Democracy under Threat from “Pandemic of Misinformation” Online: Lords Committee

·  The Committee sets out a package of reforms which, if implemented, could help restore public trust and ensure democracy does not ‘decline into irrelevance’.

Publish Draft Online Harms Bill Now

·  The Government has failed to get to grips with the urgency of the challenges of the digital age and should immediately publish an Online Harms Draft Bill that covers the impact of disinformation.

This should give Ofcom, as the proposed Online Harms regulator, the power to hold digital platforms legally responsible for content they recommend to large audiences or that is produced by users with a large following on the platform.

·  The Committee point out that many content providers are in effect in business relationships with platforms that host their content and the platforms have a duty of care to ensure the content is not harmful, either to individuals or our shared democratic principles. This should be backed up by the power for Ofcom to fine digital companies up to four percent of their global turnover or force ISP blocking of serial offenders.

·  Ofcom should also be given the power to ensure online platforms are transparent in how their algorithms work so they are not operating in ways that discriminate against minorities. To achieve this Ofcom should publish a code of practice on algorithms including internal and external audits of their effects on users with the characteristics protected in the Equalities Act 2010.

Regulate Political Advertising

·  The report calls for political advertising to be brought into line with other advertising in the requirement for truth and accuracy. It says the political parties should work with the Advertising Standards Authority and other regulators to develop a code of practice  that would ban “fundamentally inaccurate advertising during a parliamentary or mayoral election or referendum”. This Code would be overseen by a Committee including the ASA, the Electoral Commission, Ofcom and the UK Statistics Authority and would have the power to remove political advertising that breached the code.

·  This new regulation would be supported by a significant toughening up of electoral law including a requirement for online political material to include imprints indicating who has paid for them, real time databases of all political advertising on online platforms and an increase in the fines that the Electoral Commission can impose on campaigners to £500,000 or four percent of the total campaign spend, whichever is greater.

Introduce a Digital Ombudsman

·  The Committee calls on the Government to establish an independent ombudsman for content moderation who will provide a point of appeal for people who have been let down by digital platforms. This would ensure the public would have a representative who could both force the tech giants to take down inappropriate content and protect individuals from their content being unfairly taken down by platforms.

·  The Committee also makes recommendations for increasing digital media literacy and developing active digital citizens through changes to school curriculum and adult digital literacy initiatives.