Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much his Department has spent on promoted content on (a) Twitter, (b) Facebook and (c) Instagram in each month since June 2017.
Answered by Margot James
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) uses these platforms and other social media channels to communicate with specific target audiences on Government approved campaigns.
DCMS has spent £5,078 since June 2017 which amounts to 0.00169% of the overall communications spend across Government this year.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing publisher liability for social media companies.
Answered by Margot James
We are currently developing options for increasing the liability online platforms have for illegal content on their services. Applying publisher standards of liability to all online platforms could risk real damage to the digital economy. We will be carefully considering the options and consequences of change, and will set out our approach as part of the online harms and safety joint DCMS and Home Office White Paper on online harms which will be published by the end of the year.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether has made any representations to social media companies on the standard of contracted-out services they have employed to moderate abusive and illegal content; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Margot James
Ministers and officials have regular meetings and discussions with social media companies on a range of issues including safeguarding. Details of ministerial meetings are published quarterly on the Gov.uk website.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of organising a summit of media organisations to examine the issues of representation of people with visible differences in the media.
Answered by Margot James
We are committed to improving diversity in all its sectors. This is particularly important in the media which should reflect everyone in society, including those with visible differences. My department will continue to support the sector's steps towards this goal, by recognising the value of initiatives such as Project Diamond, and working closely with media organisations and Ofcom in relation to this matter.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he has taken to establish codes of conduct for social media companies and industry bodies on the treatment of antisemitic content on their platforms.
Answered by Margot James
We treat all hate crime with equal seriousness. There is simply no place for treating victims differently regardless of their race, religion, gender identity, sexuality or disability.
As announced by the Prime Minister in her speech on 6 February, we intend to publish the Government response to the Internet Safety Strategy consultation in the spring. This will include further details about our social media code of practice which will help tackle abusive conduct online.
The Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism's Cyber Hate Working Group has been engaging with industry and one of its achievements is the agreement of a 'Best Practice' document which is published by the Anti-Defamation League and has been signed by all the major companies based in the United States, but does not specifically call for the removal of illegal content within 24 hours.
The Government supports the European Commission's initiative to agree a second generation of this agreement, which commits the signatories to removing illegal hate speech within 24 hours.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent estimate his Department has made of the proportion of BBC content that includes audio description; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Margot James
A digitally inclusive society is a key priority for the government, and everyone should be able to enjoy and exploit the benefits and convenience afforded to able-bodied people.
Ofcom is required under the Communications Act (2003) to set targets for the proportion of BBC output that should be audio described. Currently BBC channels (excluding BBC Parliament) are required to audio describe 10% of their programme content (except in the case of BBC News). Ofcom publishes reports on the provision of access services. The latest report shows that BBC channels comfortably exceeded their targets:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/multi-sector-research/accessibility-research/tv-access-services-2017
As Ofcom’s report shows, broadcasters in the UK already provide a high level of subtitling, signing and audio description which is available for scheduled programming, but there is still room for improvement. Through the Digital Economy Act 2017, the provision of access services (subtitling, signing and audio description) is being extended to on demand services. Ofcom is in the process of consulting to determine the requirements that providers of on-demand programme services will be required to meet which will then be set out by the Secretary of State.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent meetings he has had with educational organisations to discuss arts, music and culture in schools.
Answered by Michael Ellis
Details of ministerial meetings are published quarterly on the Gov.uk website.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many complaints relating to (a) automated and (b) live telesales calls have been received by the Information Commissioner's Office since 2016; how many fines were issued by that Office against offending companies in that same period; and how many of those fines were for the maximum possible amount.
Answered by Margot James
The Information Commissioner's Office is responsible for investigating concerns raised about and taking enforcement action against automated and live telesales calls. The Information Commissioner's Office publish these statistics in their annual report at https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/our-information/annual-operational-reports-201617/unlawful-marketing-reports-and-concerns/ and on their website at https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/nuisance-calls-and-messages/.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many complaints concerning (a) automated and (b) live telesales calls were received by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in 2016-17; how many fines were issued by the ICO against such offending companies in 2016-17; and how many of those fines were for the maximum possible amount.
Answered by Matt Hancock
In the period from January 2016 to December 2016, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) received (a) 71,192 complaints concerning automated calls and (b) 63,636 complaints concerning live telesales calls.
In the same period, 22 monetary penalties were issued by the ICO against organisations for breaches of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. No organisation was fined the maximum monetary penalty of £500,000 by the ICO.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 16 December 2016 to Question 57400, on what date she plans to publish the results of the call for evidence on the Review of Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility Measures.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
We will publish findings and any proposals in due course.