Welcome to the latest Carnegie UK Trust Online Harms update, where we bring together the latest news, research and developments relating to Online Harms policy in the UK and further afield to help campaigners, advocates and policy folk stay connected.
This week we would highly recommend listening to Prof Lorna Woods discussion on the duty of care and online harms regulation on the Reasons to be Cheerful podcast and catching up with the tech companies’ grilling by the Home Affairs Committee. In the next fortnight, the Trade Bill returns to the Lords where we expect them to seek to reinstate the Kidron amendment on child protection, voted down by the Commons this week.
Do contact us at info@carnegieuk.org with any news on your work or upcoming events that you’d like to share in our next edition – and please feel free to give us feedback on this one! If you’ve found it useful, help our network continue to grow by sharing this newsletter with your colleagues and contacts, who can sign up here to receive it direct.
What’s been happening?
The road to regulation
*New from Carnegie UK Trust*: don’t miss Prof Lorna Woods’ interview on the Reasons to be Cheerful podcast (“Account(ability) Suspended: Who Governs Online Speech”).
The Trade Bill returned to the Commons last week where the Kidron Amendment, supported by cross-party Peers, was defeated. The Bill is likely to return to the Lords on 2nd February: here’s the Carnegie UK Trust view on why the amendment matters for the broader online harms regulatory sphere.
Parliamentary scrutiny of various aspects of this agenda has picked up where it left off at the end of last year: in the past fortnight, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has been in front of the Lords’ inquiry into online freedom of expression, while representatives of the major platforms (including TikTok, Snap and WhatsApp, as well as Facebook, Google and Twitter) were grilled by the Home Affairs Committee on the topic of Online Harms.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Digital (Caroline Dinenage) and her Labour Shadow (Chi Onwurah) took part in a Westminster Hall debate on online anonymity.
Systems, design and governance
The ramifications of the platforms’ actions in response to President Trump’s incitement of the violence at the Capitol on 6th January continue to be assessed: some useful reads include a New York Times piece on the lead-up to Twitter’s decision to suspend the President, this from Adam Conner on the “farewell to the frictionless President” and the analysis by Evelyn Douek on what happens next now that Facebook has referred its decision to suspend him to its new Oversight Board. On the options for future regulation, Daphne Keller writes for The Hill on what the US can learn from Europe, while this podcast discussion between Joan Donovan and Taylor Owen is well worth your time.
Meanwhile, the furore over WhatsApp’s changes to their terms and conditions, particularly with regard to privacy, is assessed here.
The first in a series of blogs analysing the Government’s Online Harms proposals has been published by law firm, Bird and Bird.
Children and young people
Baroness Kidron’s position on the need for child protection measures in the Trade Bill is clearly set out in this op-ed; meanwhile, she’s been talking to the CIGI Online podcast about her work to reduce harms to children.
TikTok has changed its terms and conditions to improve privacy and safety for children.
The government has published its new Tackling Child Sexual Abuse strategy. Meanwhile, the increasing prevalence of online child sexual exploitation and abuse during lockdown was a focus of a recent Parliamentary debate on Hidden Harms, with the Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins citing recent IWF figures in her statement.
Consumer harms and scams
The Competitions and Market Authority have published a report on algorithms and consumer harm, alongside a call for evidence (see below).
Hate crime and online abuse
In the latest edition of Parentzone's TechShock podcast, Joe Mulhall of Hope Not Hate talks about online hate speech and the rise of the far right online.
European and international developments
Detailed analysis of the European digital regulation proposals published before Christmas is coming thick and fast: we’d recommend Professor Lorna Woods’ piece on the Digital Markets Act and Damian Tambini’s blog post looking ahead to how the European proposals will sit with UK regulatory moves. The EPP group has been given the lead in the Internal Market Committee on the DSA and has issued a position paper.
Elsewhere in Europe: in Germany, a new Digitalization Act has come into force this month, aimed at digital platforms; Portugal's priorities for its Presidency include the following: "Defend the EU's fundamental values and defend and consolidate the Rule of Law and democracy, combat all forms of discrimination, promote pluralism in the media and combat disinformation. Combat terrorism and hate speech, including online”, along with a compromise proposal for e-Privacy regulations.
Meanwhile, the 5 Eyes group of countries, which includes the UK, has issued its proposals for a temporary derogation from e-Privacy regulations to combat child sexual abuse.
Finally, in one of his last acts as President, Trump issued an executive order to restrict use of cloud services by foreign actors for malicious cyber operations, though the incoming Biden administration then put that, and other orders, on hold.
Joint Human Rights Committee inquiry into freedom of expression: deadline 31st January.
APPG on Social Media inquiry: “Selfie Generation: What’s behind the rise of self-generated indecent images of children online”: deadline 31st January.
Campaign updates
Carnegie UK Trust has joined over 30 civil society organisations to call for social media platforms to pay similar attention globally to their impact on democracy as they have done in the US in recent weeks: read the statement here.
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