Lord Moylan:

Moved by Lord Moylan

225: After Clause 161, insert the following new Clause—“Transparency of government representations to regulated service providers(1) The Secretary of State must produce a report setting out any relevant representations His Majesty’s Government have made to providers of Part 3 services to tackle the presence of misinformation and disinformation on Part 3 services.(2) In this section “relevant representations” are representations that could reasonably be considered to be intended to persuade or encourage a provider of a Part 3 service to—(a) modify the terms of service of a regulated service in an effort to address misinformation or disinformation,(b) restrict or remove a particular user’s access to accounts used by them on a regulated service, or(c) take down, reduce the visibility of, or restrict access to content that is present or may be encountered on a regulated service.(3) The first report must be laid before both Houses of Parliament within six months of this Act being passed.(4) Subsequent reports must be laid before both Houses of Parliament at intervals not exceeding six months.(5) The Secretary of State is not required by this section to include in the report information that the Secretary of State considers would be against the interests of national security.(6) If the Secretary of State relies upon subsection (5) they must as soon as reasonably practicable send a report containing that information to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statementThis amendment addresses government influence on content moderation, for example by way of initiatives like the Government’s Counter Disinformation Unit.

My Lords, continuing the rather radical approach of debating an amendment that has already been debated in Committee and has not just been introduced, and picking up on the theme of our debate immediately before we adjourned, I move an amendment that seeks to address the question of the Government’s activities in interacting with providers when they seek to influence providers on what is shown on their sites.

It might be a matter of interest that according to the Daily Telegraph, which I implicitly trust, only on Tuesday of last week, a judge in Louisiana in the United States issued an injunction forbidding a lengthy list of White House officials from making contact with social media companies to report misinformation. I say this not because I expect the jurisprudence of the state of Louisiana to have any great influence in your Lordships’ House but simply to show how sensitive and important this issue is. The judge described what he had heard and seen as one of the greatest assaults on free speech in the history of the United States.

We are not necessarily quite in that territory, and nor does my amendment do anything so dramatic as to prevent the Government communicating with providers with a view to influencing their content, but Amendment 225 requires the Secretary of State to produce a report within six months of the passing of the Act, and every six months thereafter, in which he sets out

“any relevant representations His Majesty’s Government have made to providers” that are

“intended to persuade or encourage a provider” to do one of three things. One is to

“modify the terms of service of a regulated service in an effort to address misinformation or disinformation”; one is to

“restrict or remove a particular user’s access to accounts used by them”; and the third is to

“take down, reduce the visibility of, or restrict access to content that is present or may be encountered on a regulated service”.

None of these things would be prohibited or prevented by this amendment, but it would be required that His Majesty’s Government produce a report saying what they have done every six months.

Very importantly there is an exception, in that there would be no obligation on the Secretary of State to disclose publicly any information that affected national security, but he would be required in that case to make a report to the Intelligence and Security Committee here in Parliament. As I said, this is a very sensitive subject, and remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, in the previous debate referred in particular to this subject in connection with the pandemic. While that is in the memory, other topics may easily come up and need to be addressed, where the Government feel obliged to move and take action.

We know nothing about those contacts, because they are not instructions or actions taken under law. They are simply nudges, winks and phone conversations with providers that have an effect and, very often, the providers will act on them. Requiring the Government to make a report and say what they have done seems a modest, proportionate and appropriate means to bring transparency to this exercise, so that we all know what is going on.

I am happy to say that when this amendment was debated in Committee, it found widespread support from around the House. I hope to find that that support is still solid and strong, such that my noble friend, perhaps as a modest postprandial bonus, will be willing, for a change, to accept something proposed by a colleague from his own Benches, so that we can all rejoice as we go into a very long night. I beg to move.

My Lords, I put my name to this very important amendment—all the more important because of the previous discussions we have had about the difficulties around misinformation or potential government interference in decisions about what is online and what is not online. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is right to indicate that this is a very modest and moderate amendment; it addresses the problems of government influence or government moderation, or at least allows those of us who are concerned about it to keep our eye on it and make sure that the country and Parliament know what is going on.

The original idea of disinformation came from an absolutely rightful concern about foreign disinformation between states. People were rightly concerned about security; we all should be and nobody wants to be taken in, in that way. But there has been a worry when agencies designed to combat those threats increasingly turn inward against the public, in a wide range of countries. Although that might not be exactly what has happened in the UK, we should note that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently admitted that the US Government asked Facebook to suppress true information. In a recent interview, he said that the scientific establishment

“asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true”.

We should all be concerned about this. It is not just a matter for those of us who are worried about free speech or raise the issue. If we are genuinely worried about misinformation or fake news, we have to make sure that we are equally concerned if it comes from other sources, not just from malign players.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, mentioned the American court case Missouri v Biden. In his 155-page ruling, Judge Doughty depicted quite a dystopian scene when he said that, during the pandemic, the US Government seem

“to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’”.

I do not think we want to emulate the worst of what is happening in the US here.

The judge there outlined a huge complex of government agencies and officials connected with big tech and an army of bureaucrats hired to monitor websites and flag and remove problematic posts. It is not like that in the UK, but some of us were quite taken aback to discover that the Government ran a counter-disinformation policy forum during the lockdown, which brought tech giants together to discuss how to deal with Covid misinformation, as it was said. There was a worry about political interference then.

I do not think that this is just paranoia. Since then, Big Brother Watch and its investigative work have shown that the UK Government had a secret unit that worked with social media companies to monitor and prevent speech critical of Covid lockdown policies, in the shape of the Counter Disinformation Unit, which was set up by Ministers to deal with groups and individuals who criticised policies such as lockdowns, school closures, vaccine mandates or what have you.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, I do not want to get stuck on what happened during lockdown. That was an exceptional, extreme situation. None the less, the Counter Disinformation Unit—which works out of the Minister’s own department, the DCMS—is still operating. It seems to be able to get content fast-tracked for possible moderation by social media firms such as Facebook and Twitter. It used an AI firm to search social media posts—we need to know the details of that.

I think, therefore, that to have the transparency which the Government and the Minister have constantly stressed is hugely important for the credibility of the Bill, it is important that there is transparency about the likes of the Counter Disinformation Unit and any government attempts at interfering in what we are allowed to see, read or have access to online.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, have a very strong point to make with this amendment. I have tried in our discussions to bring some colour to the debate from my own experience so I will tell your Lordships that in my former professional life I received representations from many Ministers in many countries about the content we should allow or disallow on the Facebook platform that I worked for.

That was a frequent occurrence in the United Kingdom and extended to Governments of all parties. Almost as soon as I moved into the job, we had a Labour Home Secretary come in and suggest that we should deal with particular forms of content. It happened through the coalition years. Indeed, I remember meeting the Minister’s former boss at No. 10 in Davos, of all places, to receive some lobbying about what the UK Government thought should be on or off the platform at that time. In that case it was to do with terrorist content; there was nothing between us in terms of wanting to see that content gone. I recognise that this amendment is about misinformation and disinformation, which is perhaps a more contentious area.

As we have discussed throughout the debate, transparency is good. It keeps everybody on the straight and narrow. I do not see any reason why the Government should not be forthcoming. My experience was that the Government would often want to go to the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail or some other upright publication and tell it how they had been leaning on the internet companies—it was part of their communications strategy and they were extremely proud of it—but there will be other circumstances where they are doing it more behind the scenes. Those are the ones we should be worried about.

If those in government have good reason to lean on an internet company, fine—but knowing that they have to be transparent about it, as in this amendment, will instil a certain level of discipline that would be quite healthy.

My Lords, clearly, there is a limited number of speakers in this debate. We should thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for tabling this amendment because it raises a very interesting point about the transparency—or not—of the Counter Disinformation Unit. Of course, it is subject to an Oral Question tomorrow as well, which I am sure the noble Viscount will be answering.

There is some concern about the transparency of the activities of the Counter Disinformation Unit. In its report, Ministry of Truth, which deals at some length with the activities of the Counter Disinformation Unit, Big Brother Watch says:

“Giving officials an unaccountable hotline to flag lawful speech for removal from the digital public square is a worrying threat to free speech”.

Its complaint is not only about oversight; it is about the activities. Others such as Full Fact have stressed the fact that there is little or no parliamentary scrutiny. For instance, freedom of information requests have been turned down and Written Questions which try to probe what the activities of the Counter Disinformation Unit are have had very little response. As it says, when the Government

“lobby internet companies about content on their platforms … this is a threat to freedom of expression”.

We need proper oversight, so I am interested to hear the Minister’s response.

My Lords, the Government share the view of my noble friend Lord Moylan about the importance of transparency in protecting freedom of expression. I reassure him and other noble Lords that these principles are central to the Government’s operational response to addressing harmful disinformation and attempts artificially to manipulate our information environment.

My noble friend and others made reference to the operational work of the Counter Disinformation Unit, which is not, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said, the responsibility of my department but of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. The Government have always been transparent about the work of the unit; for example, recently publishing a factsheet on GOV.UK which sets out, among other things, how the unit works with social media companies.

I reassure my noble friend that there are existing processes governing government engagements with external parties and emphasise to him that the regulatory framework that will be introduced by the Bill serves to increase transparency and accountability in a way that I hope reassures him. Many teams across government regularly meet industry representatives on a variety of issues from farming and food to telecoms and digital infrastructure. These meetings are conducted within well-established transparency processes and frameworks, which apply in exactly the same way to government meetings with social media companies. The Government have been open about the fact that the Counter Disinformation Unit meets social media companies. Indeed, it would be surprising if it did not. For example, at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Government worked with social media companies in relation to narratives which were being circulated attempting to deny incidents leading to mass casualties, and to encourage the promotion of authoritative sources of information. That work constituted routine meetings and was necessary in confirming the Government’s confidence in the preparedness and ability of platforms to respond to new misinformation and disinformation threats.

To require additional reporting on a sector-by-sector or department-by-department basis beyond the standardised transparency processes, as proposed in my noble friend’s amendment, would be a disproportionate and unnecessary response to what is routine engagement in an area where the Government have no greater powers or influence than in others. They cannot compel companies to alter their terms of service; nor can or do they seek to mandate any action on specific pieces of content.

I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that the Counter Disinformation Unit does not monitor individual people, nor has it ever done so; rather, it tracks narratives and trends using publicly available information online to protect public health, public safety and national security. It has never tracked the activity of individuals, and there is a blanket ban on referring any content from journalists or parliamentarians to social media performs. The Government have always been clear that the Counter Disinformation Unit refers content for consideration only where an assessment has been made that it is likely to breach the platform’s own terms of service. It has no role in deciding what action, if any, to take in response, which is entirely a matter for the platform concerned.

As I said, the Bill will introduce new transparency, accountability and freedom of expression duties for category 1 services which will make the process for any removal or restriction of user-generated content more transparent by requiring category 1 services to set terms of service which are clear, easy for users to understand and consistently enforced. Category 1 services will be prohibited from removing or restricting user-generated content or suspending or banning users where this does not align with those terms of service. Any referrals from government will not, and indeed cannot, supersede these duties in the Bill.

Although I know it will disappoint my noble friend that another of his amendments has not been accepted, I hope I have been able to reassure him about the Government’s role in these processes. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, noted, my noble friend Lord Camrose is answering a Question on this in your Lordships’ House tomorrow, further underlining the openness and parliamentary accountability with which we go about this work. I hope my noble friend will, in a similarly post-prandial mood of generosity, suppress his disappointment and feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Before the Minister sits down, I think that it is entirely appropriate for him to say—I have heard it before—“Oh no, nothing was taken down. None of this is believable. No individuals were targeted”. However, that is not the evidence I have seen, and it might well be that I have been shown misinformation. But that is why the Minister has to acknowledge that one of the problems here is that indicated by Full Fact—which, as we know, is often endorsed by government Ministers as fact-checkers. It says that because the Government are avoiding any scrutiny for this unit, it cannot know. It becomes a “he said, she said” situation. I am afraid that, because of the broader context, it would make the Minister’s life easier, and be clearer to the public—who are, after all, worried about this—if he accepted the ideas in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. We would then be clear and it would be out in the open. If the FOIs and so on that have been constantly put forward were answered, would that not clear it up?

I have addressed the points made by the noble Baroness and my noble friend already. She asks the same question again and I can give her the same answer. We are operating openly and transparently here, and the Bill sets out further provisions for transparency and accountability.

My Lords, I see what my noble friend did there, and it was very cunning. He gave us a very worthwhile account of the activities of the Counter Disinformation Unit, a body I had not mentioned at all, as if the Counter Disinformation Unit was the sole locus of this sort of activity. I had not restricted it to that. We know, in fact, that other bodies within government have been involved in undertaking this sort of activity, and on those he has given us no answer at all, because he preferred to answer about one particular unit. He referred also to its standardised transparency processes. I can hardly believe that I am reading out words such as those. The standardised transparency process allows us all to know that encounters take place but still refuses to let us know what actually happens in any particular encounter, even though there is a great public interest in doing so. However, I will not press it any further.

My noble friend, who is genuinely a friend, is in danger of putting himself, at the behest of civil servants and his ministerial colleagues, in some danger. We know what happens in these cases. The Minister stands at the Dispatch Box and says “This has never happened; it never normally happens; it will not happen. Individuals are never spoken of, and actions of this character are never taken”. Then of course, a few weeks or months later, out pour the leaked emails showing that all these things have been happening all the time. The Minister then has to resign in disgrace and it is all very sad. His friends, like myself, rally round and buy him a drink, before we never see him again.

Anyway, I think my noble friend must be very careful that he does not put himself in that position. I think he has come close to doing so this evening, through the assurances he has given your Lordships’ House. Although I do not accept those assurances, I will none the less withdraw the amendment, with the leave of the House.

Amendment 225 withdrawn.

Clause 173: Providers’ judgements about the status of content

Amendment 226 not moved.