Select committee: Petitions Committee
Conclusion 14
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Published 1 Feb 2022
Paragraph 66
Petitions Committee Tackling Online Abuse All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
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.
From: Petitions Committee, Second Report - Tackling online abuse (HC 766), paragraph 66, 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.