Peers To Work With Government Over Online Safety Bill Safeguards

Peers have welcomed the Government’s efforts to include protections for journalism in the Online Safety Bill and look forward to “continuing dialogue” to ensure the safeguards are watertight and practical.

In a letter to Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, Lord Gilbert of Panteg, Chair of the Lords Communications and Digital Committee said the UK has an opportunity to “lead the world in human-rights based internet regulation” but continuing dialogue was needed to get it right.

“We welcome the Government’s decision to subject the draft Bill to pre-legislative scrutiny and hope to contribute to that committee’s work. In our forthcoming report we will set out in detail how we believe the Government can protect freedom of expression while also protecting users from harm,” Lord Gilbert said.  

Lord Black of Brentwood, chairman of the News Media Association’s legal, policy and regulatory affairs committee, has described the legislation as an opportunity to lead the world in ensuring proper regulation of news content on the internet.

“During pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, we must ensure that this exemption is both watertight and practical so that news publishers are not subject to any form of statutory control, and that there is no scope for the platforms to censor legitimate content,” Lord Black said.

Lord Gilbert said the Committee welcomed “the principle” in Clause 14 of the draft Bill that journalistic content should receive special protection, although “we remain to be convinced” that the draft Bill would not lead to access to such content being restricted.

The NMA is analysing the Bill to assess, among other things, whether the Bill gives too much power to the platforms to moderate journalistic content, and whether an appeals process could be workable for news, given its very short shelf life.

The NMA has welcomed the Bill which clearly recognises the importance of protecting journalistic content and is an important step in the levelling up between the platforms and news publishers.  

The NMA looks forward to continuing its constructive dialogue with officials on the detail of the Bill and how the new regime will operate in practice.