Source · Select Committees · Petitions Committee
Recommendation 14
14
Rejected
Paragraph: 66
The Government’s regulatory proposals should encourage social media companies to prevent or reduce the risk...
Conclusion
The Government’s regulatory proposals should encourage social media companies to prevent or reduce the risk of users being harmed by abusive and hateful content in the first place, not just remove or otherwise deal with such content as it arises. However, the draft Online Safety Bill gives Ofcom very limited scope to ensure platforms are taking positive steps to protect adult users from this risk where abuse falls below the criminal threshold. Where content has been identified as harmful, users should be able to expect platforms to take proportionate steps to proactively protect their safety and wellbeing, and the regulator should be able to ensure this expectation is being met.
Government Response Summary
The government rejects reformulating the regulatory framework, arguing its current design creates specific duties for platforms to assess and mitigate risks for different harm categories, and provides proportionate systems to remove illegal and child-harming content. They believe this approach is effective and clear, rather than a broad foundational duty for proactive adult protection.
Paragraph Reference:
66
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
All online abuse is unacceptable and will be significantly reduced by the introduction of the online safety framework, regardless of whether it is anonymous. The government has engaged with law enforcement to ensure the current powers they have are sufficient to tackle illegal anonymous abuse online. The outcome of that work will inform the government’s position in relation to illegal anonymous abuse online and the online safety regulatory framework. Decisions about the allocation of Police resources and deployment of officers are for Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners. The Home Office continue to fund specialist investigation teams such as the Police Online Hate Crime Hub, the Social Media Hub and the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit.