Online Safety Act 2023: Online Hate and Racism

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

In short, yes, because an offence against a person online can be as serious as an offence against someone in person. That is why we are introducing in the Crime and Policing Bill—which will not only tackle incidents of retail crime, for instance, which is obviously a crime against the person—new measures around policing public order, which, again, is directly in person but has an impact on communities and the way that they feel that they are safe in this country. But if we leave online hate unpoliced and unenforced, it will only grow. We have been shown this, and this is why we are absolutely clear with Ofcom that we will not hesitate to build on the Act if it is not doing enough to keep UK users, particularly our children, safe online.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

Are the Government taking account of the level of misogyny online that seems to be an inbuilt bias? I was speaking to unions last week, which were saying that, for instance, if you put down that your hobby is netball, you will get marked down because you are clearly a woman. Now that AI is taking over so much of health, the health basis has been based on male bodies. It still tells you that if you have a pain in your left arm, you are going to have a heart attack. This is completely not true for 50% of the population. This bias is absolutely inherent and very difficult to get at. I applaud many of the measures going through the Bill, but we need to talk about this. Are the Government doing anything to tackle it?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a very important point. Of course, that inherent bias against women was present in society long before the internet was invented. That is something that we must always struggle to combat, whether online or offline. The illegal harms duties under the Online Safety Act regime came into effect earlier this year in March. That means that services now must now risk-assess for illegal content and have procedures to detect and swiftly remove illegal content—whether it is terrorism, child sexual abuse material, intimate image abuse or other misogynistic abuse.