My Lords, the Online Safety Act will be our key tool in combating online misinformation and disinformation. It sets out a regulatory framework to tackle misinformation and disinformation where they constitute illegal content or harmful content to children. In addition, we are educating and empowering users through our work on media literacy, to increase society’s resilience to misinformation and disinformation. Officials are also regularly engaged with major platforms about disinformation activity, emerging risks and platform responses.
My Lords, the threat posed by electronic media manifests itself in at least two ways. As we saw during the recent riots, electronic media was used to spread lies and misinformation about refugees and asylum seekers, and urged people to use violence. It is also being used to try to undermine our democracy, again through lies and misinformation. Does the Minister agree that our electronic media poses a threat to both our democracy and our social cohesion? Is she satisfied that the Government have enough powers to deal with these threats, bearing in mind that we probably will need effective international co-operation?
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that we must protect the UK’s democratic integrity. Our Defending Democracy Taskforce safeguards our democratic institutions and processes from threats, including misinformation and disinformation. Sharing best practice and strategic insights with international partners helps industry and Government to protect our democracy from media threats. Under the Online Safety Act, companies must act against illegal content, including the incitement of violence, hate speech and state-backed disinformation, and remove it. Where hateful content or misinformation and disinformation are prohibited in the largest platforms’ terms of service, they must remove it.
My Lords, false information is as likely to be spread through online platforms with smaller numbers of users as those with many users. We have heard about the role of Telegram in spreading disinformation about this summer’s disorder, as well as the terrible suicide forums. I was very pleased to see the Secretary of State’s letter to Ofcom this week on “small but risky” online services. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the issue of platform categorisation, given the amendment I proposed to the then Online Safety Bill, which this House passed in July 2023?
My Lords, of course I am very happy to meet the noble Baroness to discuss this further, and I pay tribute to the work she has done on this issue in the past. On “small but risky” services, as she knows, the Secretary of State has written to Melanie Dawes, the CEO of Ofcom, and a very detailed reply was received today from Ofcom. We are still absorbing everything that it is proposing, but it is clear that it is taking this issue very seriously. That will give us the focus for our discussion when we meet.
My Lords, we have seen the first charge under the Online Safety Act’s false communications offence. To facilitate further prosecutions for false communications, can the Minister support statutory guidance to further define the term “non-trivial psychological harm” on a likely audience caused by disinformation?
My Lords, all this information will be detailed in the Ofcom guidance to be published in due course. This includes not only illegal harms but all the other issues under the category that the noble Viscount mentioned, all of which will be covered by the Ofcom codes to be published in due course.
My Lords, part of the challenge of addressing the proliferation of misinformation is the large volume of accounts created solely to spread information that is not verifiable and is fake. Often, these accounts are bots, as we call them. Have the Government considered introducing mandatory verification of identity on social media, so that platforms know the identity of all their users without removing their anonymity?
The noble Baroness raises an interesting point. This will depend very much on the terms of service of those individual platforms, the whole basis of which, as she knows, is to provide that anonymity. We would need a much more detailed discussion about them and about whether individuals should be identified. However, she is right that the proliferation of bots is a dangerous issue, and we need to be aware of it, not only in the UK but in state-sponsored attacks on our democracy.
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that tech billionaires are richer, more powerful and sometimes more arrogant than whole countries? With hindsight, fawning before them at Bletchley Park was not a good idea for any British Government. Will the Foreign Office explore treaty-making to examine the kind of future co-operation that my noble friend Lady Kennedy suggested?
My Lords, we have engagement with the large platforms at every level, including of course on the aspects of business and trade to which they contribute. I reassure my noble friend that, however big those companies are, they must comply with UK laws. We will ensure, throughout the rollout of the Online Safety Act, that everybody, however big and rich the individual, must comply with the Act.
My Lords, is not the reality that there has been a huge shift of global power in favour of the giant electronic platforms? I see that, for instance, the French have gone so far as to arrest the chairman of one of the biggest platforms in the world. Is that the kind of remedy that we will consider here?
I reiterate to the noble Lord that we have very high expectations of companies that have access to the British economy and society. If they do not adhere to the law or act in any way that contributes positively to our society, we will be increasingly assertive in our response, including by making full use of the powers brought in by the Online Safety Act. They are not above the law, and we will monitor their activities carefully.
My Lords, can the Minister acknowledge that there is some concern that the terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” are being weaponised to justify partisan censorship, although free speech is vital for democracy. Can she comment on the seeming immunity for some misinformation? An example is when high-profile anti-hate NGOs terrified local communities by announcing that 100 far-right protests were planned. When they did not materialise, the NGOs admitted that it was probably a hoax, but they were congratulated because it led to positive “stand up to racism” headlines. It seems like double standards.