My Lords, as noble Lords know, His Majesty’s Government are committed to defending the invaluable role of a free media, and our online safety legislation must protect the vital role of the press in providing people with reliable and accurate information online. That is why we have included strong protections for recognised news publishers in the Bill.
Clause 49(9) and (10) set out what is considered “news publisher content” in relation to a regulated user-to-user service, while Clause 52 sets out that news publishers’ content is exempt from search services’ duties. The government amendments clarify minor elements of these exemptions and definitions. Given the evolving consumption habits for news, recognised news publishers might clip or edit content from their published or broadcast versions to cater to different audiences and platforms. We want to ensure that recognised news publisher content is protected in all its forms, as long as that content is created or generated by the news publishers themselves.
First, our amendments clarify that any video or audio content published or broadcast by recognised news publishers will be exempt from the Bill’s safety duties and will benefit from the news publisher appeals process, when shared on platforms in scope of the Bill. These amendments ensure that old terminology works effectively in the internet age. The amendments now also make it clear that any news publisher content that is clipped or edited by the publisher itself will qualify for the Bill’s protections when shared by third parties on social media. However, these protections will not apply when a third-party user modifies that content itself. This will ensure that the protections do not apply to news publisher content that has been edited by a user in a potentially harmful way.
The amendments make it clear that the Bill’s protections apply to links to any article, video or audio content generated by recognised news publishers, clipped or edited, and regardless of the form in which that content was first published or broadcast. Taken together, these amendments ensure that our online safety legislation protects recognised news publishers’ content as intended. I hope noble Lords will support them. I beg to move.