- [Relevant Documents: Report of the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, Session 2021-22: Draft Online Safety Bill, HC 609, and the Government Response, CM 640; Eighth Report of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, The Draft Online Safety Bill and the legal but harmful debate, HC 1039, and the Government response HC 1221; Second Report of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Session 2019-21, Misinformation in the COVID-19 Infodemic, HC 234, and the Government response, HC 894; Second Report of the Petitions Committee, Tackling Online Abuse, HC 766, and the Government response, HC 1224; Eleventh Report of the Treasury Committee, Economic Crime, HC 145; e-petition 272087, Hold online trolls accountable for their online abuse via their IP address; e-petition 332315, Ban anonymous accounts on social media; e-petition 575833, Make verified ID a requirement for opening a social media account; e-petition 582423, Repeal Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and expunge all convictions; e-petition 601932, Do not restrict our right to freedom of expression online.]
- Second Reading
- 7:36 pm
- I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.Given the time and the number of people indicating that they wish to speak, and given that we will have my speech, the shadow Minister’s speech and the two winding-up speeches, there might be 10 minutes left for people to speak. I will therefore take only a couple of interventions and speak very fast in the way I can, being northern.Almost every aspect of our lives is now conducted via the internet, from work and shopping to keeping up with our friends, family and worldwide real-time news. Via our smartphones and tablets, we increasingly spend more of our lives online than in the real world.In the past 20 years or so, it is fair to say that the internet has overwhelmingly been a force for good, for prosperity and for progress, but Members on both sides of the House will agree that, as technology advances at warp speed, so have the new dangers this progress presents to children and young people.
- My right hon. Friend will know that, last Wednesday, the man who murdered our great friend Sir David Amess was sentenced to a whole-life term. David felt very strongly that we need legislation to protect MPs, particularly female MPs, from vile misogynistic abuse. In his memory, will she assure me that her Bill will honour the spirit of that request?
- Sir David was a friend to all of us, and he was very much at the forefront of my mind during the redrafting of this Bill over the last few months. I give my right hon. Friend my absolute assurance on that.
- A number of constituents have contacted me over the last few months about eating disorders, particularly anorexia and bulimia, and about bullying in schools. Will the Secretary of State assure me and this House that those concerns will be addressed by this Bill so that my constituents are protected?
- They will. Inciting people to take their own life or encouraging eating disorders in anorexia chatrooms—all these issues are covered by the Bill.
- Several hon. Members rose—
- I will take one more intervention.
- I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I thank her for her written communications regarding Angela Stevens, the mother of Brett, who tragically took his own life having been coerced by some of these vile online sites. The Law Commission considered harmful online communications as part of the Bill’s preparation, and one of its recommendations is to introduce a new offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm. I strongly urge my right hon. Friend to adopt that recommendation. Can she say more on that?
- Yes. Exactly those issues will be listed in secondary legislation, under “legal but harmful”. I will talk about that further in my speech, but “legal but harmful” focuses on some of the worst harmful behaviours. We are talking not about an arbitrary list, but about incitement to encourage people to take their own life and encouraging people into suicide chatrooms—behaviour that is not illegal but which is indeed harmful.
- Several hon. Members rose—
- I am going to whizz through my speech now in order to allow people who have stayed and want to speak to do so.As the Minister for mental health for two years, too often, I heard stories such as the one just highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). We have all sat down with constituents and listened as the worst stories any parents could recount were retold: stories of how 14-year-old girls take their own life after being directed via harmful algorithms into a suicide chatroom; and of how a child has been bombarded with pro-anorexia content, or posts encouraging self-harm or cyber-bullying.School bullying used to stop at the school gate. Today, it accompanies a child home, on their mobile phone, and is lurking in the bedroom waiting when they switch on their computer. It is the last thing a bullied child reads at night before they sleep and the first thing they see when they wake in the morning. A bullied child is no longer bullied in the playground on school days; they are bullied 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Childhood innocence is being stolen at the click of a button. One extremely worrying figure from 2020 showed that 80% of 12 to 15-year-olds had at least one potentially harmful online experience in the previous year.We also see this every time a footballer steps on to the pitch, only to be subjected to horrific racism online, including banana and monkey emojis. As any female MP in this House will tell you, a woman on social media—I say this from experience—faces a daily barrage of toxic abuse. It is not criticism—criticism is a fair game—but horrific harassment and serious threats of violence. Trolls post that they hope we get raped or killed, urge us to put a rope around our neck, or want to watch us burn in a car alive—my own particular experience.All this behaviour is either illegal or, almost without exception, explicitly banned in a platform’s terms and conditions. Commercially, it has to be. If a platform stated openly that it allowed such content on its sites, which advertisers, its financial lifeblood, would knowingly endorse and advertise on it? Which advertisers would do that? Who would openly use or allow their children to use sites that state that they allow illegal and harmful activity? None, I would suggest, and platforms know that. Yet we have almost come to accept this kind of toxic behaviour and abuse as part and parcel of online life. We have factored online abuse and harm into our daily way of life, but it should not and does not have to be this way.
- Several hon. Members rose—
- I will take just two more interventions and that will be it, otherwise people will not have a chance to speak.
- I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. The internet giants that run the kind of awful practices that she has described have for too long been unaccountable, uncaring and unconscionable in the way they have fuelled every kind of spite and fed every kind of bigotry. Will she go further in this Bill and ensure that, rather like any other publisher, if those companies are prepared to allow anonymous posts, they are held accountable for those posts and subject to the legal constraints that a broadcaster or newspaper would face?
- These online giants will be held accountable to their own terms and conditions. They will be unable any longer to allow illegal content to be published, and we will also be listing in secondary legislation offences that will be legal but harmful. We will be holding those tech giants to account.
- I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. She talked about how this Bill is going to protect children much more, and it is a welcome step forward. However, does she accept that there are major gaps in this Bill? For instance, gaming is not covered. It is not clear whether things such as virtual reality and the metaverse are going to be covered. [Interruption.] It is not clear and all the experts will tell us that. The codes of practice in the Bill are only recommended guidance; they are not mandatary and binding on companies. That will encourage a race to the bottom.