Online Filter Bubbles: Misinformation and Disinformation

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

It is most unusual for me to called so early in a Westminster Hall debate, Sir Mark, so I am grateful to you.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on securing this debate. There is no question that preventing misinformation and disinformation is one of the great challenges of our time, and it will only become more and more challenging, as he has adumbrated in his remarks to the House this afternoon.

Unfortunately, we have many active theatres of conflict around the world at the moment, so I will begin by thanking all of those who take to social media to counter so much of the disinformation that exists. Whether it is about the war in Ukraine or about the situation in the Red Sea, Gaza and Israel, so much disinformation is doing the rounds. Some of it is clearly state-sponsored; some of it less so.

Indeed, there is also misinformation or disinformation about elections, so no doubt we will see more of that as the elections in this country and elsewhere in the west draw closer. Also, last week there were elections in Taiwan, when the Taiwanese political parties said it was the harshest election yet in terms of Chinese-sponsored disinformation against a democratic people. However, a great many people invest time, effort, energy, money and resources online to counter such disinformation and they do a public service.

I will mention the negative part first, if I may; there is no point in my going over all the various examples of disinformation that exist. I recall being in a conference a few years ago with the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) where one of the complaints that we had—it is so often a complaint—was that when there are conferences and workshops and think-tank events about disinformation, everybody wants to talk about examples of disinformation but few people want to talk about how we arm ourselves against it.

So, as I say, let me start with the negative part first. I do not mean any of what I say today to be against the Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, the hon. Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti)—who, I will confess, I do not think I have faced on this issue before. Nevertheless, the Government do not have a coherent strategy on this issue. There are a great many officials across Government and across Whitehall who are doing some sterling work on it; no question about that. At a political level, however, this issue has not been given the serious consideration that it deserves; although it may be uncharitable of me to say so, that was evidenced most of all by the fact that Nadine Dorries was put in charge of it. [Laughter.] Having said that, I will come on to a central problem that is less about personalities and more about the policy framework and the institutions that are required.

As I understand it, and the Minister may correct me in his remarks, misinformation is the responsibility of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport; some disinformation is also that Department’s responsibility. Foreign disinformation falls with a mixture of the Foreign Office, the intelligence services and the Home Office. Other parts of disinformation are the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence and defence intelligence. I spent five and a half years as my party’s spokesperson for defence and the type of question that I wanted to ask depended on whether or not the Ministry of Defence could answer it. Who does this madness—a madness of responsibility and lines of accountability lying all over Whitehall—benefit? Certainly not our constituents.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a very important point. I have tried repeatedly to find answers from the Government’s Counter Disinformation Unit. That specialist unit, set up in Whitehall to counteract some of this disinformation, is meant to be cross-departmental, but sadly it has been quite dormant. We have had very little information and transparency. Does the hon. Member agree that, if we had more transparency, we could see what Departments were working on across Government and seek to tackle the problem?

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[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairship today, Sir Mark. I thank the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) for securing this timely and important debate on such an important issue.

Let us be clear that the Online Safety Act is an extremely important and very long-overdue piece of legislation. In reality, however, gaps remain in that legislation that need to be addressed. In this debate, we have heard about what are hopefully some positive ways forward.

There is huge cross-party consensus. It is a shame and a frustration that, when cross-party amendments were tabled to the Online Safety Bill, they were not taken seriously enough in Committee and were not carried forward. We raised serious questions about social media platforms, their responsibility to protect users, young and old, and to tackle the rise in disinformation. That was a clear opportunity that has now sadly passed, but the fact remains that this issue needs to be tackled.

This debate is timely, but when the Bill was progressing through Parliament, the debate focused on misleading information around the conflict in Ukraine. We all know that an alarming amount of information has recently been shared online regarding the situation in Israel and the middle east. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) mentioned, the horrendous atrocities that occurred on 7 October were livestreamed by Hamas. They wore GoPros and uploaded the footage directly to social media platforms, yet an incredible number of people still did not believe it, saying it was not true or that it was a hoax. How far do we have to go for women in particular to be believed when they report crimes against them and to take this seriously? I cannot help but think that if the Government had listened to the concerns that I and others raised at that time, then we would be in a much better position to deal with these issues. Sadly, we are where we are.

As colleagues have mentioned, we also need to consider the role that AI plays in relation to misinformation and disinformation, particularly the impact of generative AI. That has the power and the potential to be at the forefront of economic growth in the country but, as others have mentioned, with a huge number of elections happening across the world this year, there has never been a more crucial time to tackle the spread of this misinformation and disinformation and the impact that it could have on our democracy. I would be grateful if the Minister reassured us that the Government have a plan; I would welcome his assurances, specifically in light of whatever discussions he has had with the Electoral Commission regarding plans to tackle this ahead of the next UK general election.

The Minister knows that, despite the passing of the Online Safety Act, many of the provisions in the legislation will not be in place for quite some time. In the meantime, Twitter—now X—has given the green light for Donald Trump’s return. Political misinformation has increased since Twitter became X, and right-wing extremists continue to gain political traction on controversial YouTube accounts and on so-called free speech platform Rumble. Platforms to facilitate the increase in political misinformation and extremist hate are sadly readily available and can be all-encompassing. As colleagues have rightly noted, that is nothing new. We only need to cast our minds back to 2020 to remember the disturbing level of fake news and misinformation that was circulating on social media regarding the covid pandemic. From anti-vaxxers to covid conspiracists, the pandemic brought that issue to the forefront of our attention. Only today, it was announced in the media that the UK is in the grip of a sudden spike in measles. Health officials have had to declare the outbreak a national incident, and the surge has been directly linked to a decline in vaccine uptake as a result of a rise in health disinformation from anti-vax conspiracy theories. That causes real-world harm and it needs to be addressed.

Misinformation causes anxiety and fear among many people, and I fear that the provisions in the Act would not go far enough if we faced circumstances similar to the pandemic. We all know that this is wide-ranging, from conspiracy theories about the safety of 5G to nonsense information about the so-called dangers of 15-minute cities, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) spoke so ably. Sadly, those conspiracy theories were not just peddled by lone-wolf actors on social media; they were promoted by parliamentarians. We have to take that issue very seriously.

There are dangerous algorithms that seem to feed off popular misinformation and create these echo chambers and filter bubbles online. They have not helped but have amplified the situation. Would the Minister explain why the Government have decided to pursue an Online Safety Act that has failed to consider platforms’ business models and has instead become entirely focused on regulating content?

Moving on, possibly my biggest concern about misinformation and disinformation is the relationship between what is acceptable online and what is acceptable offline. As we all know, the issue of misinformation and disinformation is closely connected to online extremism. Although the Minister may claim that people can avoid harm online simply by choosing not to view content, that is just not realistic. After all, there is sadly no way to avoid abuse and harassment offline if individuals choose to spout it. In fact, only recently, when I dared to raise concerns and make comments here in Parliament about online misogyny and incel culture and ideology, I experienced a significant level of hate and harassment. Other colleagues have had similar experiences, as we have heard today.

This is a worrying trend, because we all know that online extremism can translate into the radicalisation of people in real-life terms, which can then heighten community tensions and make minority groups more susceptible to verbal and physical abuse and discrimination.

Online harm costs the UK economy £1.5 billion a year; we cannot afford to get this wrong. Online harm not only has that real-world impact, but it puts our country at an economic disadvantage. Recent research has shown that when there is a spike in online abuse towards one specific demographic, that translates to real-world abuse and real-world harm two weeks later, as the police themselves have said. There is only a two-week lag before online harm results in real-world attacks on certain individuals. No one should have to fear for their safety, online or offline.

In short, the Online Safety Act 2023 had the potential to be as world-leading as it was once billed to be, but the Minister must know that is far from being a perfect piece of legislation, particularly when it comes to misinformation and disinformation.

I am clearly not alone in expressing these views. I hope that the Minister has heard the concerns expressed in this wide-ranging debate, and that he will take seriously some of the proposals and move them forward.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

We now move to the contributions from the Front Benches.