UK Parliament Watch

Luke EVans being touched up to look good in a photo

Conservative MP Luke Evans has drawn up a Private Members Bill which would mean celebrities would have to label images which have been digitally altered to change how they look.

Evans, a member of the Health and Social Care Committee and a GP, claimed that edited photos on social media were fuelling a mental health crisis as it was creating a warped view of beauty. Celebrities such as Lauren Goodger and Khloe Kardashian have been criticised for doctoring their photos on Instagram.

Former culture secretary Jeremy Wright is setting up a parliamentary group (All party parliamentary group, APPG) to campaign for internet censorship

Wright, who drew up the Government's white paper proposing strict sanctions on tech platforms who fail to protect users under a duty of care is particularly calling for censorship powers to block, ban, fine or restrict apps and websites considered undesirable by the proposed internet censor, Ofcom. Wright said:

There needs to be a lot more clubs in the bag for the regulator than just fines, he said. I do think we need to consider criminal liability for individual (tech company) directors where it can be demonstrated.

He also felt the regulator should have powers of ISP blocking, which effectively bar an app from the UK, in cases of companies repeatedly and egregiously refusing to comply with censorship rules. He said:

I do accept the chances of WhatsApp being turned off are remote. Although frankly, there may be circumstances where that may be the right thing to do and we shouldn't take it off the table.

Wright is founding the APPG alongside crossbench peer and children's digital rights campaigner Beeban Kidron, and the group has already attracted supporters, including three other former culture secretaries: Baroness Nicky Morgan, Karen Bradley and Maria Miller, as well as former Health and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

More censorship legislation is needed to protect people online after social media giants' failure to tackle hate speech on their websites, claims the Labour Party.

Jo Stevens, shadow secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, claimed the UK desperately needed legislation forcing platforms to act because self-regulation isn't working.

The Labour party is accusing the Government of delaying the introduction of an online harms bill to protect Internet users. It comes after politicians and campaigners condemned Twitter for being too slow to remove anti-Semitic tweets by rapper Wiley.

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he has written to Instagram and Twitter to make it clear that they need to act immediately to remove social media posts that Labour does not like.