Tag: disinformation

Bishop of Oxford asks about combatting climate disinformation

On 13th December 2023, the Bishop of Oxford asked about the need to combat climate disinformation, particularly online, in light of recent developments at the COP28 conference:

The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, I assume the Minister will be aware of the large amount of lobbying taking place, not only at the COP but around the COP through social media. One oil company is estimated to have spent $1.8 million on TikTok videos alone, seen by millions of people across the world, and helping to spread climate disinformation. Does the Minister think the Government should be doing more through the Counter-Disinformation Unit to challenge climate disinformation, given the scale of what is happening and the risk to the world of the failure to curb emissions?

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Bishop of York asks about tackling online disinformation

During a debate on misinformation relating to the conflict in Israel and Gaza on 24th October 2023, the Archbishop of York asked a question on the proliferation of disinformation on X, (formerly Twitter):

The Lord Archbishop of York: My Lords, it is good to hear that the Government are engaging with the social media platforms on this incredibly serious issue. Twitter has most aptly been renamed X, but without irony: one goes into this area with great caution, as it is distressing and nasty. I am told that X is currently laying off people whose job it is to monitor and remove posts that contain disinformation. Given this, and given that we have made progress in looking at social media platforms, what are we doing to require them to do this other than simply engaging with them?

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Online Safety Bill: Bishop of Oxford speaks to amendments on misinformation and disinformation online

On 6th July 2023, during the first day of the report stage on the Online Safety Bill, the Bishop of Oxford spoke in support of amendments targeting the spread of misinformation and disinformation online, particularly with regard to the risk posed to children:

The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, I too welcome these amendments and thank the Minister and the Government for tabling them. The Bill will be significantly strengthened by Amendment 172 and related amendments by putting the harms as so clearly described in the Bill. I identify with the comments of others that we also need to look at functionality. I hope we will do that in the coming days.

I also support Amendment 174, to which I added my name. Others have covered proposed new subsection (9B) very well; I add my voice to those encouraging the Minister to give it more careful consideration. I will also speak briefly to proposed new subsection (9A), on misinformation and disinformation content. With respect to those who have spoken against it and argued that those are political terms, I argue that they are fundamentally ethical terms. For me, the principle of ethics and the online world is not the invention of new ethics but finding ways to acknowledge and support online the ethics we acknowledge in the offline world.

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