithmic recommendations quickly suggested additional groups for those members to join.

Lastly, abusers can signpost to content on third-party sites. Abusers are increasingly using novel forms of technology to signpost to online child abuse, including QR codes, immersive technologies such as the metaverse, and links to child abuse hosted on the blockchain. Given the highly agile nature of the child abuse threat and the demonstrable ability of sophisticated offenders to exploit new forms of technology, this amendment will ensure that the legislation is effectively futureproofed. Technological change makes it increasingly important that the ability of child abusers to connect and form offender networks can be disrupted at the earliest possible stage.

Turning to amendment 21, we know that child abuse is rarely siloed on a single platform or app. Well-established grooming pathways see abusers exploit the design features of social networks to contact children before they move communication across to other platforms, including livestreaming sites, as we have already heard, and encrypted messaging services. Offenders manipulate features such as Facebook’s algorithmic friend suggestions to make initial contact with a large number of children. They can then use direct messages to groom them and coerce children into sending sexual images via WhatsApp. Similarly, as we heard earlier, abusers can groom children through playing videogames and then bringing them on to another ancillary platform, such as Discord.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has shared details of an individual whose name has been changed, and whose case particularly highlights the problems that children are facing in the online space. Ben was 14 when he was tricked on Facebook into thinking he was speaking to a female friend of a friend, who turned out to be a man. Using threats and blackmail, he coerced Ben into sending abuse images and performing sex acts live on Skype. Those images and videos were shared with five other men, who then bombarded Ben with further demands. His mum, Rachel, said:

“The abuse Ben suffered had a devastating impact on our family. It lasted two long years, leaving him suicidal.

It should not be so easy for an adult to meet and groom a child on one site then trick them into livestreaming their own abuse on another app, before sharing the images with like-minded criminals at the click of a button.

Social media sites should have to work together to stop this abuse happening in the first place, so other children do not have to go through what Ben did.”

The current drafting of the Bill does not place sufficiently clear obligations on platforms to co-operate on the cross-platform nature of child abuse. Amendment 21 would require companies to take reasonable and proportionate steps to share threat assessments, develop proportionate mechanisms to share offender intelligence, and create a rapid response arrangement to ensure that platforms develop a coherent, systemic approach to new and emerging threats. Although the industry has developed a systemic response to the removal of known child abuse images, these are largely ad hoc arrangements that share information on highly agile risk profiles. The cross-platform nature of grooming and the interplay of harms across multiple services need to be taken into account. If it is not addressed explicitly in the Bill, we are concerned that companies may be able to cite competition concerns to avoid taking action.

On the topic of child abuse images, the hon. Member spoke earlier about livestreaming and those images not being captured. I assume that she would make the same point in relation to this issue: these live images may not be captured by AI scraping for them, so it is really important that they are included in the Bill in some way as well.

I completely agree with the hon. Member, and appreciate her intervention. It is fundamental for this point to be captured in the Bill because, as we are seeing, this is happening more and more. More and more victims are coming forward who have been subject to livestreaming that is not picked up by the technology available, and is then recorded and posted elsewhere on smaller platforms.

Legal advice suggests that cross-platform co-operation is likely to be significantly impeded by the negative interplay with competition law unless there is a clear statutory basis for enabling or requiring collaboration. Companies may legitimately have different risk and compliance appetites, or may simply choose to hide behind competition law to avoid taking a more robust form of action.

New and emerging technologies are likely to produce an intensification of cross-platform risks in the years ahead, and we are particularly concerned about the child abuse impacts in immersive virtual reality and alternative-reality environments, including the metaverse. A number of high-risk immersive products are already designed to be platform-agnostic, meaning that in-product communication takes place between users across multiple products and environments. There is a growing expectation that these environments will be built along such lines, with an incentive for companies to design products in this way in the hope of blunting the ability of Governments to pursue user safety objectives.

Separately, regulatory measures that are being developed in the EU, but are highly likely to impact service users in the UK, could result in significant unintended safety consequences. Although the interoperability provisions in the Digital Markets Act are strongly beneficial when viewed through a competition lens—they will allow the competition and communication of multiple platforms—they could, without appropriate safety mitigations, provide new means for abusers to contact children across multiple platforms, significantly increase the overall profile of cross-platform risk, and actively frustrate a broad number of current online safety responses. Amendment 21 will provide corresponding safety requirements that can mitigate the otherwise significant potential for unintended consequences.

The Minister referred to clauses 23 and 24 in relation to amendments 30 and 31. We think a similar consideration should apply for search services as well as for user-to-user services. We implore that the amendments be made, in order to prevent those harms from occurring.

I thank the Minister for giving way. I notice that schedule 6 includes provision on the possession of indecent photographs of children. Can he confirm that that provision encapsulates the livestreaming of sexual exploitation?

As this is the first time I have spoken in the Committee, may I say that it is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Rees? I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd that we are committed to improving the Bill, despite the fact that we have some reservations, which we share with many organisations, about some of the structure of the Bill and some of its provisions. As my hon. Friend has detailed, there are particular improvements to be made to strengthen the protection of children online, and I think the Committee’s debate on this section is proving fruitful.

Amendment 28 is a good example of where we must go further if we are to achieve the goal of the Bill and protect children from harm online. The amendment seeks to require regulated services to assess their level of risk based, in part, on the frequency with which they are blocking, detecting and removing child sexual exploitation and abuse content from their platforms. By doing so, we will be able to ascertain the reality of their overall risk and the effectiveness of their existing response.

The addition of livestreamed child sexual exploitation and abuse content not only acknowledges first-generation CSEA content, but recognises that livestreamed CSEA content happens on both public and private channels, and that they require different methods of detection.

Furthermore, amendment 28 details the practical information needed to assess whether the action being taken by a regulated service is adequate in countering the production and dissemination of CSEA content, in particular first-generation CSEA content. Separating the rates of terminated livestreams of CSEA in public and private channels is important, because those rates may vary widely depending on how CSEA content is generated. By specifying tools, strategies and interventions, the amendment would ensure that the systems in place to detect and report CSEA are adequate, and that is why we would like it to be part of the Bill.

The amendment specifically mentions the level and rates of those images. I did not quite manage to follow through all the things that the Minister just spoke about, but does the clause specifically talk about the level of those things, rather than individual incidents, the possibility of incidents or some sort of threshold for incidents, as in some parts of the Bill?

Amendments 20, 18 and 21.

Amendment proposed: 20, in clause 9, page 7, line 30, at end insert

“, including by being directed while on the service towards priority illegal content hosted by a different service;”—(Alex Davies-Jones.)

This amendment aims to include within companies’ safety duties a duty to consider cross-platform risk.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

I beg to move amendment 15, in clause10, page 8, line 41, at end insert—

“(4A) A duty for the children’s risk assessment to be approved by either—

(a) the board of the entity; or, if the organisation does not have a board structure,

(b) a named individual who the provider considers to be a senior manager of the entity, who may reasonably be expected to be in a position to ensure compliance with the children’s risk assessment duties, and reports directly into the most senior employee of the entity.”

This amendment seeks to ensure that regulated companies’ boards or senior staff have responsibility for children’s risk assessments.

I will speak to other amendments in this group as well as amendment 15. The success of the Bill’s regulatory framework relies on regulated companies carefully risk-assessing their platforms. Once risks have been identified, the platform can concentrate on developing and implementing appropriate mitigations. However, up to now, boards and top executives have not taken the risk to children seriously. Services have either not considered producing risk assessments or, if they have done so, they have been of limited efficacy and failed to identify and respond to harms to children.

In evidence to the Joint Committee, Frances Haugen explained that many of the corporate structures involved are flat, and accountability for decision making can be obscure. At Meta, that means teams will focus only on delivering against key commercial metrics, not on safety. Children’s charities have also noted that corporate structures in the large technology platforms reward employees who move fast and break things. Those companies place incentives on increasing return on investment rather than child safety. An effective risk assessment and risk mitigation plan can impact on profit, which is why we have seen so little movement from companies to take the measures themselves without the duty being placed on them by legislation.

It is welcome that clause 10 introduces a duty to risk-assess user-to-user services that are likely to be accessed by children. But, as my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd said this morning, it will become an empty, tick-box exercise if the Bill does not also introduce the requirement for boards to review and approve the risk assessments.

The Joint Committee scrutinising the draft Bill recommended that the risk assessment be approved at board level. The Government rejected that recommendation on the grounds thar Ofcom could include that in its guidance on producing risk assessments. As with much of the Bill, it is difficult to blindly accept promised safeguards when we have not seen the various codes of practice and guidance materials. The amendments would make sure that decisions about and awareness of child safety went right to the top of regulated companies. The requirement to have the board or a senior manager approve the risk assessment will hardwire the safety duties into decision making and create accountability and responsibility at the most senior level of the organisation. That should trickle down the organisation and help embed a culture of compliance across it. Unless there is a commitment to child safety at the highest level of the organisation, we will not see the shift in attitude that is urgently needed to keep children safe, and which I believe every member of the Committee subscribes to.

On amendments 11 and 13, it is welcome that we have risk assessments for children included in the Bill, but the effectiveness of that duty will be undermined unless the risk assessments can be available for scrutiny by the public and charities. In the current version of the Bill, risk assessments will only be made available to the regulator, which we debated on an earlier clause. Companies will be incentivised to play down the likelihood of currently emerging risks because of the implications of having to mitigate against them, which may run counter to their business interests. Unless the risk assessments are published, there will be no way to hold regulated companies to account, nor will there be any way for companies to learn from one another’s best practice, which is a very desirable aim.

The current situation shows that companies are unwilling to share risk assessments even when requested. In October 2021, following the whistleblower disclosures made by Frances Haugen, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children led a global coalition of 60 child protection organisations that urged Meta to publish its risk assessments, including its data privacy impact assessments, which are a legal requirement under data protection law. Meta refused to share any of its risk assessments, even in relation to child sexual abuse and grooming. The company argued that risk assessments were live documents and it would not be appropriate for it to share them with any organisation other than the Information Commissioner’s Office, to whom it has a legal duty to disclose. As a result, civil society organisations and the charities that I talked about continue to be in the dark about whether and how Meta has appropriately identified online risk to children.

Making risk assessments public would support the smooth running of the regime and ensure its broader effectiveness. Civil society and other interested groups would be able to assess and identify any areas where a company might not be meeting its safety duties and make full, effective use of the proposed super-complaints mechanism. It will also help civil society organisations to hold the regulated companies and the regulator, Ofcom, to account.

As we have seen from evidence sessions, civil society organisations are often at the forefront of understanding and monitoring the harms that are occurring to users. They have an in depth understanding of what mitigations may be appropriate and they may be able to support the regulator to identify any obvious omissions. The success of the systemic risk assessment process will be significantly underpinned by and reliant upon the regulator’s being able to rapidly and effectively identify new and emerging harms, and it is highly likely that the regulator will want to draw on civil society expertise to ensure that it has highly effective early warning functions in place.

However, civil society organisations will be hampered in that role if they remain unable to determine what, if anything, companies are doing to respond to online threats. If Ofcom is unable to rapidly identify new and emerging harms, the resulting delays could mean entire regulatory cycles where harms were not captured in risk profiles or company risk assessments, and an inevitable lag between harms being identified and companies being required to act upon them. It is therefore clear that there is a significant public value to publishing risk assessments.

Amendments 27 and 32 are almost identical to the suggested amendments to clause 8 that we discussed earlier. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd said in our discussion about amendments 25, 26 and 30, the duty to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment could be significantly strengthened by preventing the creation of illegal content, not only preventing individuals from encountering it. I know the Minister responded to that point, but the Opposition did not think that response was fully satisfactory. This is just as important for children’s risk assessments as it is for illegal content risk assessments.

Online platforms are not just where abusive material is published. Sex offenders use mainstream web platforms and services as tools to commit child sexual abuse. This can be seen particularly in the livestreaming of child sexual exploitation. Sex offenders pay to direct and watch child sexual abuse in real time. The Philippines is a known hotspot for such abuse and the UK has been identified by police leads as the third-largest consumer of livestreamed abuse in the world. What a very sad statistic that our society is the third-largest consumer of livestreamed abuse in the world.

Ruby is a survivor of online sexual exploitation in the Philippines, although Ruby is not her real name; she recently addressed a group of MPs about her experiences. She told Members how she was trafficked into sexual exploitation aged 16 after being tricked and lied to about the employment opportunities she thought she would be getting. She was forced to perform for paying customers online. Her story is harrowing. She said:

“I blamed myself for being trapped. I felt disgusted by every action I was forced to do, just to satisfy customers online. I lost my self-esteem and I felt very weak. I became so desperate to escape that I would shout whenever I heard a police siren go by, hoping somebody would hear me. One time after I did this, a woman in the house threatened me with a knife.”

Eventually, Ruby was found by the Philippine authorities and, after a four-year trial, the people who imprisoned her and five other girls were convicted. She said it took many years to heal from the experience, and at one point she nearly took her own life.

It should be obvious that if we are to truly improve child protection online we need to address the production of new child abuse material. In the Bill, we have a chance to address not only what illegal content is seen online, but how online platforms are used to perpetrate abuse. It should not be a case of waiting until the harm is done before taking action.

I know that the Minister listened to Frances Haugen and to the members of charities. The charities and civil society organisations that are so concerned about this point do not accept that the Bill addresses it. I cannot see how his point addresses what I said about board-level acceptance of that role in children’s risk assessments. We need to change the culture of those organisations so that they become different from how they were described to us. He, like us, was sat there when we heard from the big platform providers, and they are not doing enough. He has had meetings with Frances Haugen; he knows what they are doing. It is good and welcome that the regulator will have the powers that he mentions, but that is just not enough.

The Minister is talking about companies of such scale that even fines of billions will not hurt them. I refer him to the following wording in the amendments:

“a named individual who the provider considers to be a senior manager of the entity, who may reasonably be expected to be in a position to ensure compliance with the children’s risk assessment duties”.

That is the minimum we should be asking. We should be asking these platforms, which are doing so much damage and have had to be dragged to the table to do anything at all, to be prepared to appoint somebody who is responsible. The Minister tries to gloss over things by saying, “Oh well, they must be aware of it.” The named individual would have to be aware of it. I hope he understands the importance of his role and the Committee’s role in making this happen. We could make this happen.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South has said, the point here is about cultural change, and the way to do that is through leadership. It is not about shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. Fining the companies might achieve something, but it does not tackle the root of the problem. It is about cultural change and leadership at these organisations. We all agree across the House that they are not doing enough, so how do we change that culture? It has to come from leadership.

The Minister is being very generous with his time, but I do not think he appreciates the nature of the issue. Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth is $71.5 billion. Elon Musk, who is reported to be purchasing Twitter, is worth $218 billion. Bill Gates is worth $125 billion. Money does not matter to these people.

The Minister discusses huge fines for the companies and the potential sanction of bringing down their platforms. They will just set up another one. That is what we are seeing with the smaller platforms: they are closing down and setting up new platforms. These measures do not matter. What matters and will actually make a difference to the safety of children and adults online is personal liability—holding people personally responsible for the direct harm they are causing to people here in the United Kingdom. That is what these amendments seek to do, and that is why we are pushing them so heavily. I urge the Minister to respond to that.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I have huge sympathy with the point that the Minister is making on this issue, but the hon. Member for Pontypridd is right to drive the point home. The Minister says there will be huge fines, but I think there will also be huge court bills. There will be an awful lot of litigation about how things are interpreted, because so much money will come into play. I just reiterate the importance of the guidance and the codes of practice, because if we do not get those right then the whole framework will be incredibly fragile. We will need ongoing scrutiny of how the Bill works or there will be a very difficult situation.

I have a couple of comments, particularly about amendments 15 and 16, which the Minister has just spoken about at some length. I do not agree with the Government’s assessment that the governance subsection is adequate. It states that the risk assessment must take into account

“how the design and operation of the service (including the business model, governance, use of proactive technology…may reduce or increase the risks identified.”

It is actually an assessment of whether the governance structure has an impact on the risk assessment. It has no impact whatever on the level at which the risk assessment is approved or not approved; it is about the risks that the governance structure poses to children or adults, depending on which section of the Bill we are looking at.

The Minister should consider what is being asked in the amendment, which is about the decision-making level at which the risk assessments are approved. I know the Minister has spoken already, but some clarification would be welcome. Does he expect a junior tech support member of staff, or a junior member of the legal team, to write the risk assessment and then put it in a cupboard? Or perhaps they approve it themselves and then nothing happens with it until Ofcom asks for it. Does he think that Ofcom would look unfavourably on behaviour like that? If he was very clear with us about that, it might put our minds at rest. Does he think that someone in a managerial position or a board member, or the board itself, should take decisions, rather than a very junior member of staff? There is a big spread of people who could be taking decisions. If he could give us an indication of what Ofcom might look favourably on, it would be incredibly helpful for our deliberations.

All I have to add is the obvious point—I am sure that we are going to keep running into this—that people should not have to look to a transcript to see what the Minister’s and Parliament’s intention was. It is clear what the Opposition’s intention is—to protect children. I cannot see why the Minister will not specify who in an organisation should be responsible. It should not be a question of ploughing through transcripts of what we have talked about here in Committee; it should be obvious. We have the chance here to do something different and better. The regulator could specify a senior level.

I beg to move amendment 72, in clause 10, page 9, line 24, after “characteristic” insert “or characteristics”.

May I say—this might be a point of order—how my constituency name is pronounced? I get a million different versions, but it is Worsley, as in “worse”. It is an unfortunate name for a great place.

I will speak to all the amendments in the group together, because they relate to how levels of risk are assessed in relation to certain characteristics. The amendments are important because small changes to the descriptions of risk assessment will help to close a significant gap in protection.

Clauses 10 and 12 introduce a duty on regulated companies to assess harms to adults and children who might have an innate vulnerability arising from being a member of a particular group or having a certain characteristic. However, Ofcom is not required to assess harms to people other than children who have that increased innate vulnerability. Amendment 71 would require Ofcom to assess risks of harm particularly affecting people with certain characteristics or membership of a group or groups as part of its risk register. That would reduce the regulatory burden if companies had Ofcom’s risk assessment to base their work on.

Getting this right is important. The risk management regime introduced by the Bill should not assume that all people are at the same risk of harm—they are clearly not. Differences in innate vulnerability increase the incidence and impact of harm, such as by increasing the likelihood of encountering content or of that content being harmful, or heightening the impact of the harm.

It is right that the Bill emphasises the vulnerability of children, but there are other, larger groups with innate vulnerability to online harm. As we know, that often reflects structural inequalities in society.

For example, women will be harmed in circumstances where men might not be, and they could suffer some harms that have a more serious impact than they might for men. A similar point can be made for people with other characteristics. Vulnerability is then compounded by intersectional issues—people might belong to more than one high-risk group—and I will come to that in a moment.

The initial Ofcom risk assessment introduced by clause 83 is not required to consider the heightened risks to different groups of people, but companies are required to assess that risk in their own risk assessments for children and adults. They need to be given direction by an assessment by Ofcom, which amendment 71 would require.

Amendments 72 to 75 address the lack of recognition in these clauses of intersectionality issues. They are small amendments in the spirit of the Bill’s risk management regime. As drafted, the Bill refers to a singular “group” or “characteristic” for companies to assess for risk. However, some people are subject to increased risks of harm arising from being members of more than one group. Companies’ risk assessments for children and adults should reflect intersectionality, and not just characteristics taken individually. Including the plural of “group” and “characteristic” in appropriate places would achieve that.

I will first speak to our amendment 85, which, like the Labour amendment, seeks to ensure that the Bill is crystal clear in addressing intersectionality. We need only consider the abuse faced by groups of MPs to understand why that is necessary. Female MPs are attacked online much more regularly than male MPs, and the situation is compounded if they have another minority characteristic. For instance, if they are gay or black, they are even more likely to be attacked. In fact, the MP who is most likely to be attacked is black and female. There are very few black female MPs, so it is not because of sheer numbers that they are at such increased risk of attack. Those with a minority characteristic are at higher risk of online harm, but the risk facing those with more than one minority characteristic is substantially higher, and that is what the amendment seeks to address.

I have spoken specifically about people being attacked on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, but people in certain groups face an additional significant risk. If a young gay woman does not have a community around her, or if a young trans person does not know anybody else who is trans, they are much more likely to use the internet to reach out, to try to find people who are like them, to try to understand. If they are not accepted by their family, school or workplace, they are much more likely to go online to find a community and support—to find what is out there in terms of assistance—but using the internet as a vulnerable, at-risk person puts them at much more significant risk. This goes back to my earlier arguments about people requiring anonymity to protect themselves when using the internet to find their way through a difficult situation in which they have no role models.

It should not be difficult for the Government to accept this amendment. They should consider it carefully and understand that all of us on the Opposition Benches are making a really reasonable proposal. This is not about saying that someone with only one protected characteristic is not at risk; it is about recognising the intersectionality of risk and the fact that the risk faced by those who fit into more than one minority group is much higher than that faced by those who fit into just one. This is not about taking anything away from the Bill; it is about strengthening it and ensuring that organisations listen.

We have heard that a number of companies are not providing the protection that Members across the House would like them to provide against child sexual abuse. The governing structures, risk assessments, rules and moderation at those sites are better at ensuring that the providers make money than they are at providing protection. When regulated providers assess risk, it is not too much to ask them to consider not just people with one protected characteristic but those with multiple protected characteristics.

As MPs, we work on that basis every day. Across Scotland and the UK, we support our constituents as individuals and as groups. When protected characteristics intersect, we find ourselves standing in Parliament, shouting strongly on behalf of those affected and giving them our strongest backing, because we know that that intersection of harms is the point at which people are most vulnerable, in both the real and the online world. Will the Minister consider widening the provision so that it takes intersectionality into account and not only covers people with one protected characteristic but includes an over and above duty? I genuinely do not think it is too much for us to ask providers, particularly the biggest ones, to make this change.

I have nothing to add. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

Safety duties protecting children

I beg to move amendment 29, in clause 11, page 10, line 20, at end insert—

“(c) prevent the sexual or physical abuse of a child by means of that service.”

This amendment establishes a duty to prevent the sexual or physical abuse of a child by means of a service.

The purpose of this clause is to ensure that children at risk of online harms are given protections from harmful, age-inappropriate content through specific children’s safety duties for user-to-user services likely to be accessed by children.

It is welcome that the Bill contains strong provisions to ensure that service providers act upon and mitigate the risks identified in the required risk assessment, and to introduce protective systems and processes to address what children encounter. This amendment aims to ensure that online platforms are proactive in their attempts to mitigate the opportunity for sex offenders to abuse children.

As we have argued with other amendments, there are missed opportunities in the Bill to be preventive in tackling the harm that is created. The sad reality is that online platforms create an opportunity for offenders to identify, contact and abuse children, and to do so in real time through livestreaming. We know there has been a significant increase in online sexual exploitation during the pandemic. With sex offenders unable to travel or have physical contact with children, online abuse increased significantly.

In 2021, UK law enforcement received a record 97,727 industry reports relating to online child abuse, a 29% increase on the previous year, which is shocking. An NSPCC freedom of information request to police forces in England and Wales last year showed that online grooming offences reached record levels in 2020-21, with the number of sexual communications with a child offences in England and Wales increasing by almost 70% in three years. There has been a deeply troubling trend in internet-facilitated abuse towards more serious sexual offences against children, and the average age of children in child abuse images, particularly girls, is trending to younger ages.

In-person contact abuse moved online because of the opportunity there for sex offenders to continue exploiting children. Sadly, they can do so with little fear of the consequences, because detection and disruption of livestreamed abuse is so low. The duty to protect children from sexual offenders abusing them in real time and livestreaming their exploitation cannot be limited to one part of the internet and tech sector. While much of the abuse might take place on the user-to-user services, it is vital that protections against such abuse are strengthened across the board, including in the search services, as set out in clause 26.

At the moment there is no list of harms in the Bill that must be prioritised by regulated companies. The NSPCC and others have suggested including a new schedule, similar to schedule 7, setting out what the primary priority harms should be. It would be beneficial for the purposes of parliamentary scrutiny for us to consider the types of priority harm that the Government intend the Bill to cover, rather than leaving that to secondary legislation. I hope the Minister will consider that and say why it has not yet been included.

To conclude, while we all hope the Bill will tackle the appalling abuse of children currently taking place online, this cannot be achieved without tackling the conditions in which these harms can take place. It is only by requiring that steps be taken across online platforms to limit the opportunities for sex offenders to abuse children that we can see the prevalence of this crime reduced.

I rise, hopefully to speak to clause 11 more generally—or will that be a separate stand part debate, Ms Rees?

My apologies. I will rise later.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

I rise to speak to clause 11, because this is an important part of the Bill that deals with the safety duties protecting children. Many of us here today are spurred on by our horror at the way in which internet providers, platform providers and search engines have acted over recent years, developing their products with no regard for the safety of children, so I applaud the Government for bringing forward this groundbreaking legislation. They are literally writing the book on this, but in doing so, we have be very careful about the language we use and the way in which we frame our requirements of these organisations. The Minister has rightly characterised these organisations as being entirely driven by finance, not the welfare of their consumers, which must make them quite unique in the world. I can only hope that that will change: presumably, over time, people will not want to use products that have no regard for the safety of those who use them.

In this particular part of the Bill, the thorny issue of age assurance comes up. I would value the Minister’s views on some of the evidence that we received during our evidence sessions about how we ensure that age assurance is effective. Some of us who have been in this place for a while would be forgiven for thinking that we had already passed a law on age assurance. Unfortunately, that law did not seem to come to anything, so let us hope that second time is lucky. The key question is: who is going to make sure that the age assurance that is in place is good enough? Clause 11(3) sets out

“a duty to operate a service using proportionate systems and processes”

that is designed to protect children, but what is a proportionate system? Who is going to judge that? Presumably it will be Ofcom in the short term, and in the long term, I am sure the courts will get involved.

In our evidence, we heard some people advocating very strongly for these sorts of systems to be provided by third parties. I have to say, in a context where we are hearing how irresponsible the providers of these services are, I can understand why people would think that a third party would be a more responsible way forward. Can the Minister help the Committee understand how Ofcom will ensure that the systems used, particularly the age assurance systems, are proportionate—I do not particularly like that word; I would like those systems to be brilliant, not proportionate—and are actually doing what we need them to do, which is safeguard children? For the record, and for the edification of judges who are looking at this matter in future—and, indeed, Ofcom—will he set out how important this measure is within the Bill?

For clarification, does the Minister anticipate that Ofcom might be able to insist that a third-party provider be involved if there is significant evidence that the measures put in place by a platform are ineffective?

I beg to move amendment 12, in clause 12, page 12, line 10, at end insert—

“(4A) A duty to publish the adults’ risk assessment and proactively supply this to OFCOM.”

This amendment creates a duty to publish the adults’ risk assessment and supply it to Ofcom.

The amendment creates a duty to publish the adults’ risk assessment and supply it to Ofcom. As my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South remarked when addressing clause 10, transparency and scrutiny of those all-important risk assessments must be at the heart of the Online Safety Bill. We all know that the Government have had a hazy record on transparency lately but, for the sake of all in the online space, I sincerely hope that the Minister will see the value in ensuring that the risk assessments are accurate, proactively supplied and published for us all to consider.

It is only fair that all the information about risks to personal safety be made available to users of category 1 services, which we know are the most popular and, often, the most troublesome services. We all want people to feel compelled to make their own decisions about their behaviour both online and offline. That is why we are pushing for a thorough approach to risk assessments more widely. Also, without a formal duty to publicise those risk assessments, I fear there will be little change in our safety online. The Minister has referenced that the platforms will be looking back at Hansard in years to come to determine whether or not they should be doing the right thing. Unless we make that a statutory obligation within the Bill, I fear that reference will fall on deaf ears.

I thank the Minister for his comments, but sadly we do not feel that is appropriate or robust enough, which is why we will be pressing the amendment to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee divided.

While I am at risk of parroting my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South on clause 11, it is important that adults and the specific risks they face online are considered in the clause. The Minister knows we have wider concerns about the specific challenges of the current categorisation system. I will come on to that at great length later, but I thought it would be helpful to remind him at this relatively early stage that the commitments to safety and risk assessments for category 1 services will only work if category 1 encapsulates the most harmful platforms out there. That being said, Labour broadly supports this clause and has not sought to amend it.

I beg to move amendment 46, in clause 14, page 14, line 12, after “non-verified users” insert

“and to enable them to see whether another user is verified or non-verified.”

This amendment would make it clear that, as part of the User Empowerment Duty, users should be able to see which other users are verified and which are non-verified.

The revised Bill seeks to address the problems associated with anonymity through requiring platforms to empower users, with new options to verify their identity and filter out non-verified accounts. This is in line with the approach recommended by Clean Up The Internet and also reflects the approach proposed in the Social Media Platforms (Identity Verification) Bill, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and attracted cross-party support. It has the potential to strike a better balance between tackling the clear role that anonymity can play in fuelling abuse and disinformation, while safeguarding legitimate uses of anonymity, including by vulnerable users, for whom anonymity can act as a protection. However, Labour does share the concerns of stakeholders around the revised Bill, which we have sought to amend.

Amendment 46 aims to empower people to use this information about verification when making judgments about the reliability of other accounts and the content they share. This would ensure that the user verification duty helps disrupt the use of networks of inauthentic accounts to spread disinformation. Labour welcomes the inclusion in the revised Bill of measures designed to address harm associated with misuse of anonymous social media accounts. There is considerable evidence from Clean Up The Internet and others that anonymity fuels online abuse, bullying and trolling and that it is one of the main tools used by organised disinformation networks to spread and amplify false, extremist and hateful content.

The revised Bill seeks to address the problems associated with anonymity, by requiring platforms to empower users with new options to verify their identity and to filter out non-verified accounts. In doing so, it has the potential to strike a better balance between tackling the clear role that anonymity can play in fuelling abuse and misinformation while safeguarding legitimate users of anonymity, including vulnerable users, for whom anonymity acts as a protection.

Clause 14 falls short of truly empowering people to make the most well-informed decisions about the type of content they engage with. We believe that this could be simple, and a simple change from a design perspective. Category 1 platforms are already able to verify different types of accounts, whether they be personal or business accounts, so ensuring that people are equipped with this information more broadly would be an easy step for the big platforms to make. Indeed, the Joint Committee’s prelegislative scrutiny recommended that the Government consider, as part of Ofcom’s code of practice, a requirement for the largest and highest-risk platforms to offer the choice of verified or unverified status and user options on how they interact with accounts in either category.

I know that there are concerns about verification, and there is a delicate balance between anonymity, free speech and protecting us all online. I somewhat sympathise with the Minister in being tasked with bringing forward this complex legislation, but the options for choosing what content and users we do and do not engage with are already there on most platforms. On Twitter, we are able to mute accounts—I do so regularly—or keywords that we want to avoid. Similarly, we can restrict individuals on Instagram.

In evidence to the Joint Committee, the Secretary of State said that the first priority of the draft Bill was to end all online abuse, not just that from anonymous accounts. Hopes were raised about the idea of giving people the option to limit their interaction with anonymous or non-verified accounts. Clearly, the will is there, and the amendment ensures that there is a way, too. I urge the Minister to accept the amendment, if he is serious about empowering users across the United Kingdom.

Now I move on to amendment 47. As it stands, the Bill does not adequately define “verification” or set minimum standards for how it will be carried out. There is a risk that platforms will treat this as a loophole in order to claim that their current, wholly inadequate processes count as verification. We also see entirely avoidable risks of platforms developing new verification processes that fail to protect users’ privacy and security or which serve merely to extend their market dominance to the detriment of independent providers. That is why it is vital that a statutory definition of identity verification is placed in the Bill.

I have already spoken at length today, and I appreciate that we are going somewhat slowly on the Bill, but it is complex legislation and this is an incredibly important detail that we need to get right if the Bill is to be truly world leading. Without a definition of identity verification, I fear that we are at risk of allowing technology, which can easily replicate the behaviours of a human being, to run rife, which would essentially invalidate the process of verification entirely.

I have also spoken at length about my concerns relating to AI technologies, the lack of future proofing in the Bill and the concerns that could arise in the future. I am sure that the Minister is aware that that could have devastating impacts on our democracy and our online safety more widely.

New clause 8 would ensure that the user empowerment duty and user verification work as intended by simply requiring Ofcom to set out principles and minimum standards for compliance. We note that the new clause is entirely compatible with the Government’s stated aims for the Bill and would provide a clearer framework for both regulated companies and the regulator. By its very nature, it is vital that in preparing the guidance Ofcom must ensure that the delicate balance that I touched on earlier between freedom of expression, the right to privacy and safety online is kept in mind throughout.

We also felt it important that, in drawing up the guidance a collaborative approach should be taken. Regulating the online space is a mammoth task, and while we have concerns about Ofcom’s independence, which I will gladly touch on later, we also know that it will be best for us all if it is required to draw on the expertise of other expert organisations in doing so.

I am sorry to disagree with the Minister so vigorously, but that is a rubbish argument. It does not make any sense. There is a difference between wanting to filter out everybody who is not verified and wanting to actually see if someone who is threatening someone else online is a verified or a non-verified user. Those are two very different things. I can understand why a politician, for example, might not want to filter out unverified users but would want to check whether a person was verified before going to the police to report a threat.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I want to recount my own experience on this issue. He mentioned that anybody in receipt of anonymous abuse on social media should report it to the police, especially if it is illegal. On Thursday, I dared to tweet my opinions on the controversial Depp-Heard case in America. As a result of putting my head above the parapet, my Twitter mentions were an absolute sewer of rape threats and death threats, mainly from anonymous accounts. My Twitter profile was mocked up—I had devil horns and a Star of David on my forehead. It was vile. I blocked, deleted and moved on, but I also reported those accounts to Twitter, especially those that sent me rape threats and death threats.

That was on Thursday, and to date no action has been taken and I have not received any response from Twitter about any of the accounts I reported. The Minister said they should be reported to the police. If I reported all those accounts to the police, I would still be there now reporting them. How does he anticipate that this will be resourced so that social media companies can tackle the issue? That was the interaction resulting from just one tweet that I sent on Thursday, and anonymous accounts sent me a barrage of hate and illegal activity.

I beg to move amendment 105, in clause 15, page 14, line 33, after “ensure” insert “the safety of people involved in UK elections and”.

I rise to speak to amendments 105 and 106, in my name, on protecting democracy and democratic debate.

Within the Bill, there are significant clauses intended to prevent the spread of harm online, to protect women and girls against violence and to help prevent child sexual exploitation, while at the same time protecting the right of journalists to do their jobs. Although those clauses are not perfect, I welcome them.

The Bill is wide-ranging. The Minister talked on Second Reading about the power in clause 150 to protect another group—those with epilepsy—from being trolled with flashing images. That subject is close to my heart due to the campaign for Zach’s law—Zach is a young boy in my constituency. I know we will return to that important issue later in the Committee, and I thank the Minister for his work on it.

In protecting against online harm while preserving fundamental rights and values, we must also address the threats posed to those involved in the democratic process. Let me be clear: this is not self-serving. It is about not just MPs but all political candidates locally and nationally and those whose jobs facilitate the execution of our democratic process and political life: the people working on elections or for those elected to public office at all levels across the UK. These people must be defended from harm not only for their own protection, but to protect our democracy itself and, with it, the right of all our citizens to a political system capable of delivering on their priorities free from threats and intimidation.

Many other groups in society are also subjected to a disproportionate amount of targeted abuse, but those working in and around politics sadly receive more than almost any other people in this country, with an associated specific set of risks and harms. That does not mean messages gently, or even firmly, requesting us to vote one way or another—a staple of democratic debate—but messages of hate, abuse and threats intended to scare people in public office, grind them down, unfairly influence their voting intentions or do them physical and psychological harm. That simply cannot be an acceptable part of political life.

As I say, we are not looking for sympathy, but we have a duty to our democracy to try to stamp that out from our political discourse. Amendment 105 would not deny anybody the right to tell us firmly where we are going wrong—quite right, too—but it is an opportunity to draw the essential distinction between legitimately holding people in public life to account and illegitimate intimidation and harm.

The statistics regarding the scale of online abuse that MPs receive are shocking. In 2020, a University of Salford study found that MPs received over 7,000 abusive or hate-filled tweets a month. Seven thousand separate messages of harm a month on Twitter alone directed at MPs is far too many, but who in this room does not believe that the figure is almost certainly much higher today? Amnesty conducted a separate study in 2017 looking at the disproportionate amount of abuse that women and BAME MPs faced online, finding that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was the recipient of almost a third of all the abusive tweets analysed, as alluded to already by the hon. Member for Edinburgh—

Aberdeen North.

I knew that. [Laughter.]

Five years later, we continue to see significant volumes of racist, sexist and homophobic hate-filled abuse and threats online to politicians of all parties. That is unacceptable in itself, but we must ask whether this toxic environment helps to keep decent people in politics or, indeed, attracts good people into politics, so that our democracy can prosper into the future across the political spectrum. The reality we face is that our democracy is under attack online each and every day, and every day we delay acting is another day on which abuse becomes increasingly normalised or is just seen as part of the job for those who have put themselves forward for public service. This form of abuse harms society as a whole, so it deserves specific consideration in the Bill.

While elected Members and officials are not a special group of people deserving of more legal protections than anyone else, we must be honest that the abuse they face is distinct and specific to those roles and directly affects our democracy itself. It can lead to the most serious physical harm, with two Members of Parliament having been murdered in the last six years, and many others face death threats or threats of sexual or other violence on a daily basis. However, this is not just about harm to elected representatives; online threats are often seen first, and sometimes only, by their members of staff. They may not be the intended target, but they are often the people harmed most. I am sure we all agree that that is unacceptable and cannot continue.

All of us have probably reported messages and threats to social media platforms and the police, with varying degrees of success in terms of having them removed or the individuals prosecuted. Indeed, we sadly heard examples of that from my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. Often we are told that nothing can be done. Currently, the platforms look at their own rules to determine what constitutes freedom of speech or expression and what is hateful speech or harm. That fine line moves. There is no consistency across platforms, and we therefore urgently need more clarity and a legal duty in place to remove that content quickly.

Amendment 105 would explicitly include in the Bill protection and consideration for those involved in UK elections, whether candidates or staff. Amendment 106 would go further and place an obligation on Ofcom to produce a code of practice, to be issued to the platforms. It would define what steps platforms must take to protect those involved in elections and set out what content is acceptable or unacceptable to be directed at them.

I want to make a few comments on the amendment. As a younger female parliamentarian, I find that I am often asked to speak to young people about becoming an MP or getting involved in politics. I find it difficult to say to young women, “Yes, you should do this,” and most of the reason for that is what people are faced with online. It is because a female MP cannot have a Twitter account without facing abuse. I am sure male MPs do as well, but it tends to be worse for women.

We cannot engage democratically and with constituents on social media platforms without receiving abuse and sometimes threats as well. It is not just an abusive place to be—that does not necessarily meet the threshold for illegality—but it is pretty foul and toxic. There have been times when I have deleted Twitter from my phone because I just need to get away from the vile abuse that is being directed towards me. I want, in good conscience, to be able to make an argument to people that this is a brilliant job, and it is brilliant to represent constituents and to make a difference on their behalf at whatever level of elected politics, but right now I do not feel that I am able to do that.

When my footballing colleague, the hon. Member for Batley and Spen, mentions “UK elections” in the amendment, I assume she means that in the widest possible way—elections at all levels.

Sometimes we miss out the fact that although MPs face abuse, we have a level of protection as currently elected Members. Even if there were an election coming up, we have a level of security protection and access that is much higher than for anybody else challenging a candidate or standing in a council or a Scottish Parliament election. As sitting MPs, we already have an additional level of protection because of the security services we have in place. We need to remember, and I assume this is why the amendment is drawn in a pretty broad way, that everybody standing for any sort of elected office faces significant risk of harm—again, whether or not that meets the threshold for illegality.

There are specific things that have been mentioned. As has been said, epilepsy is specifically mentioned as a place where specific harm occurs. Given the importance of democracy, which is absolutely vital, we need to have a democratic system where people are able to stand in elections and make their case. Given the importance of democracy, which is absolutely vital, we need to have a democratic system where people are able to stand in elections and make their case. That is why we have election addresses and a system where the election address gets delivered through every single person’s door. There is an understanding and acceptance by people involved in designing democratic processes that the message of all candidates needs to get out there. If the message of all candidates cannot get out there because some people are facing significant levels of abuse online, then democracy is not acting in the way that it should be. These amendments are fair and make a huge amount of sense. They are protecting the most important tenets of democracy and democratic engagement.

I want to say something about my own specific experiences. We have reported people to the police and have had people in court over the messages they have sent, largely by email, which would not be included in the Bill, but there have also been some pretty creepy ones on social media that have not necessarily met the threshold. As has been said, it is my staff who have had to go to court and stand in the witness box to explain the shock and terror they have felt on seeing the email or the communication that has come in, so I think any provision should include that.

Finally, we have seen situations where people working in elections—this is not an airy-fairy notion, but something that genuinely happened—have been photographed and those pictures have been shared on social media, and they have then been abused as a result. They are just doing their job, handing out ballot papers or standing up and announcing the results on the stage, and they have to abide by the processes that are in place now. In order for us to have free and fair elections that are run properly and that people want to work at and support, we need to have that additional level of protection. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen made a very reasonable argument and I hope the Minister listened to it carefully.

But clause 150(5) says that if a message

“is, or is intended to be, a contribution to a matter of public interest”,

people are allowed to send it, which basically gives everybody a get-out clause in relation to anything to do with elections.

I know we are not discussing that part of the Bill, and if the Minister wants to come back to this when we get to clause 150, I have no problem with that.

The Minister makes a really valid point and is right about the impact on the individual. The point I am trying to make with the amendments is that this is about the impact on the democratic process, which is why I think it fits in with clause 15. It is not about how individuals feel; it is about the impact that that has on behaviours, and about putting the emphasis and onus on platforms to decide what is of democratic importance. In the evidence we had two weeks ago, the witnesses certainly did not feel comfortable with putting the onus on platforms. If we were to have a code of practice, we would at least give them something to work with on the issue of what is of democratic importance. It is about the impact on democracy, not just the harm to the individual involved.

I will speak to clauses 15 and 16 and to new clause 7. The duties outlined in the clause, alongside clause 16, require platforms to have special terms and processes for handling journalistic and democratically important content. In respect of journalistic content, platforms are also required to provide an expedited appeals process for removed posts, and terms specifying how they will define journalistic content. There are, however, widespread concerns about both those duties.

As the Bill stands, we feel that there is too much discretion for platforms. They are required to define “journalistic” content, a role that they are completely unsuited to and, from what I can gather, do not want. In addition, the current drafting leaves the online space open to abuse. Individuals intent on causing harm are likely to apply to take advantage of either of those duties; masquerading as journalists or claiming democratic importance in whatever harm they are causing, and that could apply to almost anything. In the evidence sessions, we also heard about the concerns expressed brilliantly by Kyle Taylor from Fair Vote and Ellen Judson from Demos, that the definitions as they stand in the Bill thus far are broad and vague. However, we will come on to those matters later.

Ultimately, treating “journalistic” and “democratically important” content differently is unworkable, leaving platforms to make impossible judgments over, for example, when and for how long an issue becomes a matter of reasonable public debate, or in what settings a person is acting as a journalist. As the Minister knows, the duties outlined in the clause could enable a far-right activist who was standing in an election, or potentially even just supporting candidates in elections, to use all social media platforms. That might allow far-right figures to be re-platformed on to social media sites where they would be free to continue spreading hate.

The Bill indicates that content will be protected if created by a political party ahead of a vote in Parliament, an election or a referendum, or when campaigning on a live political issue—basically, anything. Can the Minister confirm whether the clause means that far-right figures who have been de-platformed for hate speech already must be reinstated if they stand in an election? Does that include far-right or even neo-Nazi political parties? Content and accounts that have been de-platformed from mainstream platforms for breaking terms of service should not be allowed to return to those platforms via this potential—dangerous—loophole.

As I have said, however, I know that these matters are complex and, quite rightly, exemptions must be in place to allow for free discussion around matters of the day. What cannot be allowed to perpetuate is hate sparked by bad actors using simple loopholes to avoid any consequences.

On clause 16, the Minister knows about the important work that Hope not Hate is doing in monitoring key far-right figures. I pay tribute to it for its excellent work. Many of them self-define as journalists and could seek to exploit this loophole in the Bill and propagate hate online. Some of the most high-profile and dangerous far-right figures in the UK, including Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, now class themselves as journalists. There are also far-right and conspiracy-theory so-called “news companies” such as Rebel Media and Urban Scoop. Both those replicate mainstream news publishers, but are used to spread misinformation and discriminatory content. Many of those individuals and organisations have been de-platformed already for consistently breaking the terms of service of major social media platforms, and the exemption could see them demand their return and have their return allowed.

New clause 7 would require the Secretary of State to publish a report reviewing the effectiveness of clauses 15 and 16. It is a simple new clause to require parliamentary scrutiny of how the Government’s chosen means of protecting content of democratic importance and content of journalistic content are working.

Hacked Off provided me with a list of people it found who have claimed to be journalists and who would seek to exploit the journalistic content duty, despite being banned from social media because they are racists or bad actors. First is Charles C. Johnson, a far-right activist who describes himself as an “investigative journalist”. Already banned from Twitter for saying he would “take out” a civil rights activist, he is also alleged to be a holocaust denier.

Secondly, we have Robert Stacy McCain. Robert has been banned from Twitter for participating in targeted abuse. He was a journalist for The Washington Post, but is alleged to have also been a member of the League of the South, a far-right group known to include racists. Then, there is Richard B. Spencer, a far-right journalist and former editor, only temporary banned for using overlapping accounts. He was pictured making the Nazi salute and has repeated Nazi propaganda. When Trump became President, he encouraged people to “party like it’s 1933”. Sadly, the list goes on and on.

Transparency is at the very heart of the Bill. The Minister knows we have concerns about clauses 15 and 16, as do many of his own Back Benchers. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen how extremist groups and individuals and foreign state actors are having a very real impact on the online space. If the Minister is unwilling to move on tightening up those concepts, the very least he could commit to is a review that Parliament will be able to formally consider.

The Minister mentions that it would be taken into account. How long does he anticipate it would be taken into account for, especially given the nature of an election? A short campaign could be a number of weeks, or something could be posted a day before an election, be deemed democratically important and have very serious and dangerous ramifications.

I appreciate the Minister’s allowing me to come back on this. During the Committee’s evidence sessions, we heard of examples where bad-faith state actors were interfering in the Scottish referendum, hosting Facebook groups and perpetuating disinformation around the royal family to persuade voters to vote “Yes” to leave the United Kingdom. That disinformation by illegal bad-faith actors could currently come under both the democratic importance and journalistic exemptions, so would be allowed to remain for the duration of that campaign. Given the exemptions in the Bill, it could not be taken down but could have huge, serious ramifications for democracy and the security of the United Kingdom.

You don’t think?