I thank the noble Lord for the advance notice to think about that; it is helpful. It is difficult to talk in general terms about this issue, so, if I can, I will give examples that do, and do not, meet the threshold.
The Bill goes even further for children than it does for adults. In addition to the protections from illegal material, the Government have indicated, as I said, that we plan to designate content promoting suicide, self-harm or eating disorders as categories of primary priority content. That means that providers will need to put in place systems designed to prevent children of any age encountering this type of content. Providers will also need specifically to assess the risk of children encountering it. Platforms will no longer be able to recommend such material to children through harmful algorithms. If they do, Ofcom will hold them accountable and will take enforcement action if they break their promises.
It is right that the Bill takes a different approach for children than for adults, but it does not mean that the Bill does not recognise that young adults are at risk or
that it does not have protections for them. My noble friend Lady Morgan was right to raise the issue of young adults once they turn 18. The triple shield of protection in the Bill will significantly improve the status quo by protecting adults, including young adults, from illegal suicide content and legal suicide or self-harm content that is prohibited in major platforms’ terms and conditions. Platforms also have strong commercial incentives, as we discussed in previous groups, to address harmful content that the majority of their users do not want to see, such as legal suicide, eating disorder or self-harm content. That is why they currently claim to prohibit it in their terms and conditions, and why we want to make sure that those terms and conditions are transparently and accountably enforced. So, while I sympathise with the intention from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, her amendments raise some wider concerns about mandating how providers should deal with legal material, which would interfere with the careful balance the Bill seeks to strike in ensuring that users are safer online without compromising their right to free expression.
The noble Baroness’s Amendment 240, alongside Amendment 225 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, would place new duties on Ofcom in relation to suicide and self-harm content. The Bill already has provisions to provide Ofcom with broad and effective information-gathering powers to understand how this content affects users and how providers are dealing with it. For example, under Clause 147, Ofcom can already publish reports about suicide and self-harm content, and Clauses 68 and 69 empower Ofcom to require the largest providers to publish annual transparency reports.
Ofcom may require those reports to include information on the systems and processes that providers use to deal with illegal suicide or self-harm content, with content that is harmful to children, or with content which providers’ own terms of service prohibit. Those measures sit alongside Ofcom’s extensive information-gathering powers. It will have the ability to access the information it needs to understand how companies are fulfilling their duties, particularly in taking action against this type of content. Furthermore, the Bill is designed to provide Ofcom with the flexibility it needs to respond to harms—including in the areas of suicide, self-harm and eating disorders—as they develop over time, in the way that the noble Baroness envisaged in her remarks about the metaverse and new emerging threats. So we are confident that these provisions will enable Ofcom to assess this type of content and ensure that platforms deal with it appropriately. I hope that this has provided the sufficient reassurance to the noble Baroness for her not to move her amendment.