Source · Select Committees · Petitions Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Accepted
Paragraph: 47
The risk assessments platforms will be required to carry out under the new online safety...
Recommendation
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 groups including women, users from minority ethnic backgrounds, disabled users, and LGBT+ users, and that this requirement should be made explicit in the risk assessment duties set out in the Online Safety Bill.
Government response summary AI-generated
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.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
47
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted
We agree that companies should be required to give separate consideration to the risks faced by different user groups. We have therefore amended the risk assessment provisions to require companies to consider the risk of harm to individuals with a certain characteristic or due to membership of a certain group. This includes, but is not limited to, the protected characteristics.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗