This joint statement has been signed by 47 of our Network partners, who are listed below.
The past six months have brought debates about children’s online safety to the very heart of British life and politics. Young people, parents, politicians, campaigners, and academics have all made it clear that we need to reset the terms of tech companies’ engagement with children, and all users. Lawsuits in the US have shone a spotlight on their accountability for harmful, intentional design choices. An MP, Jess Asato, is taking legal action against xAI in the UK after Grok created a torrent of sexually explicit non-consensual images of her. Hardly a day goes by without news of more harm to individuals from their engagement with unsafe, unregulated chatbots.
The Government has been moving in the right direction but its response to date has been fragmented and slow: a patchwork of new criminal offences, only introduced after concerted campaigns by victims’ groups and cross-party Parliamentarians; a move to bring AI chatbots partially into the Online Safety Act (OSA) based on content-based harms, rather than regulating them as harmful products or bringing in wider AI safety regulation; a ban on children under 16 accessing social media, rather than bolder moves to address the unsafe intentional design of those products that are the root cause of harm – and make them safer for all users, not just kids.
Regulations to allow researchers access to social media data – key to transparency and informed policy development – have been kicked into the long grass. Action on online violence against women and girls is dependent on tech companies’ voluntary cooperation. A Bill to reform elections contains nothing to address the algorithmically-fuelled online abuse designed to intimidate and silence candidates, elected officials and others in public life nor to stem the impact of online disinformation on democracy. Small but risky platforms that host communities seeking to harm the most vulnerable in society get a free pass.
Meanwhile, Ofcom’s enforcement of the OSA proceeds too cautiously and lacks ambition and real teeth, with much-needed action on, amongst other things, fraudulent ads to protect consumers from scams, and the introduction of user empowerment tools to protect individuals from online abuse, still 18 months away from coming into force and sanctions so far doing nothing to dent the cost of doing business for the platforms.
The new Prime Minister now has an opportunity to reset the narrative, refocus the Government and the regulator and show leadership internationally by taking back control from the global businesses whose pursuit of profit runs counter to the achievement of a good digital life for British citizens. Ban or no ban, much more needs to be done to make social media platforms and AI companies accountable for the harm caused by the products they develop and deploy: adopting the Network’s Safety by Design code of practice and implementing our 10 Point Plan to strengthen the OSA would be a start.
But the UK urgently needs a much more comprehensive and adaptive approach to online safety and AI regulation that tackles the profit-driven business model, resets the parameters for doing business in the UK, addresses the role of online advertising in fuelling content-based harms, and secures the integrity of our information environment and democracy. None of this is a bar to growth and innovation: good, outcome-focused regulation sets the foundation for both.
Legislation cannot stand still, and the Government and Parliament need a means by which to ensure it keeps pace with emerging harms. An annual Digital Media, Data and Communications Bill – scrutinised and monitored by a standing Committee of both Houses – would give the Government much-needed flexibility, harness cross-party support and prevent the build-up of tension and anger at political inaction that exploded at the beginning of this year.
In Opposition, the then shadow digital spokesperson Lucy Powell MP promised to bring in a new Bill as soon as the Labour Government got into power to fill the known gaps in the OSA and strengthen its approach to societal harm. The evidence of harm may have continued to build in the intervening years, but so has the expertise on how to deal with it.
We call on the new Prime Minister to restore faith in politics, stand up for British people – particularly the most vulnerable – and make good on Powell’s promise early in his new term. We stand ready to support him.
Signed by:
- Online Safety Act Network
- FlippGen
- Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy, University of Cambridge
- Gender + Tech Research Lab, University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science
- End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW)
- Elect Her
- Antisemitism Policy Trust
- Centre for Protecting Women Online
- Full Fact
- NSPCC
- Molly Rose Foundation
- Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD)
- The Digital Gender Harms Research Unit (DiGHRU), University of Portsmouth
- The Coalition to End Gambling Ads
- Check My Ads
- 5Rights Foundation
- Equality Now
- Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi)
- Chayn
- Internet Watch Foundation
- Womankind Worldwide
- Adele Zeynep Walton
- Clean Up The Internet
- My Image My Choice
- Thomas William Parfett Foundation
- Fawcett Society
- Shout Out UK
- Kick It Out
- Plan International UK
- Conscious Advertising Network
- The Jo Cox Foundation
- Dr. Elinor Carmi, City St. George’s, University of London
- Samaritans
- HOPE not hate
- Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)
- Professor Emma Short, London Metropolitan University
- Welsh Women’s Aid
- #NotYourPorn
- SWGfL
- Internet Matters
- Demos
- Reset Tech
- Professor Lorna Woods OBE, Emeritus Professor, Essex University
- Save the Children UK
- Centenary Action
- Professor Clare McGlynn, Durham University
- Mental Health Foundation
- Steve Wood, Senior Visiting Fellow, LSE and former UK Deputy Information Commissioner