Originally published on Politics Home
Conservative MP John Penrose has said that legislation to tackle online bias and misinformation is needed to prevent the emergence of a “post-truth world”, as he plans an amendment to the Media Bill.
Penrose, the MP for Weston-super-Mare, was the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion in the Home Office between 2017 and 2022, and has consistently called on the government to do more to tackle the threats of misinformation and disinformation.
Earlier this year, Penrose spoke in Parliament to say there were large gaps remaining in the Online Safety Bill, which has now passed into law. The government passed their own version of one of Penrose’s amendments which dealt with the provenance and understanding of where information posted on the internet comes from.
However, Penrose said an area on which the Bill remained “particularly weak” was putting a duty on internet platforms to prevent misinformation, disinformation, and bias. Many campaigners agreed that this was one of many gaps left in the legislation.
“I hope that everyone in this House accepts that that area will need to be revisited in due course,” he said when it was debated in the Commons, with then-minister Paul Scully responding that “undoubtedly we will have to come back to that point”.
Penrose now wants to have this area considered in the government’s new Media Bill, and is currently “engaged in a delicate dance” to figure out how he can bring forward an amendment which will be in scope of the legislation.
He said his intention was “to try and deal with stuff which is factually accurate, but biased”.
“For more than half a century, we’ve had rules to ensure balance, and the broadcast codes around undue prominence and balance are designed specifically to deal with this,” he told PoliticsHome.
“In the modern world, the online world leads you down all sorts of radicalisation rabbit holes on everything from Islamic Jihad through to vaccine denial.
“All the stuff about provenance and where the information comes from in the world won’t solve that problem. What we have always accepted when it comes to broadcasters is that this matters, because otherwise you end up with radicalisation and you lose that sort of democratic consensus forging the centre ground.
“We don’t want to live in a post-truth world.”
Penrose now wants to have this area considered in the government’s new Media Bill, and is currently “engaged in a delicate dance” to figure out how he can bring forward an amendment which will be in scope of the legislation.
He said his intention was “to try and deal with stuff which is factually accurate, but biased”.
“For more than half a century, we’ve had rules to ensure balance, and the broadcast codes around undue prominence and balance are designed specifically to deal with this,” he told PoliticsHome.
“In the modern world, the online world leads you down all sorts of radicalisation rabbit holes on everything from Islamic Jihad through to vaccine denial.
“All the stuff about provenance and where the information comes from in the world won’t solve that problem. What we have always accepted when it comes to broadcasters is that this matters, because otherwise you end up with radicalisation and you lose that sort of democratic consensus forging the centre ground.
“We don’t want to live in a post-truth world.”