Online Safety Bill faces further delays

For the second time in four months, the Online Safety Bill has been delayed from proceeding through the House of Commons.

The Bill, ever-increasing in scope, was expected to have its third reading by MPs in the Commons on Tuesday 1st November. Originally, the Bill’s third reading was meant to take place in July but was delayed following Boris Johnson’s resignation as Prime Minister.

The Shadow culture secretary, Lucy Powell, called the delay “disgraceful” stating, “Every week that passes costs lives and takes a huge toll on those affected by abuse, trolling, scamming and algorithms encouraging self-harm and suicide.”

Richard Collard, child safety online policy and regulatory manager at the NSPCC, said “Families have long paid the price for the failure of tech firms to make their sites safe for children – they should not have to pay twice due to turmoil in Westminster.”

The legislation was a significant part of the government’s 2019 manifesto and aims to regulate online platforms and create rigorous accountability checks on the content that online platforms make available. It has attracted significant controversy over the potential impact it may have on free speech.

A DCMS spokesperson commenting on the latest delay said, “protecting children and stamping out illegal activity online is a top priority for the government, and we will bring the Online Safety Bill back to Parliament as soon as possible.”

The new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, hopeful to press on with the 2019 manifesto, stated earlier this year that the concerns raised about the Bill are fair and that it is “right that those concerns are properly considered”. He stated further that, “we need to have a way to protect children against harm … I want to make sure that we are also protecting free speech.”