On 16 December, the Chair of the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, Damian Collins MP, made a statement in the House of Commons following the publication of the Joint Committee’s report.
In his statement, Mr Collins outlined the areas the Bill is looking to address, particularly regulation of the online sphere that is different to the offline space. Mr Collins stated:
“We now have to move to a regulatory regime for social media companies, big search engines and other big online firms, where it is laws passed in this Parliament that apply and terms of service written in silicon valley are not the guiding principle for regulation.”
One of the main recommendations in the Joint Committee’s report is that Ofcom should set mandatory codes of practice that will deal with illegal content such as child abuse and content that promotes or glamorises terrorism.
Mr Collins also used his statement to thank the members of the Joint Committee, staff and contributors. The full statement can be read here.
The Joint Committee was formed as a pre-legislative scrutiny Committee by orders of the House of Commons and House of Lords. It has sat for around three months and published its report on 14 December 2021.
You can read TIGA’s summary of the Joint Committee’s report on the Draft Online Safety Bill and what it might mean for the video games industry here.