Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether instructions on how to take your own life will be considered illegal content that assists suicide in the new online safety regime.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Encouraging or assisting suicide is illegal. Any website publishing illegal suicide content is already breaking the law.
Under the Online Safety Bill, all platforms in scope will need to tackle and remove illegal material online.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions officials in her Department have had with representatives of social media platforms on tackling the use of anonymous accounts to abuse people.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Officials have regular meetings and discussions with social media platforms on a range of issues, including the use of anonymous accounts.
The Online Safety Bill will require companies in scope to manage the risk of online anonymous abuse. Companies will need to remove and limit the spread of illegal content and prevent children from harmful abuse. Major platforms will also need to set out clearly what legal content is acceptable for adult users on their services and enforce their terms and conditions consistently and transparently. This applies whether a user is anonymous or not.
If platforms fail in their duties under the Bill, they will face tough enforcement action including fines of up to 10% of global annual qualifying turnover.
The draft Bill has been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee which reported its recommendations on 14 December. We are considering the Committee’s report and will introduce the Bill as soon as possible.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to encourage and promote participation in sport by children and young people with autism.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
As set out in the government’s recent autism strategy (“The National Strategy for Autistic Children, Young People and Adults: 2021 to 2026”), the government is working to enable more people, including autistic children and young people, to be physically active.
Sport England, the government arm’s length body for community sport, launched its new strategy, “Uniting the Movement”, in January 2021. In line with this, they are working to tackle the inequalities and barriers that exist within sport and physical activity, and to unlock the benefits of being active for everyone, regardless of background or ability. As part of this effort, Sport England will be working with key partners to engage autistic people at all levels and in all forms of sport and physical activity, including across volunteering and coaching.
The Department for Education also recently announced funding for “Inclusion 2024”, being led by the Youth Sport Trust, which will improve physical education and school sport for young people with special educational needs and disabilities in thousands of schools across England.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what representations her Department has made to TikTok, the social networking service, in relation to videos posted on that platform that target teachers with abuse; and what steps she plans to take in the Online Safety Bill to help tackle that issue.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Online abuse is unacceptable and the government is liaising with TikTok on how it is protecting its users in this matter.
Under the draft Online Safety Bill, companies in scope will need to minimise and remove illegal content including criminal online abuse targeted at teachers.
Major platforms will also need to address legal but harmful content for adults.These companies will have to set out clearly what legal content is acceptable on their platforms and enforce their terms and conditions consistently and transparently.
If platforms fail in their duties under the Bill, they will face tough enforcement action including fines of up to 10% of global annual qualifying turnover.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to strengthen child protection measures in the draft Online Safety Bill.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
The strongest protections in the draft Online Safety Bill are for children. Services in scope will need to prove children are not accessing their service, or they will need to conduct a child safety risk assessment and provide safety measures for child users. Those safety measures will protect children from inappropriate and harmful content.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has had discussions with representatives of any of the English football clubs who signed up to the European Super League since the announcement of the formation of that league on 19 April 2021.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Neither DCMS Ministers nor officials have had discussions with representatives of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City or Manchester United football clubs since the European Super League (ESL) announcement.
After the announcement, I spoke briefly with a representative of Tottenham Hotspur and discussed the possibility of a meeting with the 6 clubs to allow them to express their position on the ESL. That meeting did not take place though and I have had no further contact with the clubs on this matter.
The full list of Ministerial meetings can be found on gov.uk.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to introduce user advocacy arrangements to represent children to the regulator to help tackle online harms, funded by an industry levy; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Protecting children is at the heart of our plans to transform the online experience for people in the UK and the strongest protections in the online harms framework will be for children. Under these new laws, Ofcom will have a duty to establish ongoing mechanisms for user advocacy. This is to ensure Ofcom understands the experiences of users, including children, and is able to detect and address issues early on.
The costs incurred by Ofcom in carrying out its functions under the Online Safety Bill, will be met by proportionate fees charged to industry.
The Online Safety Bill, which will give effect to the regulatory framework outlined in the Online Harms White Paper full government response, will be ready this year.