Tag Archives: Doing Democracy Better

The Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill: steps in the right direction for democracy

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The government’s draft Online Safety Bill does little to protect democracy from damage caused by online actors, despite a previous commitment to take action. Alex Walker argues that this was an error. Here, he analyses the December report of the parliamentary joint committee tasked with examining the bill. A post in early February will critique the conclusions and recommendations of the DCMS select committee, which published its report earlier this week.

In December, the joint committee tasked with scrutinising the government’s draft Online Safety Bill published its report, the conclusions of which were outlined by its Chair, Damian Collins, on this blog. The committee recommended significant overarching changes to the draft bill, which represents the first major attempt in the UK at online regulation.

Since its publication in May 2021, the draft bill has been subject to extensive criticism, including on this blog. In previous posts, I’ve highlighted that it fails to address online threats to democracy. The government’s 2019 Online Harms white paper acknowledged the seriousness of this issue and set out measures to tackle it. These proposals were then later abandoned.

Positively, the committee noted the government’s change of direction and concluded to the contrary that online harms to democracy should be tackled by legislation. Whilst the committee’s recommendations have their own limitations, if adopted they would better protect democratic processes from online harm than at present.

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The draft Online Safety Bill: abandoning democracy to disinformation

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The draft Online Safety Bill published in May is the first significant attempt to safeguard the public from online harms through legislation. However, as Alex Walker explains, the government’s current proposals are a missed opportunity to address online harms to democracy and could even make tackling disinformation more difficult.

In May, the government published its draft Online Safety Bill, which is currently undergoing pre-legislative scrutiny by a committee of both Houses. It is also the subject of an inquiry by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Sub-committee on Online Harms and Disinformation. Published two years after the Online Harms white paper, the draft bill represents the first major attempt in this country to regulate the online environment and the major companies that dominate it. Given the significance of the bill, the parliamentary attention it is currently receiving is welcome. Nevertheless, as much of the evidence given to parliament points out, the draft bill has significant weaknesses. In September, Constitution Unit Deputy Director Alan Renwick and I submitted evidence to the DCMS Sub-committee inquiry. We highlighted the draft bill’s failure to address online harms to democracy. There is a danger that in its present form the bill will make it more difficult to tackle disinformation that damages and undermines democracy.

Abandoning the field: from the Online Harms white paper to the draft Online Safety Bill

As previously documented, in the course of the development of the online safety regime measures to strengthen democracy in the face of new challenges posed by digital technology have been dropped from the proposals. The Online Harms white paper, published in April 2019, was explicit that various types of online activity could harm democracy. It referenced concerted disinformation campaigns, deepfakes, and micro-targeting. The white paper set out a number of actions that it was expected would be in the regulator’s Code of Practice. They included: using fact-checking services, especially during election campaigns; limiting the visibility of disputed content; promoting authoritative news sources and diverse news content; and processes to tackle those who mispresent their identity to spread disinformation.

In many areas, the white paper’s position chimed with the findings of a major inquiry into disinformation conducted by the DCMS select committee over the previous eighteen months.

But the publication of the draft Online Safety Bill in May confirmed that the government has opted for a much more limited approach. Only disinformation that could have a significant adverse physical or psychological impact on an individual is now in scope. In choosing this approach, the government ignored the recommendations of the House of Lords Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee, which proposed that certain service providers should have a duty of care towards democracy.

The emphasis has shifted decisively away from acknowledging that online platforms have a responsibility for the impact their technology has on democracy, towards a completely unregulated approach to political content, regardless of the broader democratic consequences.

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Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland: Final Report

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The final report of the Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland is published today. In this post, Alan Renwick, the Working Group’s Chair, outlines what the Group has sought to achieve, explains how it has pursued these goals, and highlights some of the core findings. He points out that, while there is no certainty that a referendum will happen any time soon, policy-makers need to be aware of the decisions that might have to be made.

The Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland was established approaching two years ago to examine how any future referendums on Northern Ireland’s constitutional status would best be designed and conducted. Based at the Constitution Unit, the Group comprises 12 experts in politics, law, history and sociology, from universities in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Great Britain and the United States. Since coming together, we have pooled our expertise – meeting at first face-to-face and later online – and listened to as many voices as we could, including politicians, former officials, journalists, community organisers, academics, and members of the general public. We have held dozens of in-depth conversations and received numerous written submissions. Our public consultation last summer attracted 1377 responses, which we have carefully analysed. Last November, we published an interim report setting out our draft findings. Through four public seminars, direct correspondence, and monitoring of traditional and social media, we have logged over 300 responses to it. Our final report takes account of all of that feedback.

The Working Group’s starting point

A crucial feature underpinning all of this work has been our starting point. The Group has no collective view on whether it would be desirable for referendums on Northern Ireland’s constitutional future to take place, or what the outcome should be if they do happen. Speaking personally, my interest in this subject stems from my broader work on how to conduct referendums well, including the Independent Commission on Referendums, which reported in 2018, and the 2019 Doing Democracy Better report, co-authored with Michela Palese. I have no position on where Northern Ireland’s future should lie.

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