The Bill will ensure that companies adhere to their terms of service. If they choose to allow content that is legal but harmful on their services and they tell people that beforehand—and adults are able and empowered to decide what they see online, with the protections of the triple shield—we think that that strikes the right balance. This is at the heart of the whole “legal but harmful” debate in another place, and it is clearly reflected throughout the approach in the Bill and in my responses to all of these groups of amendments. But there are duties to tackle illegal content and to make sure that people know the terms of service for the sites they choose to interact with. If they feel that they are not being adhered to—as they currently are not in relation to suicide and self-harm content on many of the services—users will have the recourse of the regulator to turn to.
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I think that noble Lords are racing ahead a little bit in being pessimistic about the work of Ofcom, which will be proactive in its supervisory role. That is a big difference from the status quo, in terms of the protection for users. We want to strike the right balance to make sure that we are enforcing terms of service while protecting against the arbitrary removal of legal content, and the Bill provides companies with discretion about how to treat that sort of content, as accessed by their users. However, we agree that, by its nature, this type of content can be very damaging, particularly for vulnerable young people, which is why the Government
remain committed to introducing a new criminal offence of content that encourages or promotes serious self-harm. The new offence will apply to all victims, children as well as adults, and will be debated once it is tabled; we will explore these details a bit more then. The new law will sit alongside companies’ requirements to tackle illegal suicide content, including material that encourages or assists suicide under the terms of the Suicide Act 1961.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Kidron, asked about smaller websites and fora. We are concerned about the widespread availability of content online which promotes or advertises methods of suicide and self-harm, and which can easily be accessed by people who are young or vulnerable. Where suicide and self-harm websites host user-generated content, they will be in scope of the Bill. Those sites will need proactively to prevent users being exposed to priority illegal content, including content that encourages or assists suicide, as set out in the 1961 Act.
The noble Baroness asked about the metaverse, which is in scope of the Bill as a user-to-user service. The approach of the Bill is to try to remain technology neutral.