Select committee: Petitions Committee
Recommendation 15
Second Report - Tackling online abuse
Published 1 Feb 2022
Paragraph 67
Petitions Committee Tackling Online Abuse All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We support calls for the Online Safety Bill to include a foundational duty on platforms to protect users from reasonably foreseeable risks of harm identified in their risk assessments, including harm arising from abusive content that is legal but harmful to adults. We recommend that this should include an explicit expectation that platforms consider how not only content moderation, but also changes to system design and user functionalities, could help mitigate or prevent these risks.
From: Petitions Committee, Second Report - Tackling online abuse (HC 766), paragraph 67, 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.