I will happily write to the noble Lord on that.
Clause 12(4) further sets out that all search user empowerment content tools must be made available to all adult users and be easy to access.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, talked about people who will seek out suicide, self-harm or eating-disorder content. While the Bill will not prevent adults from seeking out legal content, it will introduce significant protections for adults from some of the most harmful content. The duties relating to category 1 services’ terms of service are expected hugely to improve companies’ own policing of their sites. Where this content is legal and in breach of the company’s terms of service, the Bill will force the company to take it down.
We are going even further by introducing a new user empowerment content-assessment duty. This will mean that where content relates to eating disorders, for instance, but which is not illegal, category 1 providers need fully to assess the incidence of this content on their service. They will need clearly to publish this information in accessible terms of service, so users will be able to find out what they can expect on a particular service. Alternatively, if they choose to allow suicide, self-harm or eating content disorder which falls into
the definition set out in Clause 12, they will need proactively to ask users how they would like the user empowerment content features to be applied.
My noble friend Lady Morgan was right to raise the impact on vulnerable people or people with disabilities. While we anticipate that the changes we have made will benefit all adult users, we expect them particularly to benefit those who may otherwise have found it difficult to find and use the user empowerment content features independently—for instance, some users with types of disabilities. That is because the onus will now be on category 1 providers proactively to ask their registered adult users whether they would like these tools to be applied at the first possible opportunity. The requirement also remains to ensure that the tools are easy to access and to set out clearly what tools are on offer and how users can take advantage of them.
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On the granularity of choice for different tools, as pressed by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, the forced choice user empowerment amendment has been drafted in such a way to ensure that, should platforms offer users a range of tools to comply with their duties, users will get a choice about each tool that they offer. For instance, if a provider offers users one tool that will reduce the likelihood that they see certain categories of content and another that alerts them to the nature of it, they will get separate choices about whether they want these tools to be applied. This will ensure that users have even more control over their experience online. A blanket on/off choice for all user empowerment features is unlikely to be consistent with the duty on category 1 services to have particular regard to the importance of protecting users’ freedom of expression when putting in place these features, which can be found in Clause 18. Additionally, duties under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the requirement to consult experts on freedom of expression mean that the measures Ofcom will recommend in its codes of practice must consider the impact of freedom of expression so are unlikely to take a blanket approach.
I hope all that goes some way towards reassuring the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that freedom of expression is baked into all these amendments. Many of the questions she raises come down to the choice of users. We are not forcing people by having a default on or off. We are encouraging all users to make a decision about what material they see as adults on the internet within the law. If, like her and like me, they want to continue to see that, they should continue to keep their settings broad and know that they will encounter things with which they may disagree or that may offend them.