My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 44 and 158 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford. I also note my support for the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, to ensure the minimum standard for a platform’s terms of service. My noble friend Lord Moylan has just given an excellent speech on the reasons why these amendments should be considered.
I am aware that the next group of amendments relates to the so-called user empowerment tools, so it seems slightly bizarre to be speaking to Amendment 44, which seeks to ensure that these user empowerment tools actually work as the Government hope they will, and Amendment 158, which seeks to risk assess whether providers’ terms of service duties do what they say and report this to Ofcom. Now that the Government have watered down the clauses that deal with protection for adults, like other noble Lords, I am not necessarily against the Government’s replacement—the triple shield—but I believe that it needs a little tightening up to ensure that it works properly. These amendments seem a reasonable way of doing just that. They would ensure greater protection for adults without impinging on others’ freedom of expression.
The triple shield relies heavily on companies’ enforcement of terms of service and other vaguely worded duties, as the noble Viscount mentioned, that user empowerment tools need to be “easily accessible” and “effective”—whatever that means. Unlike with other duties in the Bill, such as those on illegal content and children’s duties, there is no mechanism to assess whether these new measures are working; whether the way companies are carrying out these duties is in accordance with the criteria set out; and whether they are indeed infringing freedom of expression. Risk assessments are vital to doing just that, because they are vital to understanding the environment in which services operate. They can reduce bureaucracy by allowing companies to rule out risks which are not relevant to them, and they can increase user safety by revealing new risks, thereby enabling the future-proofing of a regime. Can the Minister give us an answer today as to why risk assessment duties on these two strands of the triple shield—terms of service and user empowerment tools—were removed? If freedom of speech played a part in this, perhaps he could elaborate why he thinks undertaking a risk assessment is in any way a threat.
Without these amendments, the Bill cannot be said to be a complete risk management regime. Companies will, in effect, be marking their own homework when designing their terms of service and putting their finger in the air when it comes to user empowerment tools. There will be no requirement for them to explain either to Ofcom or indeed to service users the true nature of the harms that occur on their service, nor the rationale behind any decisions they might make in these two fundamental parts of their service.
Since the Government are relying so heavily on their triple shield to ensure protection for adults, to me, not reviewing two of the three strands that make up the triple shield seems like fashioning a three-legged stool with completely uneven legs: a stool that will not stand up to the slightest pressure when used. Therefore, I urge the Minister to look again and consider reinstating these protections in the Bill.
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