Lords grill Facebook and Twitter on social media offences
The House of Lords Communications Committee continues its short inquiry into social media offences, when they question representatives from the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Chief Police Officers, Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday 9 July.
The Committee will begin at 3.45pm, when they speak to:
- Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions and Tim Thompson, Legal Adviser, both from the Crown Prosecution Service; and
- Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh, Association of Chief Police Officers.
The Committee will question the witnesses on subjects including whether the laws around social media offences could be more ‘technology-neutral'; how widely they think it is understood that communications over social media can amount to a criminal offence; if they can confirm that complaints originating from social media make up about half of the calls passed to front-line police officers; and whether ‘revenge porn' fits into the ‘grossly offensive' category, and what advice they would give to someone who made a complaint about it.
Following on, at 4.45pm, the Committee will question:
- Simon Milner, Policy Director, UK, Middle East and Africa for Facebook; and
- Sinéad McSweeney, Director of Public Policy, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Twitter International Company.
They will be grilled on issues including what Facebook and Twitter do to prevent exposure to harassing, threatening or grossly offensive material online, and what options they provide to enable users to report abuse; what is the process for responding to such reports and how long it takes for them to respond; and how many requests they receive from the UK police or courts per month, asking them to identify the IDs of users accused of posting harassing, threatening or grossly offensive material online.
The evidence sessions will take place on Wednesday 9 July at 3.45pm in Committee Room 2a of the House of Lords.
