Moved by
Lord Moylan
225: After Clause 161, insert the following new Clause—
“Transparency of government representations to regulated service providers
(1) The Secretary of State must produce a report setting out any relevant representations His Majesty’s Government have made to providers of Part 3 services to tackle the presence of misinformation and disinformation on Part 3 services.
(2) In this section “relevant representations” are representations that could reasonably be considered to be intended to persuade or encourage a provider of a Part 3 service to—
(a) modify the terms of service of a regulated service in an effort to address misinformation or disinformation,
(b) restrict or remove a particular user’s access to accounts used by them on a regulated service, or
(c) take down, reduce the visibility of, or restrict access to content that is present or may be encountered on a regulated service.
(3) The first report must be laid before both Houses of Parliament within six months of this Act being passed.
(4) Subsequent reports must be laid before both Houses of Parliament at intervals not exceeding six months.
(5) The Secretary of State is not required by this section to include in the report information that the Secretary of State considers would be against the interests of national security.
(6) If the Secretary of State relies upon subsection (5) they must as soon as reasonably practicable send a report containing that information to the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment addresses government influence on content moderation, for example by way of initiatives like the Government’s Counter Disinformation Unit.