Source · Select Committees · Petitions Committee
Recommendation 7
7
Accepted
Paragraph: 46
We recommend that the Online Safety Bill should include abuse based on the characteristics protected...
Recommendation
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 scope of the Bill’s illegal content safety duties and specify the particular offences covered under these headings, as the draft Bill already does for terrorism and Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse offences.
Government response summary AI-generated
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.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
46
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted
We agree with the Committee’s suggestion that hate crime offences and offences associated with Violence against Women and Girls should be listed as priority illegal offences on the face of the Bill. Government announced this change on 5 February. This includes offences relating to sexual images (i.e revenge and extreme pornography), and harassment and stalking offences, as well as acts intended to stir up racial hatred, religious hatred or hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation and racially or religiously aggravated harrassment and public order offences. This means all services will need to take steps to remove, and prevent users from being exposed to this content. This will result in women and girls being better protected online and proactive measures to tackle illegal abuse on the grounds of the listed characteristics. Beyond the priority offences, all services will need to ensure that they have proportionate systems and processes in place to quickly take down other illegal content directed at women and girls once it has been reported or they become aware of its presence.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗