Online Harms Bill: It’s in the tech giants’ interests to clean up their act, says Oliver Dowden
2 min readSocial media and tech giants should recognise it’s in their interests to “clean up their act,” Oliver Dowden has warned, outlining his plans for the “toughest and most comprehensive online safety regime in the world“.
Speaking to the House of Commons, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said under the Government’s new proposals, online companies will face a new and binding duty of care to their users, overseen by Ofcom.
“I’d expect tech firms to abide by these codes of practice, which have been published in interim form,” he said.
“It is in the interests of tech firms to clean up their act.”
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and other tech firms will no longer be “allowed to mark their own homework,” he explained, saying that major platforms will be required to publish annual transparency reports to track their progress in adhering to the new legislation.
Mr Dowden made a commitment to bring the bill before parliament next year, though it’s unclear when the legislation would come into force.
Age appropriate concerns
MPs asked Mr Dowden to ensure the legislation encompassed age verification challenges to protect children from accessing inappropriate content online, with the SNP’s Stephen Flynn highlighting how an Aberdeen constituent had told him about three instances of primary school children accessing pornographic website PornHub on phones.
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“A site like Pornhub will fall within the scope of this legislation, because it has a large amount of user-generated content and we will expect them to take appropriate measures to safeguard children from accessing that site and if they fail to do so, they will face very severe consequences,” Mr Dowden said.
Trust in tech is falling, Mr Dowden added, saying that the Government’s new plans represented decisive action to protect both children and adults online.
Long-awaited changes
The Government has published its long-awaited response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation, after being beset with Whitehall disputes over its content and additional problems posed the coronavirus outbreak.
The new regulations will apply to all companies online that host user-generated content accessible by users in the UK or that allow them to privately or publicly interact with other people over the internet – encompassing search engines, social media, messaging platforms, dating apps, forums and video games with chat functions.
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Broadcast regulator Ofcom will be given the power to issue fines of up to £18m or 10 per cent of global annual turnover, whichever is the higher, to companies found to be falling short of the new rules or to block services from being accessed in the UK altogether.
