Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Newlands Excerpts
Thursday 10th December 2020

(3 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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John Whittingdale Portrait Mr Whittingdale
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As I recall, the Information Commissioner examined the practices of all political parties and made comments against all of them. However, it did not find that any breaches of the law had occurred.

Gavin Newlands Portrait Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
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What recent steps his Department has taken to tackle the proliferation of (a) misinformation and (b) disinformation online.

Caroline Dinenage Portrait The Minister for Digital and Culture (Caroline Dinenage)
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The Government take the issue of misinformation and disinformation very seriously, and DCMS is leading work across Government to tackle it. As this can be particularly harmful during the pandemic, we stood up the counter-disinformation unit to bring together cross-Government monitoring and analysis capabilities. We are working closely with social media platforms to help them to identify and remove incorrect claims about the virus and to promote authoritative information.

Gavin Newlands Portrait Gavin Newlands
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Online misinformation is a great harm to us all. It can make people refuse life-saving medicines, it can make people believe that the so-called leader of the free world has been cheated out of an election, and in the last of the 16 days of action on gender-based violence against women and girls, it is important to note that 52% of young women and girls have been abused online and that 87% think the problem is getting worse. When will we finally see the online harms Bill, given that the social media and tech companies are doing nowhere near enough to protect individuals and society at large?

Caroline Dinenage Portrait Caroline Dinenage
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The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight this. We know that the vast majority of misinformation is harmful but legal. It is really important that we develop a comprehensive piece of legislation, working closely with civil society and the tech platforms, so that where disinformation is illegal or encourages illegal behaviours it can be dealt with, and so that we can address false narratives online and try to root out the content that is legal but harmful, particularly to children. With that in mind, we will be publishing the online harms response very shortly, and we plan to bring forward the legislation early next year.