Kirsty Blackman
MP for Aberdeen North · Scottish National Party · United Kingdom
“I first raised the issue of self-generated images in Parliament more than four years ago. I have asked almost every single Culture, Media and Sport team about the issue of livestreaming. I am pleased to hear from the Secretary of State that action is being taken, and about the belt-and-braces approach that is coming in.”
“Labour promised £200 million for Grangemouth, none of which has materialised. Labour promised 1,000 jobs for GB Energy, and it turns out that a third of the 130 delivered so far are not actually in Scotland.”
“There is a geographical divide on this issue starker than I have ever seen in this place. Across all parties, every Member representing a Scottish constituency has stressed the issue of jobs, and how important this is to the north-east of Scotland.”
“There is a fundamental question here about what our priority is. Is it to reduce the bill, to reduce the amount of money that we are spending, or to ensure that disabled people can access all the human rights that the rest of us can, access society and be supported? We must recognise the extra costs of disability. What is the priority?”
“May I continue to encourage the Minister to talk to Social Security Scotland and our colleagues in the SNP Government about their experiences of the adult disability payment and whether the changes that have been implemented in Scotland would make a positive difference to those claiming PIP?”
“I will point out where things are today and how we can improve them, rather than looking at what was done in the past, but first, I recognise that although Pride is about celebration, it is also about being angry. We should be angry about the injustices.”
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“This is the one area that the Government have most significantly failed in writing this Bill, by not ensuring that the small, very high-risk platforms are held to the highest level of accountability and are punished for allowing these behaviours to thrive on their platforms. I give the Minister fair warning that unless he chooses to accept the amendments, I intend to push them to a vote. I would appreciate it if he gave assurances, but I do not believe that any reassurance that he could give would compare to having such a measure in the Bill. As I say, for me the lack of this provision is the biggest failing of the entire Bill.”
“Fair enough—some people may not take any action as a result of the radicalisation that they have experienced as a result of their very extreme views. But some people will take action and that action may be simply enough to harm their friends or family, it may be simply enough to exclude them and drag them away from the society or community that they were previously members of or it might, in really tragic cases, be far more extreme. It might lead people to cause physical or mental harm to others intentionally as a result of the beliefs that they have had created and fostered on those platforms. That is why we have tabled the amendments.”
“For example, when people read vaccine misinformation, there are links posted to more radical, smaller platforms. I exclude Discord because, given its number of users, I think it would be included in one of the larger-platform categories anyway. It is not that there is not radical behaviour on Discord—there is—but I think the size of its membership excludes it, in my head certainly, from the category of the very smallest platforms that pose the highest risk. We all know from our inboxes the number of people who contact us saying that 5G is the Government trying to take over their brains, or that the entire world is run by Jewish lizard people. We get those emails on a regular basis and those theories are propagated on the smallest platforms.”
“It is not too much to ask because of the massive risk of harm they pose and the massive actual harm that they create. Those platforms should be punished for that. It is one thing to punish and criminalise the behaviour of users on those platforms—individual users create and propagate illegal content or radicalise other users—but the Bill does not go far enough in holding those platforms to account for allowing that to take place. They know that it is happening. Those platforms are set up as an alternative place—a place that people are allowed to be far more radical that they are on Twitter, YouTube, Twitch or Discord. None of those larger platforms have much moderation, but the smaller platforms encourage such behaviour. Links are put on other sites pointing to those platforms.”
“Those small platforms are the ones that are most likely to encourage individuals towards extremely violent acts. If the Bill is to fulfil its stated aims and take the action we all want to see to prevent the creation of those most heinous, awful crimes, it needs to be much stronger on small, very high-risk platforms. I will make no apologies for that. I do not care if those platforms have small amounts of profits. They are encouraging and allowing the worst behaviours to thrive on their platforms. They should be held to a higher level of accountability. It is not too much to ask to class them as category 1 platforms. It is not too much to ask them to comply with a higher level of risk assessment requirements and a higher level of oversight from Ofcom.”
“Given how strong I felt that the Minister was on the issue on Second Reading, I am deeply disappointed that there are no Government amendments to this section of the Bill. I am disappointed because of the massive risk of harm caused by some very small platforms—it is not a massive number—where extreme behaviour and radicalisation is allowed to thrive. It is not just about the harm to those individuals who spend time on those platforms and who are radicalised, presented with misinformation and encouraged to go down rabbit holes and become more and more extreme in their views. It is also about the risk of harm to other people as a result of the behaviour inspired in those individuals. We are talking about Jo Cox today; she is in our memories and thoughts.”
“Thank you for your efforts in chairing our meeting today, Sir Roger. My thoughts are with the hon. Member for Batley and Spen and her entire family on the anniversary of Jo Cox’s murder; the SNP would like to echo that sentiment. I want to talk about my amendment, and I start with a quote from the Minister on Second Reading: “A number of Members…have raised the issue of small platforms that are potentially harmful. I will give some thought to how the question of small but high-risk platforms can be covered.” —[ Official Report , 19 April 2022; Vol. 712, c. 133.] I appreciate that the Minister may still be thinking about that. He might accept all of our amendments; that is entirely possible, although I am not sure there is any precedent. The possibility is there that that might happen.”
“I appreciate the shadow Minister’s bringing that issue up. Would she agree that, given we have constraints on broadcast and newspaper reporting on suicide for these very reasons, there can be no argument against including such a measure in the Bill?”
“I thank the Minister for his comments. I still think that such platforms are too dangerous not to be subject to more stringent legislation than similar-sized platforms. For the Chair’s information, I would like to press amendment 80 to a vote. If it falls, I will move straight to pressing amendment 82 to a vote, missing out amendment 81. Does that makes sense, Chair, and is it possible?”
“Thank you for your advice, Chair. I will move amendment 80. Should it be accepted, I would be keen to move to other two. Amendment proposed : 80,in schedule 10, page 192, line 19, at end insert— “(c) the assessed risk of harm arising from that part of the service.”— (Kirsty Blackman.) This amendment, together with Amendments 81 and 82, widens Category 1 to include those services which pose a very high risk of harm, regardless of the number of users.”
“On a point of order, Sir Roger. My understanding was that it was previously the case that amendments could not be re-moved again on Report, but that modern practice in the past few years in the House has been that amendments that have been pushed to a vote in Committee are then allowed to be resubmitted on Report, whether or not the Minister has indicated that this is the case.”
“I want to make a brief comment echoing the shadow Minister’s welcome for the inclusion of senior managers and named people in the Bill. I agree that that level of personal liability and responsibility is the only way that we will be able to hold some of these incredibly large, unwieldy organisations to account. If they could wriggle out of this by saying, “It’s somebody else’s responsibility,” and if everyone then disagreed about whose responsibility it was, we would be in a much worse place, so I also support the inclusion of these clauses and schedule 11.”
“This specifically relates to the Secretary of State, but would the Minister expect both Ofcom and his Department to be working with the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive? I am not necessarily talking about sharing all the information, but where there are concerns that it is very important for those jurisdictions to be aware of, will he try to ensure that he has a productive relationship with both devolved Administrations?”
“The technology that we have may not be what we use in the future to scan for terrorist-related activity or child sexual abuse material. It is important that the Bill adequately covers future conditions. I think that it does, but will the Minister confirm that, as technology advances and changes, these clauses will adequately capture the scanning technologies that are required, and any updates in the way in which platforms work and we interact with each other on the internet? I have fewer concerns about future-proofing with regard to these provisions, because I genuinely think they cover future conditions, but it would be incredibly helpful and provide me with a bit of reassurance if the Minister could confirm that. I very much look forward to hearing his comments on clause 103.”
“Rather than Ofcom having to go through the individual process with all the individual providers when it knows that there is common functionality—because of the risk assessments that have been done and Ofcom’s oversight of the different providers—it could serve notice on all of them in one go. It could not then accidentally miss one out and allow people to move to a different platform that had not been mentioned. I appreciate the conversation we had around this issue earlier, and the opportunity to provide context in relation to the NSPCC’s suggestions, but it would be great if the Minister would be willing to consider them. I have another question, to which I think the Minister will be able to reply in the affirmative, which is on the uses of the technology as it evolves. We spoke about that in an earlier meeting.”
“These clauses allow Ofcom to take action against individual providers about which it has concerns; those providers will have to undertake duties set out by Ofcom. The NSPCC suggests that there could be a risk register, or that a notice could be served on a number of companies at one time, rather than Ofcom simply having to pick one company, or to repeatedly pick single companies and serve notices on them. Clause 83 outlines a register of risk profiles that must be created by Ofcom. It could therefore serve notice on all the companies that fall within a certain risk profile or all the providers that have common functionalities. If there were a new, emerging concern, that would make sense.”
“External organisations such as the NSPCC are still concerned that there is not enough on the face of the Bill about proactive scanning and ensuring that the current level of proactive scanning is able—or required—to be replicated when the Bill comes into action. During an exchange in an earlier Committee sitting, the Minister gave a commitment—I am afraid I do not have the quote—to being open to looking at amending clause 103. I am slightly disappointed that there are no Government amendments, but I understand that there has been only a fairly short period; I am far less disappointed than I was previously, when the Minister had much more time to consider the actions he might have been willing to take. The suggestion I received from the NSPCC is about the gap in the Bill regarding the ability of Ofcom to take action.”
“That should give everybody a level of reassurance that the reports that are and should be made to the National Crime Agency on child sexual abuse images will be made on a highly accurate basis, rather than a potentially inaccurate one. Actually, some computer technology—particularly for scanning for images, rather than text—is more accurate than human beings. I am pleased to hear those particular statistics. Queries have been raised on this matter by external organisations—I am particularly thinking about the NSPCC, which we spoke about earlier. The Minister has thankfully given a number of significant reassurances about the ability to proactively scan.”
“I have a few questions, concerns and suggestions relating to these clauses. I think it was the hon. Member for Don Valley who asked me last week about the reports to the National Crime Agency and how that would work—about how, if a human was not checking those things, there would be an assurance that proper reports were being made, and that scanning was not happening and reports were not being made when images were totally legal and there was no problem with them. [ Interruption. ] I thought it was the hon. Member for Don Valley, although it may not have been. Apologies—it was a Conservative Member. I am sorry for misnaming the hon. Member. The hon. Member for Pontypridd made a point about the high level of accuracy of the technologies.”
“I echo the sentiments that have been expressed by the shadow Minister, and thank her and her colleagues for tabling this amendment and giving voice to the numerous organisations that have been in touch with us about this matter. The Scottish National party is more than happy to support the amendment, which would make the Bill stronger and better, and would better enable Ofcom to take action when necessary.”
“Thank you very much, Sir Roger. I do not envy you in this role, which cannot be easy, particularly with a Bill that is 190-odd clauses long.”
“I have a quick question for the Minister about the timelines in relation to the guidance and the commitment that Ofcom gave to producing a road map before this coming summer. When is that guidance likely to be produced? Does that road map relate to the guidance in this clause, as well as the guidance in other clauses? If the Minister does not know the answer, I have no problem with receiving an answer at a later time. Does the road map include this guidance as well as other guidance that Ofcom may or may not be publishing at some point in the future?”
“Frances Haugen’s evidence highlighted quite how shadowy a significant number of the platforms are. Does the hon. Member agree that that hammers home the need for independent researchers to access as much detail as possible so that we can ensure that the Bill is working?”
“The Minister has committed to Ofcom being fully resourced to do what it needs to do under the Bill, but he has spoken about time constraints. If Ofcom were to receive 25,000 risk assessments, for example, there simply would not be enough people to go through them. Does he agree that, in cases in which Ofcom is struggling to manage the volume of data and to do the level of assessment required, it may be helpful to augment that work with the use of independent researchers? I am not asking him to commit to that, but to consider the benefits.”
“Unpaid labour, or people being paid very little in other countries, is not that different from what social media companies are requiring of their moderators, particularly those working outside the UK and the US in countries where there are less stringent rules on working conditions. I cannot see a reason for the Minister to reject the provision of this additional safety for employees who are doing an incredibly important job that we need them to be doing, in circumstances where their employer is not taking any account of their wellbeing.”
“The Government require companies that provide annual reports to undertake an assessment in those reports of whether their supply chain uses child labour or unpaid labour, or whether their factories are safe for people to work in—if they are making clothes, for example. It would not be an overly onerous request if we were to widen those requirements to take account of the fact that so many of these social media companies are subjecting individuals to trauma that results in them experiencing PTSD and having to go through a lengthy recovery process, if they ever recover. We have comparable legislation, and that is not too much for us to ask.”
“I thank the hon. Member for Pontypridd for laying out her case in some detail, though nowhere near the level of detail that these people have to experience while providing moderation. She has given a very good explanation of why she is asking for the amendment and new clause to be included in the Bill. Concerns are consistently being raised, particularly by the Labour party, about the impact on the staff members who have to deal with this content. I do not think the significance of this issue for those individuals can be overstated. If we intend the Bill to have the maximum potential impact and reduce harm to the highest number of people possible, it makes eminent sense to accept this amendment and new clause. There is a comparison with other areas in which we place similar requirements on other companies.”
“I appreciate that the Minister in her place now is not responsible for the Bill, but, at some point, I would really like some commitment from the Government that when we come to the windfall tax Bill, which is the other half of this piece—we have an overview of it, but we have no idea exactly what will be in it, and we have not seen anything to do with its drafting—we will not be expected once again to make decisions in the course of one day. It is not acceptable for us to make such a huge decision in one day without having had adequate time to table amendments, to properly consider the motion or to scrutinise the Government’s extremely restrictive money resolution, which is fairly unusual in its drafting. I wanted to raise my dissatisfaction with the Government on both the delay and the rush with the Bill. It makes for poor scrutiny.”
“The business of the House motion is written to allow us to table amendments for Committee in advance of Second Reading, which, as you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, is not common practice—it is very unusual. I have no problem with being able to table amendments in advance of Second Reading, but we are now in a bizarre situation where amendments for Committee should technically be submitted by the close of play tomorrow—I hope that there might be some leeway—whereas we have until Tuesday to table amendments to the Second Reading motion in order for them to be considered by the Chair. If the Government had organised the legislation properly, we would not have to consider it in one day.”
“We have only just seen the money resolution, yet the Government have decided that it is so urgent, despite hanging around for three weeks and for a number of months before that, that we have to get through every piece of business on the Bill—Second Reading, Committee, and Third Reading—all in one day on Wednesday. If this absolutely has to be done right now, why did it not have to be done two weeks ago? If it had been introduced at the time when the Chancellor made his statements, or even shortly afterwards—remember that he had months to come up with those statements—we would not have to rush business through and get through everything in one day.”
“I want to ask a few questions about the situation we find ourselves in. I am confused about what is going on, and I wonder whether the Government have a clue about what they are doing. Four weeks ago, the Chancellor stood up and made an announcement about the uprating Bill, saying that benefits would be uprated and additional social security payments would be made. That happened four weeks ago. There was already a massive delay to get to that point, and it should have happened far earlier than it did. In the three weeks since that announcement, nothing happened until yesterday, when the Bill miraculously appeared. Yesterday was the first time we saw it.”
“Can he give the commitment that he expects that it will be used only in exceptional circumstances, rather than simply envisioning that it will be used in such circumstances?”
“Before the Minister moves off the point about exceptional circumstances, it was the case previously that an amendment of the law resolution was always considered with Finance Bills. In recent years, that has stopped on the basis of it being exceptional circumstances because a general election was coming up. Then the Government changed that, and now they never table an amendment of the law resolution because they have decided that that is a minor change. Something has gone from being exceptional to being minor, in the view of this Government. The Minister said that he envisions that this measure will be used only in exceptional circumstances. Can he commit himself to it being used only in exceptional circumstances?”
“I beg to move amendment 89, in clause 49, page 45, line 16, leave out subsection (e). This amendment would remove the exemption for comments below news articles posted online.”
“Twitter has a moderation policy, but that does not mean that there is actually any moderation, so I do not think that subjecting below-the-line comments to the provisions of the Bill is asking too much. It is completely reasonable for us to ask for this to happen, and I am honestly baffled as to why the Minister and the Government have chosen to make this exemption.”
“The newspaper article itself may be just slightly derogatory, while some of the comments may have links or references to other pieces, and other places on the internet where people can find a more radical point of view. That is exactly what happens on Twitter, and is exactly some of the stuff that we are trying to avoid—sending people down an extremist rabbit hole. I do not understand how the Minister thinks that the clause, which excludes below the line newspaper comments, is justifiable or acceptable. Having been contacted by a number of newspapers, I understand and accept that some newspapers have moderation policies for their comments sections, but that is not strong enough.”
“We heard a lot of evidence relating to freedom of speech and a free press, and I absolutely, wholeheartedly agree with that. However, the amendment would not stop anyone writing a letter to the editor. It would not stop anyone engaging with newspapers in the way that they would have in the print medium. It would still allow that to happen; it would just ensure that below-the-line comments were subject to the same constraints as posts on Twitter. That is the entire point of amendment 89. I do not think that I need to say much more, other than to add one more thing about the direction by comments to other, more radical and extreme pieces, or bits of information. It is sometimes the case that the comments on a newspaper article will direct people to even more extreme views.”
“Thank you, Ms Rees, for your hard work in chairing the Committee this morning; we really appreciate it. Amendment 89 relates to below-the-line comments on newspaper articles. For the avoidance of doubt, if we do not get amendment 89, I am more than happy to support the Labour party’s amendment 43, which has a similar effect but covers slightly fewer—or many fewer—organisations and places. Below-the-line comments in newspaper articles are infamous. They are places that everybody fears to go. They are worse than Twitter. In a significant number of ways, below-the-line comments are an absolute sewer. I cannot see any reasonable excuse for them to be excluded from the Bill. We are including Twitter in the Bill; why are we not including below-the-line comments for newspapers? It does not make any sense to me; I do not see any logic.”
“On a point of order, Ms Rees. Are we considering clause 49 now? I know that it is supposed to considered under the next set of amendments, but I just wondered, because I have separate comments to make on that clause that I did not make earlier because I spoke purely to the amendment.”
“However, we also know that a number of people who play online games have communication on Discord at the same time. Discord is incredibly popular, and we know that there is an opportunity for, and a prevalence of, grooming on there. I am concerned that exempting this creates a loophole for people to attack children in a way that the Minister is trying to prevent with the Bill. I understand why the clause is there but am concerned that the loophole is created.”
“I am happy to speak on clause 49 now—I can see the Minister is nodding. I really appreciate it, Ms Rees, because I did not want to lose the opportunity to raise concerns about this matter. I have not tabled an amendment but I would appreciate it if the Minister gave consideration to my following comments. My concern relates to subsection (5) of clause 49, which exempts one-to-one live aural communications in relation to user-to-user services. My concern relates to child sexual abuse and grooming. I am worried that exempting those one-to-one live aural communications allows bad actors, people who are out to attack children, a loophole to do that. We know that on games such as Fortnite, one-to-one aural communication happens. I am not entirely sure how communication happens on Roblox and whether there is an opportunity for that there.”
“I have a question on anonymity. On social media there will be a requirement to verify users’ identities, so if somebody posts on Twitter that they want to lynch me, it is possible to find out who that is, provided they do not have an anonymous account. There is no such provision for newspaper comment sections, so I assume it would be much more difficult for the police to find them, or for me not to see anonymous comments that threaten my safety below the line of newspaper articles—comments that are just as harmful, which threaten my safety on social media. Can the Minister can convince me otherwise?”
“On that point, when it comes to definition of content, we have tabled an amendment about “any other content”. I am not convinced that the definition of content adequately covers what the Minister stated, because it is limited, does not include every possible scenario where it is user-generated and is not future-proofed enough. When we get to that point, I would appreciate it if the Minister would look at the amendment and ensure that what he intends is what happens.”
“The amendment that the Minister is asking about is to clause 189, which states: “‘content’ means anything communicated by means of an internet service, whether publicly or privately, including written material or messages, oral communications, photographs, videos, visual images, music and data of any description”. It is amendment 76 that, after “including”, would insert “but not limited to”, in order that the Bill is as future-proofed as it can be.”
“That is helpful for understanding the rationale, but in the light of how people communicate online these days, although exempting telephone conversations makes sense, exempting what I am talking about does not. I would appreciate it if the Minister came back to me on that, and he does not have to give me an answer now. It would also help if he explained the difference between “aural” and “oral”, which are mentioned at different points in the Bill.”
“I have a couple of questions that were probably too long for interventions. The Minister said that if comments on a site are the only user-generated content, they are not in scope. It would be really helpful if he explained what exactly he meant by that. We were talking about services that do not fall within the definition of “recognised news publishers”, because we were trying to add them to that definition. I am not suggesting that the Minister is wrong in any way, but I do not understand where the Bill states that those comments are excluded, and how this all fits together.”
“I do not intend to make a speech, but I want to let the hon. Lady know that we wholeheartedly support everything that she has said on the clause and amendment 61.”
“I am glad that the amendments have been drafted in this way and that the concern that we heard about in evidence no longer seems to exist, and I am pleased with the Minister’s decision about the way in which to make any future changes to legislation. I agree with the position put forward by the hon. Member for Pontypridd. My understanding, from what we heard in evidence a few weeks ago, is that, legally, all will have to agree with the higher bar of the offences, and therefore anyone anywhere across the UK will be provided with the additional level of protection. She is right that the offence might not apply to everyone, but the service providers will be subject to the requirements elsewhere. Similarly, that is my view. Once again, I thank the Minister.”
“I thank the Minister for tabling the amendments. In the evidence sessions, we heard about omissions in schedule 7 from not having Northern Irish and Scottish offences included. Such offences were included in schedule 6 but, at that point, not in schedule 7. I appreciate that the Minister has worked with the devolved Administrations to table the amendments. I also appreciate the way in which amendment 126 is written, such that the Secretary of State “must consult” Scottish Ministers and the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland before making regulations that relate to legislation in either of the devolved countries.”
“Can my hon. Friend see any reason—I am baffled by this—why the Government would leave out human trafficking? Can he imagine any justification that the Minister could possibly have for suggesting that it is not a priority offence, given the Conservative party’s stated aims and, to be fair, previous action in respect of, for example, the Modern Slavery Act 2015?”