Select committee: Petitions Committee
Recommendation 8
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Published 1 Feb 2022
Paragraph 47
Petitions Committee Tackling Online Abuse All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
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.
From: Petitions Committee, Second Report - Tackling online abuse (HC 766), paragraph 47, 1 February 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 1 April 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and agrees with a number of its recommendations, while taking a different approach to others, including a statutory consultation duty, legal but harmful content on smaller platforms and a single foundational duty.
- On Recommendation 4, it agrees that hate crime and Violence against Women and Girls offences should be listed as priority illegal offences on the face of the Bill, a change announced on 5 February.
- On Recommendation 3, it does not think a statutory duty to consult civil society organisations is "necessary", citing the existing consultation provisions in the draft Bill.
- On Recommendation 7, it does not think it "appropriate" to require platforms to remove or interfere with legal content, so the duties on legal but harmful content apply to Category 1 services.
- On Recommendations 10 and 11, it is "carefully considering" the Law Commission's hate crime report and will "shortly publish" a new hate crime strategy, without stating a date.