Online Hate Speech

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of online hate speech.

Hateful online content impacts people and communities. Illegal hateful content can be used to incite violence and stoke public disorder. We have seen this across the UK. Even where legal, hate online can be used to divide communities. It can erode trust in public institutions and the media. The Government are clear that hatred or division, online or offline, will not be tolerated. We have both criminal offences and regulatory measures to prevent and punish this type of behaviour. We saw law enforcement use its powers to prosecute people for illegal online activity during the Southport riots, for example.

My Lords, last month, X gave assurances to Ofcom, which were accepted, that it was taking steps to address illegal hate and harm on its platform. In light of the recent violence that we have seen in Belfast, and the role of X and its owner in inciting it, will the Government encourage Ofcom to revisit this judgment? Will the Minister also investigate the failure of X to remove five accounts which are breaking its terms of service by repeatedly posting anti-Jewish and Holocaust denial content?

My noble friend is right to emphasise that there can be no justification for violence and disorder; there is no place for antisemitism, either online or offline. As she also rightly noted, Ofcom launched a compliance programme to assess whether the biggest platforms have robust systems and processes to deal with illegal hate and terrorist material under the OSA. As she also pointed out, Ofcom also announced it had secured commitments from X on how quickly it will remove content.

Following the disorder in Belfast, Ofcom wrote to services to remind them of the duties, and the Secretary of State asked it to engage with those companies to understand what action they are taking. We will also take further action; shortly, we will be laying updates in Parliament to bring into effect Ofcom’s strengthened code of practice for crises. We will continue to monitor this, and have said to Ofcom many times that it has our backing to use its powers to enforce the duties that it is responsible for.

My Lords, does the Minister accept that AI-driven recommender algorithms are not neutral channels but active amplifiers of hateful content? What assessment has been made of the systemic risk duties in the Online Safety Act to address algorithmic amplification specifically, rather than individual pieces of content?

The noble Baroness raises important questions about how platforms operate in practice and the interaction between the online and offline worlds. The Government’s document Protecting What Matters looks across many different government departments and sets out what we can do to support cohesive communities. We have said that we need to explore further how to tackle the spread of hateful content online and that we will look at the way in which algorithms can increase the spread of harmful content. We will set out what we will do as a result of those considerations.

My Lords, the Minister said that there was no place for antisemitism online. However, I am afraid that antisemitism is alive and kicking online with, as the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, said, conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial and extreme Jew hatred. This is having a rotting effect on British society and is a serious threat to public safety, social cohesion and democratic trust. We have heard the Minister give an excellent critique of what is happening, but we are looking for solutions that treat the underlying problem, not the symptoms of this dreadful disease.

We share a commitment to tackling and stamping out antisemitism. It manifests in all parts of society and we need to act in all parts of society. In respect of the online world and the department, last month the Minister for Online Safety met with Jewish community leaders, Ofcom and major platforms to discuss how best to tackle antisemitism online. He made clear that he expects platforms to act swiftly on that content and we are exploring how we might take this joint work further on a longer-term basis.

My Lords, social media is where many people and most young people get their news, but it is owned or controlled by a handful of tech billionaires whose views are shared disproportionately and who represent an existential risk to democracy—as we saw when Elon Musk, the owner of X, tweeted in support of the riots. Does the Minister agree with me that our public square has now been privatised and that, for the future of democracy and news, we need to consider an alternative way of sharing news with young people?

The importance of accurate, trusted news is essential. The noble Baroness touched on many different matters in her question. In respect of young people and their access to social media, as I will be talking about shortly, we have put down proposals that will restrict social media platforms in providing content to under-16s. Providing accurate news is hugely important more generally and, as I mentioned on the previous question, we are looking at the role that algorithms play in social cohesion and the spread of online hate. The noble Baroness raises the very important point of media literacy, and we are working with young people and more generally through our media literacy plan to improve the ability of all people, whether young or old, to discern misinformation and disinformation in this important area.

My Lords, online hate speech is not solely created by individual users. It is also generated and amplified by malicious state actors using algorithmic methods to inflame tensions and to undermine our social cohesion. So as the Government prepare to strengthen the Online Safety Act to require platforms to act more quickly during a crisis, can the Minister give us some idea of what might constitute such a crisis? In particular, do the criteria include evidence of co-ordinated algorithmic attacks, increasingly referred to as “cognitive warfare”?

The noble Lord raises the importance of being attentive and aware of the potential for foreign states to spread disinformation online, and through the Online Safety Act we have made the foreign interference offence from the National Security Act a priority offence that places clear legal duties on services to proactively assess risks, prevent users encountering foreign interference content and remove it swiftly where it appears. Ofcom set out in its publication last week some of the answers to the specific questions about definitions that the noble Viscount raises, but I am happy to write to him afterwards if that does not fully complete the answer to his question.

Is my noble friend aware that online hate speech websites record just as virulent remarks about Gypsies and Travellers as about other protected minority ethnic groups? I have seen remarks such as, “Hitler had the right idea”, and “Bring back the gas ovens”. The children of the people who these things are said about go to school and experience extreme bullying. Can she try to ensure that it is explicitly recognised that Gypsies and Travellers are also a protected minority ethnic group, and also that the situation is exacerbated when the Leader of the Opposition in the other place stereotypes Gypsies and Travellers as getting away with crimes?

My noble friend is right to emphasise the importance of protecting all those with protected characteristics and stamping down on all sources that stir up hatred and division, whether that is online or offline. The Online Safety Act requires platforms to remove illegal content, including threats that stir up hatred based on race, religion or sexual orientation. My noble friend is right to highlight the importance of that to many different groups.