Draft Online Safety Bill Report

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:07 pm on 13 January 2022.

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Photo of Margaret Hodge Margaret Hodge Labour, Barking 3:07, 13 January 2022

I congratulate Damian Collins and the members of his Committee on bringing forward an incredibly thorough and very good report. I know Ministers have been consulting well with all Back Benchers, and I hope they do not pay lip service to the report’s conclusions, but really take on its important recommendations. What is interesting about this whole debate is that there is a broad consensus on the Back Benches. None of us are bound by ideology on these issues; our approach is based on our experience, the data and the wide body of research.

I will also say at the beginning that the business model of the platforms means that they will never tackle this themselves. They make their money by encouraging traffic on their platforms, and they encourage traffic by allowing abusive content to exist there. Their algorithms are there almost to control and encourage more abusive content. The idea that there can be any self-regulation in the legislation to be proposed by the Government is false.

I will draw attention to three sets of issues in the short time available to me. The first, the recommendations on paid-for scams and frauds, has already been discussed. It is ridiculous that user-generated content can be subject to regulation but that paid-for scams and frauds cannot be. Everybody who gave evidence to the Committee, including the Financial Conduct Authority, pleaded for its inclusion. The figure I have is from Action Fraud: 85% of the £1.7 billion lost in fraudulent scams in the past year resulted from cyber-enabled frauds. During the pandemic, this figure of course exploded. Again, there is no incentive for the platforms to do anything about this. They get paid for by the advertisements so they wish to encourage them. Indeed, there is a double benefit in this particular space for them, because the FCA also pays for them to prioritise the legitimate websites over the scam adds, so again self-regulation will not work. I know that Ministers support the proposal, and I hope that they are not swayed by advice that it is not legally possible, as I just do not accept that. I hope that they do not miss this opportunity by way of promises of legislation down the line.