Sub-Committee on Disinformation

Debate between Damian Collins and Ian C. Lucas

Thursday 4th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. This is a worldwide problem. As he knows, we took evidence during our inquiry about problems to do with disinformation in South America and across Europe—this is not just about Russian campaigns of disinformation. The reason why we decided to create this institutional home for our work on disinformation is that such work runs beyond the scope of any one particular inquiry; indeed, looking to develop successor inquiries with a narrow, defined remit could restrict us from looking at other material from elsewhere around the world.

We look forward to the Government’s White Paper and their response to the Select Committee report, because this country could provide a world-leading framework for understanding the liabilities and obligations of technology companies in terms of acting against known sources of disinformation, and I would include disinformation as a form of harmful content, along with other forms of extreme harmful content.

My hon. Friend is quite right that this is a global problem, and I hope our work in exposing what is going on can benefit other inquiries. As he knows, one reason why we established the international grand committee as part of our disinformation inquiry was to aid our partnership work with other Parliaments that are investigating these issues so that we could benefit from their insights and to share our own work.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Less than two weeks ago, in the current febrile political environment, I was sent information from a closed Facebook group making the entirely false allegation that I had paid for two coaches to go to the march in London. I was made aware of that only because an individual contacted me and gave me the information. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is really important that closed groups on platforms are investigated and that this issue is dealt with urgently by Government? If so, what role does he see the Sub-Committee playing in that process?

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Select Committee, makes an important point. He will know that we discussed the role of groups with Facebook during our investigation. We believe they play a significant role in spreading disinformation; it is not just through targeted advertising that someone can drive content through a platform such as that. Indeed, as he knows, the Committee’s final report on disinformation touched on how far-right organisations are using closed Facebook groups with hundreds of thousands of members to spread content very quickly through the web. Content posted into the group by a group administrator goes immediately to the top of the news feed of members, who may in turn share it.

These closed groups may be closed to the public, but Facebook can tell what is going on in them, and it should act where closed groups are behaving irresponsibly or maliciously in spreading lies and disinformation about people. It can see who the administrators are and who is doing that.

As a consequence of the attacks in Christchurch in particular—having an independent regulator with the power to go into the tech companies to see what is going on would facilitate this—we should do an audit of the sorts of groups and organisations that were sharing and promoting the vile content involved. That could provide a really important map of the way in which these far-right groups, in particular, co-ordinate online and spread disinformation.

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that this is not just about global news stories such as the Christchurch attacks; disinformation is also taking place in individual communities. We should be able to report such things to Facebook and know that it will investigate and take action against groups, including by closing them or the administrator down if necessary.