Obliging Platforms to Accept a Duty of Care

Abstract

This chapter introduces the statutory duty of care model of regulation proposed by Carnegie UK Trust and which underpinned the approach of the UK Government’s Online Harms White Paper. Based on the approach found in the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the proposal is for systems-based regulation which has two aspects. The first that it is the platform that should be regulated not the content, including the design of the platform and the operation of the business. Secondly, the duty of care implies a risk assessment so that reasonably foreseeable harms are avoided where possible or mitigated. Perfection is not required and this regime does not impose liability on the platform for individual items of content. An independent regulator was envisaged, one that had a double role: enforcement and the development of good behaviours through codes of practice.