My Lords, this debate has demonstrated the diversity of opinion regarding misinformation and disinformation—as the noble Lord said, the Joint Committee gave a lot of thought to this issue—as well as the difficulty of finding the truth of very complex issues while not shutting down legitimate debate. It is therefore important that we legislate in a way that takes a balanced approach to tackling this, keeping people safe online while protecting freedom of expression.
The Government take misinformation and disinformation very seriously. From Covid-19 to Russia’s use of disinformation as a tool in its illegal invasion of Ukraine, it is a pervasive threat, and I pay tribute to the work of my noble friend Lord Bethell and his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care during the pandemic to counter the cynical and exploitative forces that sought to undermine the heroic effort to get people vaccinated and to escape from the clutches of Covid-19.
We recognise that misinformation and disinformation come in many forms, and the Bill reflects this. Its focus is rightly on tackling the most egregious, illegal forms of misinformation and disinformation, such as content which amounts to the foreign interference offence or
which is harmful to children—for instance, that which intersects with named categories of primary priority or priority content.
That is not the only way in which the Bill seeks to tackle it, however. The new terms of service duties for category 1 services will hold companies to account over how they say they treat misinformation and disinformation on their services. However, the Government are not in the business of telling companies what legal content they can and cannot allow online, and the Bill should not and will not prevent adults accessing legal content. In addition, the Bill will establish an advisory committee on misinformation and disinformation to provide advice to Ofcom on how they should be tackled online. Ofcom will be given the tools to understand how effectively misinformation and disinformation are being addressed by platforms through transparency reports and information-gathering powers.
Amendment 52 from the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, seeks to introduce a new duty on platforms in relation to health misinformation and disinformation for adult users, while Amendments 59 and 107 from my noble friend Lord Moylan aim to introduce new proportionality duties for platforms tackling misinformation and disinformation. The Bill already addresses the most egregious types of misinformation and disinformation in a proportionate way that respects freedom of expression by focusing on misinformation and disinformation that are illegal or harmful to children.