My Lords, I will briefly address Amendments 43 and 87 in my name. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Harding and Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for adding their names to these amendments. They are complementary to the others in this group, on which the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, have spoken.
In Committee the Minister argued that it would be unfair to place the same child safety duties across all platforms. He said:
“This provision recognises that what it is proportionate to require of providers at either end of that scale will be different”.—[Official Report, 2/5/23; col. 1443.]
Think back to the previous group of amendments we debated. We talked about functionality and the way in which algorithms drive these systems. They drive you in all directions—to a large platform with every bell and whistle you might anticipate because it complies with the legislation, but also, willy-nilly, without any conscious thought because that is how it is designed, to a much smaller site. If we do not amend the legislation as it stands, they will take you to smaller sites that do not require the same level of safety duties, particularly towards children. I think we all fail to understand the logic behind that argument.
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Child safety duties are based on the risk identified in the child risk assessments, which all services must carry out. If the risk is found to be low, the duties on that service will not be too onerous. If the risk is high, the duties should be onerous. Is the Minister seriously saying that, if the platform is small but the risk to children is high, because the platform is small it does not need the same level of safety duties as a large platform? That completely goes against the spirit and direction of the Bill.
Smaller is not safer. We know that, even with the very smallest platforms, real harm can transfer into the real world. I mentioned that I had been talking earlier today with an associate professor at UCL who has recently been looking at the world of incels—involuntary celibates. These forums often have very small memberships and numbers of people visiting, but their ability to get into a very unpleasant world of anti-immigrant hate speech, stirring up communities against refugees and migrants, and potentially women if they are incels, is a real-world problem.
I simply ask the Minister to reflect and look carefully at this and, frankly, the illogicality of the Government’s current approach to see whether we can yet again improve the Bill—as he has on so many occasions.