Recommendations & Conclusions
10 items
2
Recommendation
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
As part of its role as the new online safety regulator, we recommend that Ofcom should regularly report on the incidence of online abuse, illegal hate speech, and Violence Against Women and Girls content on the largest social media platforms. This should include disaggregating estimates of the likelihood of a …
Government response. The government stated the Online Safety Bill will require large service providers to publish annual transparency reports on online harms, and Ofcom will produce its own report, gather data, and conduct risk assessments and reviews to understand prevalence.
7
Recommendation
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
We recommend that the Online Safety Bill should include abuse based on the characteristics protected under the Equality Act and hate crime legislation as priority harmful content in the primary legislation. It should also list hate crime and Violence Against Women and Girls offences as specific relevant offences within the …
Government response. The government agrees to list hate crime and Violence Against Women and Girls offences as priority illegal content in the Online Safety Bill, detailing specific included offences, and announced this change on February 5th.
8
Recommendation
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
The risk assessments platforms will be required to carry out under the new online safety regulatory framework must not treat all users as being equally at risk from abusive content or behaviour. Instead, we recommend that platforms should be required to give separate consideration to the different risks faced by …
Government response. The government has accepted the recommendation, stating they have amended the risk assessment provisions in the Online Safety Bill to require companies to specifically consider risks to individuals with certain characteristics or group memberships.
9
Conclusion
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
It is not acceptable that young people should see encountering abuse as just part of the online experience. We welcome the strength of the duties the draft Online Safety Bill would impose on platforms to help reduce the chance that children and young people will come across or be targeted …
Government response. The government maintains that the Online Safety Bill's child user condition already addresses the committee's concern about smaller platforms, as it applies to any service likely to attract a significant number of child users regardless of platform size.
10
Recommendation
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
The Government must ensure the Online Safety Bill’s safety duties relating to content harmful to children apply across a sufficiently comprehensive range of platforms to prevent young people continuing to be able to access or encounter abusive or other harmful content online once the legislation is enacted. We recommend that …
Government response. The government states the Online Safety Bill is designed to bring high-risk services into scope, and the child user condition ensures protections for children on any in-scope services they are likely to access. They assert this approach is targeted and …
22
Recommendation
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
Anonymous abuse online is significant in both its volume and impact. However, the evidence we heard suggested that tackling the abuse being perpetrated under the cloak of anonymity, rather than imposing restrictions on online anonymity, should be the focus of efforts to resolve this problem. Allowing users to post anonymously …
Government response. The government agrees with the recommendation, stating the Online Safety Bill already requires in-scope service providers to identify, mitigate, and manage risks associated with online anonymity. As part of risk assessments, all services must evaluate the role of anonymous profiles …
23
Recommendation
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
As part of the risk assessments social media platforms will be required to carry out under the new online safety regulation, we recommend that platforms should be required to evaluate the role played by anonymous accounts in creating and disseminating abusive content, and to consider how to minimise the misuse …
Government response. The government agrees with the recommendation, stating the Online Safety Bill already requires service providers to identify, mitigate, and manage risks associated with online anonymity, implementing appropriate protections as part of their risk assessments.
27
Recommendation
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
While we heard that there is insufficient evidence to determine that anonymity is the main driver of abusive behaviour online, we recognise that a proportion of abusive content comes from anonymous users. Giving users the option to filter out content from accounts that have not provided a form of identity …
Government response. The government welcomes and agrees with the recommendation, detailing new user verification and empowerment duties in the Bill that will allow adult users to verify their identity and control interactions with unverified users.
28
Recommendation
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
We recommend that the Government set an expectation that the largest social media platforms should offer users the option to filter content by user verification status and block content from users who have chosen not to verify their account. User verification should not necessarily have to be in the form …
Government response. The government welcomes and agrees with the recommendation, stating new user verification and empowerment duties in the Bill will require Category 1 services to offer identity verification and tools for users to control interactions with unverified accounts, with Ofcom guiding …
29
Recommendation
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Accepted
Alongside the legal, technological and regulatory responses to online abuse we have considered in this report, there is also a need to achieve long-term cultural and behavioural change that tackles online abuse by discouraging people from posting such content to begin with. The Government’s Online Media Literacy programme rightly seeks …
Government response. The government highlights its existing Online Media Literacy Strategy and Action Plan, which includes funding organisations, supporting teachers, and establishing a taskforce to empower users with the skills and knowledge for safe online choices.