Dowden: No online rights for groups

LOBBYISTS and pressure groups will not be able to force online platforms to remove comments they find offensive, the Culture Secretary said yesterday.

Oliver Dowden said he did not intend to create ‘rights for groups’ – meaning organisations will be unable to complain about online reporting they believe is unfairly critical of those they represent.

Appearing before the Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee, he was asked if groups such as footballers who believed they were targeted over their ethnicity would be able to complain to social media platforms.

He said: ‘We’re having this prelegislative scrutiny, but it is not the intention at the moment to create rights for groups.’

Mr Dowden was responding to questions about the Online Safety Bill, which was announced in the Queen’s Speech. Critics fear it could lead to censorship.

Answering questions from Tory MP Damian Hinds, he said a law similar to Australia’s to make tech firms such as Facebook and Google pay to use news stories would take up to two years to bring in.

Mr Dowden favours a more ‘holistic’ approach that would also deal with the tech firms’control of advertising markets.

The Culture Secretary was ‘deeply sceptical’ that the Press bodies Ipso and Impress could have a role in regulating newspapers’ online comment boards.

And he said privatising Channel 4 will be considered in a public service broadcasting review.