In the past fortnight, the Online Safety Bill went through the first day of its Commons Report stage entirely uneventfully on Tuesday 12 July. The Bill continued to demonstrate strong cross-party support in a detailed debate. The messy politics of the Conservative Party change of leader engaged the Bill the following day in two ways – the scheduling of the Bill’s progress through parliament and possible late policy changes due to the Conservative Party’s leadership change process.

We analyse what that might mean for its future progress below. Parliament has now risen for summer recess and this will be our last newsletter before we take a break too; we’ll be back in your inboxes early in September. Thanks to everyone who’s read, shared and given us such positive feedback on this newsletter in the last year. Enjoy the holidays!

• *New from Carnegie UK*: Prof Lorna Woods and her Essex Law School colleague Dr Alexandros Antoniou have published an analysis of the new harmful communications offence and what it means for the Online Safety Bill protections. Also, ICYMI, catch up with Prof Lorna Woods talking about the Online Safety Bill on BBC R4’s Anti Social with Adam Fleming.
• A day after completing the first day of Report stage, rumours emerged – confirmed in the next day’s Business Questions – that the Online Safety Bill’s progress would be “paused”: the primary reason for this was Parliamentary scheduling, with the Government’s decision to allow time for a confidence motion in itself (in response to the Opposition’s attempt to force a “No Confidence” vote) bumping the Bill’s second Report stage and Third Reading from the last week of business before recess.  The “pause” also allows the incoming Prime Minister to look again at the Bill, which makes the timing of its return in the autumn less easy to predict; the uncertainty arising from the decision, and the initial reaction of stakeholders, was summarised well by Tech Crunch. Lord Parkinson for the Government said in the Lords (21 July), that he hoped the Bill would arrive in the Lords ‘expeditiously’.
• As things stand, the final two Conservative leadership contenders, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, seem certain to continue with the Bill. At the time of writing, this report from the Spectator’s leadership hustings is the most detailed indication  of their positions on the Bill, with Truss seemingly more likely to proceed with a near-similar Bill, taking account of free speech considerations, while Sunak may take the opportunity for a more extensive review. (A postscript now, but Damian Collins, who confirmed Penny Mordaunt’s backing for the Bill early in her campaign also announced, had she succeeded, she would have created a new Digital department).

• Ahead of report stage, the Government published polling which indicated high levels of public support for action on regulation: 68% of respondents felt that social media firms needed to do more to protect users from harmful content, including racism and misogyny. However, resistance to adding further measures to the Bill to specifically protect women and girls was evident again in the Report stage debate, with new tech Minister Damian Collins claiming, with reference to the list of offences in Schedule 7, that women would be better protected than currently. Labour lost the division on their proposed amendment to include a reference to women and girls in the Bill.
• The cross-party support evident at Committee stage continued during this debate in a number of areas, particularly on the issue of Secretary of State powers where both Julian Knight (on behalf of the DCMS Select Committee) and Sir Jeremy Wright tabled amendments to clause 40 but did not push them to a vote. There was support (if not a vote) from Wright for the Opposition’s proposals to bring in greater scrutiny of the Secretary of State’s decisions on lists of harmful content (which would have required them to bring the draft SI to the Commons for debate, rather than being approved in committee).
• All the proposed Government amendments were approved with one (NC14) going to a vote while, as in Committee, none of the Opposition’s amendments were accepted. Other areas of focus in the Report debate included: pornography, freedom of expression and protections for children.
• Report stage took place a few days after the intervention by Kemi Badenoch, in a Times op-ed, on the Online Safety Bill, which she claimed risked “legislating for hurt feelings”; she later welcomed the Bill’s delay, saying that it was “in no fit state to become law” and if elected, she would overhaul it to prevent “overreach”. This prompted a fightback from the Government, with Damian Collins responding directly to Badenoch on Twitter and, separately, Nadine Dorries taking on Fraser Nelson.

• The NSPCC Chief Executive, Peter Wanless, has written for The House on why the next PM must prioritise the OSB; Carnegie UK, along with a number of other civil society organisations, has co-signed a statement calling for the Bill to return quickly in the autumn and for more to be done to protect women and girls; Glitch has set out what the pause means for black women online; and Barnardos has explained what it expects to see from the next PM.
• Free speech opponents of the Bill had already been calling for changes to it prior to Report stage, with the Daily Telegraph carrying an op-ed from David Davis and reporting on concerns from Lord Frost and others, as did the Guardian.
• The Spectator’s view on the delay to the Bill was to argue for it to be ditched entirely, the Times took the opposite view (Don’t let today’s political turmoil distract from the Online Safety Bill); meanwhile, Alex Hern in the Guardian described what he called the “hot mess” that the Bill had become.

• The new Prime Minister should be confirmed on 5 September and the timescales for the return of the Bill will – at the very least – have to include the establishment of a new Cabinet and Ministerial team, along with any time that the new PM and DCMS incumbents might wish to take in reviewing the current draft of the Bill and/or making any significant amendments. The window for an (unchanged) OSB to clear Report stage in the Commons in September is already small, as the House rises for conference recess on 22 September (the Lords rises a week earlier, on 15 September). So, even with a largely unchanged Bill, it is likely that its Commons passage will not complete until after conference recess with Lords stages to be scheduled after that.
• Carnegie UK associate Maeve Walsh chaired a roundtable discussion for the PICTFOR APPG, featuring Public Bill Committee members Alex Davies-Jones and Kirsty Blackman, to discuss “what comes next?”; summary here.

• The House of Lords held a debate on the Lords Communications and Digital Committee’s report into Digital Regulation: watch the discussion here; the Intelligence and Security Committee has published a report on right-wing extremism.
• The CMA and Ofcom have published a joint statement on how they intend to cooperate on online safety and competition, stating their “expectation that the forthcoming online safety regime will require deeper collaboration and coordination between them. This will be necessary to better understand and manage the potential synergies, complementarities, or tensions between competition and online safety issues, both in relation to issues that cut across the work by both organisations and also in Ofcom’s internal considerations of online safety and competition interactions.” See below for details of a joint event by the regulators in September.
• Ofcom continues to hire into roles to support its Online Safety remit, with four Principal posts now available: details here, here, here and here.
• DCMS has published its response to the call for evidence on loot boxes in video games (Sep 2020) in which they set out that the “government wants to see improved protections for children, young people and adults with regards to loot boxes, and to support better longer-term research into the impacts of video games”. Alongside the response, a rapid evidence assessment of literature and empirical studies on loot boxes has also been published. The Children’s Commissioner has also published her response to the decision.

• Ofcom has published a research report on the impact of design (particularly alert messages and content-reporting mechanisms) on user behaviour on video-sharing platforms, which has particular relevance to “legal but harmful” content. The OSCE has published work on AI and disinformation; and Berkman Klein centre has published results from its research into best practice around online content removal.
• News from the platforms: Elon Musk has pulled out of his $44bn deal to buy Twitter and Twitter has responded by suing Musk with the trial set for October; meanwhile, Twitter has introduced new feature which allows users to take themselves out of mentions – this may be helpful for dealing with pile-ons. Tinder has launched a new partnership with No More focused on ending domestic violence, but the organisation has been challenged by campaigners, with the End Violence Against Women coalition director Andrea Simon stating "Tinder's new safety features are a small step to encourage reporting of harassment but do not go far enough to address abuse like rape threats. Tech companies like Tinder ultimately profit from a business model that ignores the abuse facilitated by its services. It's critical they are held to account for ensuring users' safety."  Meanwhile, the tagging of authors in critical reviews of their work on Instagram is having some unfortunate side effects; and Twitch has been publicising the steps it is taking to protect users from abuse and harassment. Finally, Meta has published its first Human Rights report – a significant step, but one which has led to many commentators  - including Amnesty, Ranking Digital Rights and TechCrunch – pointing out the gaps.

• Children and young people:  Ofcom’s News Consumption in the UK 2021/2022 report has found that most teenagers now get their news from Instagram and TikTok, rather than traditional news outlets. Meanwhile, a joint NCSC/GCHQ paper has set out that it is possible for tech firms to scan for child sexual abuse material in encrypted environments without threatening user privacy, seeking “to show that there exist today ways of countering much of the online child sexual abuse harms, but also to show the scope and scale of the work that remains to be done in this area.” The authors explain their thinking here, while the Times write-up is useful re the battles still ahead on this.
• Online hate, abuse and intimidation: UEFA have released a documentary series focused on discrimination, hate and online abuse in football, and with the start of the Women’s Euro 2022, UEFA has announced it has already reported 290 cases of online abuse to social media companies.
• Mis/disinfo: In the wake of the unprecedented high temperatures in the UK, the Met Office have been tackling misinformation surrounding its reporting of the conditions. The recent UK National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2018 to 2022: annual report highted that “Throughout 2021, gendered disinformation was used by malign state actors as a weapon to sow societal division, artificially polarise societies and further their political agenda by exploiting societal differences on issues such as abortion legislation, gender equality and women’s rights”, and more widely “digital threats against women and girls continues to be a growing global security issue".
• Digital rights: RightsCon has published a list of the various toolkits and other resources shared for activists during its recent event.

• The European Court of Human Rights has released a new judgment (Oganezova v. Armenia) on position obligations under Article 3, 8 and 14. The ECtHR found a breach of the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation because the Armenian authorities had failed to protect an LGBT activist from homophobic arson and online hate speech. The authorities had also failed to carry out an effective investigation in order to identify the people responsible for the homophobic hate speech (and some politicians condoned them).
• A French politician has had their case to reinstate their Twitter account dismissed after their account was suspended due to a tweet breaking the platforms rules on hateful conduct. The judge assessed the case not just with respect to the terms of the contract but also whether the restriction of freedom of expression was justified. The judge ultimately ruled that “Twitter Inc had not committed an error of judgment by suspending the execution of its contract with the plaintiff, especially since it had received numerous complaints.”
• In Italy, the Italian SA (Guarantor for the protection of personal data) has issued a statement that TikTok's recent changes to data use regarding personalised ads do not comply with GDPR or e-Privacy directive, raising particular concerns about protection of child users.

• Ofcom has launched a call for evidence to accompany its road map – deadline 13 September.
• DCMS Select Committee has launched a call for evidence on Misinformation and Trusted Voices – deadline 15 September.
• The ICO has launched a call for views on its ICO25 plan – deadline 22 September.
• The Commission on UK Counter Terrorism Law Policy and Practice, convened by the Bingham Centre, has launched a call for evidence - including a section on the OSB - deadline 15 November.

• Ofcom and the CMA: shaping the future of digital regulation – 6 September.
• Next Steps for Online Safety – Westminster eForum – 12 September.
• Online Safety Bill Briefing – The House – 22 September.

• 5 September – Parliament returns from recess.
• 5 September – new Prime minster announced.
• 5 September – Data Protection and Digital Information Bill – Second Reading.
• 15 September – Lords rises for recess.
• 22 September – DCMS questions.
• 22 September – Commons rises for recess.