Jim McMahon

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. The new media has quickly become the worst of the old media: owned, controlled and directed by the wealthy and powerful. My particular focus will be on social media, because it is no longer a movement of the people, nor has it been built or designed for the public good. It had the potential to be, but it has been deliberately designed not to be, and we are paying the price, with real harm, hate, division, exploitation and extremism normalised. I hear the petitioners’ concerns about the impact on community forums, but the truth is that online regulation does not go anywhere near far enough. That is because the previous Government failed to take the action that was needed. For instance, there is no fit and proper persons test—there should be. There is no editorial responsibility for content on the platforms—there should be. There is no adequate protection from malign foreign influence—there should be. There is no protection from disinformation —there should be. There are no meaningful safeguards against racism, misogyny or hate—there should be. There are no restrictions on Members of Parliament monetising content they produce—instead, they should post solely in the public interest, rather than generating income into their bank account—and there should be. There is no transparency on algorithms, nor the need to declare in-kind benefit in politics in the way that there is in almost every other aspect of political gain—again, there should be. As it stands, truth, democracy and the safeguarding of the public interest are under threat. The previous Government ducked it, offering a watered-down version that was backed up by a toothless regulator. We have seen what is possible when red lines are drawn; Australia has decided that the welfare of its children is more important than the interests of the powerful and the wealthy. That is leadership. The UK’s failure to stand up to powerful vested interests has played right into the hands of foreign forces who wish harm on our country, our way of life and our democracy. Technology is moving fast, as we are seeing with AI, and frankly, lawmakers need to be much sharper and quicker to keep up. The first duty of any Government is to protect the national security of their citizens, so for the Government, the question is simply this: when will they start to fight on this new front with vigour and finally do what the previous Government failed to do?