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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“I appreciate that the Minister thinks that there are other measures that cover this offence, but will he keep it under consideration going forward? I do not think that that is too much to ask. Part of the logic behind that is that some of the other issues, where the reasons behind them must be proved, are much more difficult to define or prove than the modern slavery offences that we are asking to be added here. Whether he accepts the amendment or not, will he commit to considering the matter and not just saying, “Absolutely no”? That would be helpful for us and the many organisations that are keen for such things to be included.”
“And finally—I know that the Minister mentioned earlier that saying, “And finally”, in a speech is always a concern, but I am saying it—I am slightly concerned about the wording in subsection (4)(c), which refers to “material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of children”, because I am not clear what an “appreciable number” is. If there is significant harm to one child from content, and content that is incredibly harmful to children is stumbled upon by a child, is it okay for that provider to have such content? It is not likely to accessed by an “appreciable number of children” and might be accessed by only a small number, but if the Minister could give us an understanding of what the word “appreciable” means in that instance, that would be greatly appreciated.”
“If it means there is no harm on the basis of things that are financial in nature, that is a problem, because that explicitly excludes gambling-type sites, loot boxes and anything of that sort, which by their nature are intentionally addictive and try to get children or adults to part with significant amounts of cash. If they are excluded, that is a problem. How will clause 53 be future-proofed? I am not suggesting that there is no future proofing, but it would be helpful to me and fellow Committee members if the Minister explained how the clause will deal with new emerging harms and things that may not necessarily fall within the definitions that we set initially. How will those definitions evolve and change as the internet evolves and changes, and as the harms with which children are presented evolve and change?”
“I have a couple of questions for the Minister. The first is about the interaction of subsection (4)(c) and subsection (5). I am slightly confused about how that, because subsection (4)(c) states that anything that is not within the terms of primary priority content or primary content but is harmful to “an appreciable number of children” is included as “content that is harmful to children”. That is completely reasonable. However, subsection (5) excludes illegal content and content with a “potential financial impact”. I appreciate that these provisions are drafted in quite a complicated way, but it would be useful to have an understanding of what that means.”
“However, I do not think that loot boxes even existed in 2005 when that Act was published. Loot boxes are gambling. They may not be covered by that legislation, but they are gambling. Will the Minister consider whether those harms are unintentionally excluded by clause 53?”
“Having played lots of games, I can clarify that people do not know what they are getting with a loot box, so they are putting money forward but do not know whether they will get a really good piece of armour or a really crap piece of armour. It is literally gambling, because children do not know what will come out of the box, as opposed to just buying a really good piece of armour with £2.99 from their parent’s credit card.”
“Given the Government’s ability to designate priority content and primary priority content through secondary legislation, the Minister is telling me that if they decided that loot boxes were not adequately covered by the future legislation coming through, and they were to discover that something like this was a big issue, they could add that to one of the two priority content designations.”
“I thank the Minister for his clarification earlier and his explanation of how the categories of primary priority content and priority content can be updated. That was helpful. Amendment 62 is excellent, and I am more than happy to support it.”
“I appreciate the points that the right hon. Member was making, and I completely agree with her on the requirement for user verification, but I have to say that I believe there is a place for anonymity on the internet. I can understand why, for a number of people, that is the only way that they can safely access some of the community support that they need.”
“The right hon. Lady’s speech inspired me to stand up and mention a couple of things. My first question is about using empowerment around this clause. The clause applies only to adults. I can understand the issues that there may be with verifying the identity of children, but if that means that children are unable to block unverified accounts because they cannot verify their own account, the internet becomes a less safe place for children than for adults in this context, which concerns me. To be honest, I do not know how children’s identities could be verified, but giving them access to the filters that would allow them to block unverified accounts, whether or not they are able to verify themselves—because they are children and therefore may not have the identity documentation they need—would be very helpful.”
“If the Minister or Ofcom could give consideration to perhaps including travel passes or adult passes, it might make the internet a much easier place to navigate for people who do not have control of their own documentation—they may not have access to their passport, birth certificate, or any of that sort of thing—but who would be able to provide a travel pass, because that is within their ownership.”
“I appreciate that clarification. I just wanted to make it absolutely clear that I strongly believe that anonymity is a very good protection, not just for people who intend to do bad on the internet, but for people who are seeking out community, particularly. I think that that is important. If you will allow me to say a couple of things about the next clause, Sir Roger, Mencap raised the issue of vulnerable users, specifically vulnerable adult users, in relation to the form of identity verification.”
“If the Minister does not have an answer today, which I understand that he may not in detail, I am happy to hear from him later; I understand that it is quite a technical question.”
“I am glad that clause 60 will be in the Bill and that there will be a duty to report to the NCA. On subsection (3), though, I would like the Minister to clarify that if the Secretary of State believes that the Scottish Ministers would be appropriate people to consult, they would consult them, and the same for the Northern Ireland Executive. I would appreciate the Minister explaining how clause 61 will work in a Scottish context, because that clause talks about the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Does a discussion need to be had with Scottish Ministers, and perhaps Northern Ireland Ministers as well, to ensure that information sharing takes place seamlessly with devolved areas with their own legal systems, to the same level as within England and Wales?”
“I have a specific question—the Minister answered a similar question from me earlier. The Bill says that the location of the child “is” in the UK. Would it be reasonable to expect that if a company suspected the child “was” in the UK, although not currently, that would be in scope as something required to be reported? I know that is technical, but if the “was” is included in the “is” then that is much wider and more helpful than just including the current location.”
“I associate myself with the comments made by the hon. Member for Pontypridd and apologise on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire, who is currently in the Chamber dealing with the Channel 4 privatisation. I am sure that, given his position on the Joint Committee, he would have liked to comment on the clause and would have welcomed its inclusion in the Bill, but, unfortunately, he cannot currently do so.”
“I support the hon. Member’s amendments. The cases that she mentions hammer home the need for women and girls to be mentioned in the Bill. I do not understand how the Government can justify not doing so when she is absolutely laying out the case for doing so.”
“I report things all the time, particularly on Twitter, and a significant amount of it is nothing to do with me. It is not stuff aimed at me; it is aimed at others. I expect that a number of the platforms will continue to allow reporting for people who are outwith the affected group, but I do not want to be less able to report than I am currently, and that would be the case for many people who see concerning content on the internet.”
“I appreciate what the Minister is trying to do, and I get the logic behind it, but I think the clause unintentionally excludes some people who would have a reasonable right to expect to be able to make reports in this instance. That is why I tabled amendments 78 and 79 to clause 28, about search functions, but those proposals would have worked reasonably for this clause as well. I do not expect a positive answer from the Minister today, but perhaps he could give consideration to my concern. My later amendments would change “affected person” to “any other person”. That would allow anyone to make a report, because if something is illegal content, it is illegal content. It does not matter who makes the report, and it should not matter that I am not a member of the group of people targeted by the content.”
“I will talk about this later, when we come to a subsequent clause to which I have tabled some amendments—I should have tabled some to this clause, but unfortunately missed the chance to do so. I appreciate the Minister laying out why he has designated the people covered by this clause; my concern is that “affected” is not wide enough. My logic is that, on the strength of these provisions, I might not be able to report racist content that I come across on Twitter if I am not the subject of that content—if I am not a member of a group that is the subject of the content or if I am not caring for someone who is the subject of it.”
“I absolutely agree. I certainly do not think I am suggesting that the bigger platforms such as Twitter and Facebook will reduce their reporting mechanisms as a result of how the Bill is written. However, it is possible that newer or smaller platforms, or anything that starts after this legislation comes, could limit the ability to report on the basis of these clauses.”
“I appreciate that, through the Bill, the Minister is making an attempt to ensure that those procedures are accessible, but I want to make sure they are accessible not just for the general public but for children, who may need jargon-free access to content reporting and complaints procedures, and for people with learning disabilities, who may similarly need jargon-free, easy-to-understand and easy-to-find access to those procedures.”
“I want to raise an additional point about content reporting and complaints procedures. I met with representatives of Mencap yesterday, who raised the issue of the accessibility of the procedures that are in place. I appreciate that the Bill talks about procedures being accessible, but will the Minister give us some comfort about Ofcom looking at the reporting procedures that are in place, to ensure that adults with learning disabilities in particular can access those content reporting and complaints procedures, understand them and easily find them on sites? That is a specific concern that Mencap raised on behalf of its members. A number of its members will be users of sites such as Facebook, but may find it more difficult than others to access and understand the procedures that are in place.”
“I appreciate that. That is key, and I am glad that this is wider than just users of the site. However, taking Reddit as an example, I am not signed up to that site, but I could easily stumble across content on it that was racist in nature. This clause would mean that I could not report that content unless I signed up to Reddit, because I would not be an affected person or a user of that site.”
“Can the Minister explain the logic in having that phrasing for the complaints procedure but not for the content-reporting procedure? Surely it would also make sense for the content reporting procedure to use the phrasing “easy to access, easy to use (including by children) and transparent.””
“As a parliamentarian, I find that a significant number of my constituents come to me seeking support to go to the ombudsman for whatever area it is in which they feel their complaint has not been appropriately dealt with. We see a significant number of issues caused by social media companies, in particular, not taking complaints seriously, not dealing with complaints and, in some cases, leaving illegal content up. Particularly in the initial stages of implementation—in the first few years, before companies catch up and are able to follow the rules put in place by the Bill and Ofcom—a second-tier complaints system that is removed from the social media companies would make things so much better than they are now. It would provide an additional layer of support to people who are looking to make complaints.”
“I am terribly disappointed that the Minister is not a regular Reddit user. I am not, either, but I am well aware of what Reddit entails. I have no desire to sign up to Reddit, but knowing that even browsing the site I would be considered a user and therefore able to report any illegal content I saw, is massively helpful. On that basis, I am comfortable not moving amendments 78 and 79. On the suggestion of an ombudsman—I am looking at new clause 1—it feels like there is a significant gap here. There are ombudsman services in place for many other areas, where people can put in a complaint and then go to an ombudsman should they feel that it has not been appropriately addressed.”
“Given how few people work for some of those organisations and the amazing amount of work they do, if some of the money from fines could support not just victims but the initial procedure for those organisations to make super-complaints, it would be very helpful. That is, of course, if the Minister does not agree with the suggestion of creating a user advocacy panel, which would fulfil some of that role and make that support for the charitable organisations less necessary—although I am never going to argue against support for charities: if the Minister wants to hypothecate it in that way, that would be fantastic. I tabled amendments 78 and 79, but the statement the Minister made about the definition of users gives me a significant level of comfort about the way that people will be able to access a complaints procedure.”
“As the right hon. Member for Basingstoke has mentioned the revenge porn helpline, I will mention the NSPCC’s Report Remove tool for children. It does exactly the same thing, but for younger people—the revenge porn helpline is specifically only for adults. Both those tools together cover the whole gamut, which is massively helpful. The right hon. Lady’s suggestion about the hypothecation of fines is a very good one. I was speaking to the NSPCC yesterday, and one of the issues that we were discussing was super-complaints. Although super-complaints are great and I am very glad that they are included in the Bill, the reality is that some of the third-sector organisations that are likely to be undertaking super-complaints are charitable organisations that are not particularly well funded.”
“I completely agree. Both those helplines do very good work, and they are absolutely necessary. I would strongly support their continuation in addition to an ombudsman-type service. Although I am saying that the need for an ombudsman would likely be higher in the initial bedding-in years, it will not go away—we will still need one. With NHS complaints, the system has been in place for a long time, and it works pretty well in the majority of cases, but there are still cases it gets wrong. Even if the social media companies behave in a good way and have proper complaints procedures, there will still be instances of them getting it wrong. There will still be a need for a higher level. I therefore urge the Minister to consider including new clause 1 in the Bill.”
“I wanted to ask specifically about the resourcing of Ofcom, given the abilities that it will have under this clause. Will Ofcom have enough resource to be able to be that secondary line of defence?”
“Does the Minister not think this is going to work? He is creating this systems and processes approach, which he suggests will reduce the thousands of complaints—complaints will be made and complaints procedures will be followed. Surely, if it is going to work, in 10 years’ time we are going to need an ombudsman to adjudicate on the individual complaints that go wrong. If this works in the way he suggests, we will not have tens of millions of complaints, as we do now, but an ombudsman would provide individual redress. I get what he is arguing, but I do not know why he is not arguing for both things, because having both would provide the very best level of support.”
“I am pleased that the clause is in the Bill, and I think it is a good one to include. Can the Minister reaffirm what he said on Tuesday about child sexual abuse, and the fact that the right to privacy does not trump the ability—particularly with artificial intelligence—to search for child sexual abuse images?”
“If the Minister is determined to keep subsection (3) and not accept the amendment, I feel that he should make it clear that those users must be included in the counting by any provider assessing whether it needs to fulfil the child safety duties.”
“My concern is that, if the Minister does not provide clarity on this point, platforms will count just the number of registered users, and will say, “It’s too difficult for us to look at the number of unregistered users, so in working out whether we meet the criteria, we are not even going to consider people who do not access our specific app or who are not registered users in some way, shape or form.” I have concerns about the operation of the provisions and about companies using that “get out of jail free” card. I genuinely believe that the majority of those who access TikTok other than through its platform are children and would meet the criteria.”
“He can watch the videos without signing up as a registered user of TikTok and without using the platform itself—the videos come through Safari, for example, rather than through the app. Does the Minister expect that platforms will count those people as users? I suggest that the majority of people who watch TikTok by those means are doing so because they do not have a TikTok account. Some will not have accounts because they are under 13 and are not allowed to by TikTok or by the parental controls on their phones.”
“The other thing that I want to raise is about how the number of users will be calculated. The Minister made it very clear earlier on, and I thank him for doing so, that an individual does not have to be a registered user to be counted as a user of a site. People can be members of TikTok, for example, only if they are over 13. TikTok has some hoops in place—although they are not perfect—to ensure that its users are over 13, and to be fair, it does proactively remove users that it suspects are under 13, particularly if they are reported. That is a good move. My child is sent links to TikTok videos through WhatsApp, however. He clicks on the links and is able to watch the videos, which will pop up in the WhatsApp mini-browser thing or in the Safari browser.”
“Surely, because of the risk of harm if children access these incredibly damaging and dangerous sites that groom people for terrorism, they should have a duty to meet the child access requirement threshold, if only so that we can tell them that they must have an age verification process—they must be able to say, “We know that none of our users are children because we have gone through an age verification process.” I am keen for children to be able to access the internet and meet their friends online, but I am keen for them to be excluded from these most damaging sites. I appreciate the action that the Government have taken in relation to pornographic content, but I do not think that this clause allows us to go far enough in stopping children accessing the most damaging content that is outwith pornographic content.”
“If some sort of invisible percentage threshold is applied in such circumstances, I do not know whether that threshold will be met. If only 20% of Fortnite users are kids, and that amounts only to half a million children, will that count as enough people to meet the child access assessment threshold? Fortnite is huge, but an appropriate definition is even more necessary for very small platforms and services. With the very far-right sites that we have mentioned, it may be that only 0.5% of their users are children, and that may amount only to 2,000 children—a very small number.”
“I would have been quite happy to move the amendment, but I do not think the Opposition would have been terribly pleased with me if I had stolen it. I have got my name on it, and I am keen to support it. As I have said, I met the NSPCC yesterday, and we discussed how clause 31(3) might work, should the Minister decide to keep it in the Bill and not accept the amendment. There are a number of issues with the clause, which states that the child user condition is met if “a significant number of children” are users of the service, or if the service is “likely to attract a significant number of users who are children”. I do not understand how that could work. For example, a significant number of people who play Fortnite are adults, but a chunk of people who play it are kids.”
“If he is not willing to accept the amendment, will he give consideration to how the subsection could be amended in the future—we have more stages, including Report and scrutiny in the other place—to ensure that there is clarity and that the intention of the purpose is followed through, rather than being an intention that is not actually translated into law?”
“I absolutely agree. In fact, I have tabled an amendment to widen category 1 to include sites with the highest risk of harm. The Minister has not said that he agrees with my amendment specifically, but he seems fairly amenable to increasing and widening some duties to include the sites of highest risk. I have also tabled another new clause on similar issues. I am glad that these clauses are in the Bill—a specific duty in relation to children is important and should happen—but as the shadow Minister said, clause 31(3) is causing difficulty. It is causing difficulty for me and for organisations such as the NSPCC, which is unsure how the provisions will operate and whether they will do so in the way that the Government would like. I hope the Minister will answer some of our questions when he responds.”
“My concern is where services that meet neither of those criteria—they do not meet the “significant number” criterion in percentage terms because, say, only 0.05% of their users are children, and they do not meet it in population terms, because they are a pretty small platform and only have, say, 1,000 child users—but those children who use the platform are at very high risk because of the nature of the platform or the service provided. My concern is for those at highest risk where neither of the criteria are met and the service does not have to bother conducting any sort of age verification or access requirements.”
“The other thing that we have to remember is that pensioners generally did not grow up online, and some of them struggle more to navigate the internet than some of us who are bit younger.”
“I rise to agree with all the amendments in this group that have been tabled by the Opposition. I want to highlight a couple of additional groups who are particularly at risk in relation to fraudulent advertising. One of those is pensioners and people approaching pension age. Because of the pension freedoms that are in place, we have a lot of people making uninformed decisions about how best to deal with their pensions, and sometimes they are able to withdraw a significant amount of money in one go. For an awful lot of people, withdrawing that money and paying the tax on it leads to a major financial loss—never mind the next step that they may take, which is to provide the money to fraudsters. For pensioners in particular, requiring adverts to be clearly different from other search results would make a positive difference.”
“They are a group who I would suggest are particularly susceptible to fraudulent advertising. We are speaking a lot about search engines, but a lot of fraudulent advertising takes place on Facebook and so on. Compared with the majority of internet users, there is generally an older population on such sites, and the ability to tackle fraudulent advertising there is incredibly useful. We know that the sites can do it, because there are rules in place now around political advertising on Facebook, for example. We know that it is possible for them to take action; it is just that they have not yet taken proper action. I am happy to support the amendments, but I am also glad that the Minister has put these measures in the Bill, because they will make a difference to so many of our constituents.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his public service announcement. His constituent is incredibly lucky that my hon. Friend managed to act in that way and get the money back to her, because there are so many stories of people not managing to get their money back and losing their entire life savings as a result of scams. It is the case that not all those scams take place online—people can find scams in many other places—but we have the opportunity with the Bill to take action on scams that are found on the internet. The other group I want to mention, and for whom highlighting advertising could make a positive difference, is people with learning disabilities. People with learning disabilities who use the internet may not understand the difference between adverts and search results, as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South mentioned.”
“Some of the stories relayed by the shadow Minister relate to conversations and grooming that happened in advance of the self-generated material being created. If there had been a proactive action to scan for grooming behaviour by those companies whose platforms the direct messaging was taking place on, then those young people would potentially have been in a safer place, because it could have been stopped in advance of that self-generated material being created. Surely, that should be the aim. It is good that we can tackle this after the event—it is good that we have something—but tackling it before it happens would be incredibly important.”
“There are lots of people out there working hard to stamp out these images and videos online, and I have faith that they are developing new technologies that are able to recognise images, videos, messages and oral communications that cannot currently be recognised. I agree wholeheartedly with the new clause: it is important that a report be produced within six months of the Bill being passed. It would be great if the Minister would commit to thinking about whether Ofcom will be able to require companies to implement new technologies that are developed, as well as the technologies that are currently available. I am not just talking about child sexual abuse images, material or videos; I am also talking about private messaging where grooming is happening. That is a separate thing that needs to be scanned for, but it is incredibly important.”
“I want to go a little further than what the new clause says and ask the Minister about future-proofing the Bill and ensuring that technologies can be used as they evolve. I am pretty sure that everybody agrees that there should be no space where it is safe to share child sexual exploitation and abuse, whether physical space or online space, private messaging or a more open forum. None of those places should be safe or legal. None should enable that to happen. My particular thought about future-proofing is about the development of technologies that are able to recognise self-generated pictures, videos, livestreams and so on that have not already been categorised, do not have a hash number and are not easy for the current technologies to find.”