Online Safety Bill

Debate between Damian Collins and Barbara Keeley

Report stage
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

It is because the proposal would not make such content more illegal than it is now. It is already illegal and there are already legal duties on companies to act. The regulator’s job is to ensure they have the systems in place to do that effectively, and that is what the Bill sets out. We believe that the Bill addresses the serious issue that the right hon. Lady raises in her amendments. That legal requirement is there, as is the ability to have the systems in place.

If I may, I will give a different example based on the fraud example given by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley). On the Joint Committee that scrutinised the Bill, we pushed hard to have fraudulent ads included within the scope of the Bill, which has been one of the important amendments to it. The regulator can consider what systems the company should have in place to identify fraud, but also what technologies it employs to make it far less likely that fraud would be there in the first place. Google has a deal with the Financial Conduct Authority, whereby it limits advertisers from non-accredited companies advertising on its platform. That makes it far less likely that fraud will be discovered because, if the system works, only properly recognised organisations will be advertising.

Facebook does not have such a system in place. As a consequence, since the Google system went live, we have seen a dramatic drop in fraud ads on Google, but a substantial increase in fraud ads on Facebook and platforms such as Instagram. That shows that if we have the right systems in place, we can have a better outcome and change the result. The job of the regulator with illegal pornography and other illegal content should be to look at those systems and say, “Do the companies have the right technology to deliver the result that is required?” If they do not, that would still be a failure of the codes.

[Barbara Keeley]

The Minister is quoting a case that I quoted in Committee, and the former Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), would not accept amendments on this issue. We could have tightened up on fraudulent advertising. If Google can do that for financial ads, other platforms can do it. We tabled an amendment that the Government did not accept. I do not know why this Minister is quoting something that we quoted in Committee—I know he was not there, but he needs to know that we tried this and the former Minister did not accept what we called for.

[Damian Collins]

I am quoting that case merely because it is a good example of how, if we have better systems, we can get a better result. As part of the codes of practice, Ofcom will be able to look at some of these other systems and say to companies, “This is not just about content moderation; it is about having better systems that detect known illegal activity earlier and prevent it from getting on to the platform.” It is not about how quickly it is removed, but how effective companies are at stopping it ever being there in the first place. That is within the scope of regulation, and my belief is that those powers exist at the moment and therefore should be used.