Key Facts

• Richard Earley works for Meta as UK public policy manager leading on content issues.
• Meta has invested over $13 billion in safety and security over five years.
• Over 40,000 people work at Meta on safety and security daily.
• On Facebook, only 0.03% of views contain hate speech after efforts to reduce harmful posts.
• Instagram finds and removes more than 90% of all content breaking its policies itself.
• Richard Earley works at Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
• Over 40,000 people globally work on safety and security for Meta platforms, with about half directly reviewing posts and content.
• The network covers more than 70 languages and includes over 850 safety partners.
• Richard Earley rejects claims that Meta has failed in its moral obligation to protect users, particularly children.
• Meta publishes a transparency report every quarter showing enforcement of community standards and the likelihood of finding harmful content on the platform.
• EY conducted an independent audit of Meta's systems last week.
• The company is introducing new products and changes aligned with the Bill's objectives.
• Facebook's current rate of hate speech is three in every 10,000 views.
• This figure has declined from six in every 10,000 about 12 months ago.
• Every time someone reports something on Facebook or Instagram, they receive a response into their support inbox.
• Richard Earley discusses harmful Facebook groups dedicated to breaking rules.
• Facebook removes content based on community standards and provides explanations to users.
• In the previous year, Facebook supported over 400 independent research projects with data.
• An expansion of the Facebook open research tool was announced recently.
• Roger Gale is chairing the Public Bill Committee meeting on the Online Safety Bill.
• Richard Earley from Meta discusses the importance of transparency in sharing internal data with researchers.
• The draft Bill contained a proposed new media literacy duty that seems to have disappeared.
• The Online Safety Bill is under parliamentary scrutiny.
• Witnesses include Professor Clare McGlynn, Jessica Eagleton from Refuge, and Janaya Walker from End Violence Against Women.
• Roger Gale feels that there was not enough time for a thorough discussion of the issues.
• The Online Safety Bill is under scrutiny in the Public Bill Committee.
• Concerns are raised about the lack of provisions for violence against women and girls being directly named in the Bill.
• Cyber-flashing, while criminalized, requires proof of intent to cause distress or sexual gratification, which may limit prosecutions.
• Trafficking offences are not a priority under current legislation.
• The Obscene Publications Act does not cover unlawful images like incest porn as a priority offence.
• Cyber-flashing is not listed as a priority offence.
• Blackmail, particularly sexual extortion, has risen during the pandemic but remains unlisted as a priority offence.
• Black and minoritised women experience abuse at a higher rate than their white counterparts, according to research by EVAW and Glitch.
• Amnesty International found that black women face harassment rates 84% higher than those experienced by white women.
• The Bill lacks clear language regarding intersectionality and protected characteristics, which raises concerns about its effectiveness in addressing discrimination.
• Age assurance measures are seen as insufficient due to easy evasion by users.
• 75% of 16 and 17-year-olds know how to bypass age verification controls.
• Twitter's terms and conditions do not effectively prevent sexually violent content from being accessible.
• One in eight titles on mainstream pornography sites describe sexually violent material.
• Professor Clare McGlynn testified about the challenges of enforcing age verification on pornographic websites.
• Pornhub’s parent company, MindGeek, is based in Canada where it faces regulatory scrutiny.
• The European Parliament has proposed similar measures in its debates on the Digital Services Act.
• Roger Gale calls Alex Davies-Jones to begin questioning.
• The witnesses are Lulu Freemont (head of digital regulation at techUK), Ian Stevenson (chairman of OSTIA), and Adam Hildreth (CEO of Crisp).
• The session aims to discuss the impact of the Online Safety Bill on UK's tech start-up potential and job creation.
• The Online Safety Bill impacts around 25,000 tech companies in the UK.
• Smaller businesses require clear guidelines and definitions for harmful content.
• Ofcom should provide detailed codes of practice to support compliance without stifling innovation.
• The focus is on the metaverse and virtual reality.
• The Bill aims to encourage new start-ups to prioritize safety in their technologies.
• A suggestion is made for a Joint Committee to review the Act's evolution over time.
• The Online Safety Bill aims to future-proof regulations by relying on systems and processes rather than specific technologies.
• TechUK advocates for an independent committee to review definitions of harm over time.
• Smaller tech businesses are concerned about diverting staff from existing work to comply with the regime.
• There is a risk that senior management liability provisions could have a chilling effect on smaller businesses.
• The purpose of the Online Safety Bill is to prevent harmful online content, behaviour, and contact.
• Companies need to treat safety as a core risk assessment process, similar to health and safety in the workplace.
• TechUK members are concerned about legal clarity regarding their role in supporting platform infrastructure.
• The Online Safety Bill aims to balance safety, free speech, and innovation.
• Stakeholders support the prioritisation of illegal content definitions in the Bill.
• Concerns include defining harmful content, prohibiting general monitoring, limiting Secretary of State's amendment powers, and clarifying scope for business-to-business companies.
• Roger Gale thanked Ms Freemont, Mr Hildreth, and Mr Stevenson for their input.
• He invited them to provide further observations in writing if they had any more points to make.
• The Bill aims to differentiate regulations based on the distinct incentives and designs of different platforms.
• Match Group's model focuses on subscription-based revenue rather than advertising.
• Yubo (formerly Yellow Tinder) is a social media platform with high risk for young people despite not having a subscription-based service.
• Age assurance services should be brought under the Bill's remit, emphasizing third-party verification over in-house company checks.
• Dr. Rachel O'Connell is an author of the technical standard PAS 1296, an age checking code of practice.
• The system ensures a zero data, zero knowledge model.
• Companies have argued in the past that age verification would be overly burdensome and pose privacy risks.
• Research shows young children are tired of dealing with inappropriate individuals online.
• Algorithms on platforms like TikTok identify users interested in underage content and connect them seamlessly.
• There has been a quadrupling of child sexual abuse material termed 'self-generated' by offenders who did not produce it.
• Solutions exist for age verification, such as BT trials which received positive feedback from parents and children.
• Bumble is uniquely female-founded and female-led with safety-by-design ethos.
• Women are 27 times more likely than men to suffer online harassment and harms.
• The Bill does not currently acknowledge or reference gender or women.
• Roger Gale thanks witnesses for their input on the Online Safety Bill.
• Witnesses include Dr Rachel O'Connell, Jared Sine, Nima Elmi, Rhiannon-Faye McDonald from the Marie Collins Foundation, and Susie Hargreaves from the Internet Watch Foundation.
• The Online Safety Bill aims to provide higher standards of care for children online.
• There is concern about the contextual nature of child sexual abuse content not being fully covered by illegal content provisions.
• A risk-based approach to platform categorisation is supported to address variations in content hosting and user demographics.
• When Facebook stopped scanning due to privacy directive, millions of images of child sexual abuse were lost.
• One survivor's image was recirculated 70,000 times.
• Current tools like PhotoDNA and classifiers can identify conversations where grooming is happening but are not being used on private platforms immediately.
• The Bill requires platforms to scan their networks for child sexual abuse content and report on it.
• The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) works closely with internet companies to address child sexual abuse material.
• The IWF hopes for direct access to quarterly data on child exploitation and abuse removal systems from high-risk services.
• There is uncertainty about the future relationship between the IWF and Ofcom regarding co-designation as a regulator.
• Roger Gale welcomed Ellen Judson from Demos.
• Roger Gale also welcomed Kyle Taylor from Fair Vote.
• The session was held after a long day.
• The Bill includes media and speech of democratic importance exemptions.
• A majority of harmful content originates from entities meeting these exceptions.
• An example is given involving a white supremacist attack influenced by Tucker Carlson’s Fox News, right-wing blogs, and political figures who would qualify for the exemptions.
• The Bill could make the internet less safe than it currently is.
• Platforms should focus on mitigation measures beyond just content removal.
• Companies need to be more transparent about their testing and consultation processes.
• The Online Safety Bill risks incentivising over-moderation due to its broad focus on illegal content.
• There is a concern that the Bill does not do enough to protect human rights, particularly privacy and anonymity online.
• Clause 15 and clause 16 of the Bill are intended to protect 'content of democratic importance' and 'journalistic content', but there is worry these may disproportionately benefit politicians and journalists.
• The Bill aims to balance online safety with protections for democratic or journalistic importance.
• Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides enhanced protection for freedom of the press relative to otherwise.
• Clause 50 exempts recognised news publishers from certain provisions, but Taylor suggests this could be abused by entities that do not meet standards of responsible journalism.
• Roger Gale is closing the day’s sitting of the Public Bill Committee.
• Witnesses are invited to submit written evidence if they did not have time to respond verbally.
• The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 26th, at 11:30 am.