Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment he has made of the correlation between misinformation and radicalisation; and whether the Misinformation Unit reports radicalisation to the Home Office.

The Government takes the issue of misinformation and disinformation very seriously. That is why we stood up the Counter Disinformation Unit up in March 2020 to bring together cross-Government monitoring and analysis capabilities. The Unit’s primary function is to provide a comprehensive picture of the extent, scope and impact of misinformation and disinformation regarding Covid-19 and to work with partners. including the Home Office, to ensure appropriate action is taken.

There is no single pathway to radicalisation but we are aware that misinformation is one tool amongst many used by radicalisers to recruit and influence vulnerable people. Since the pandemic, we have also observed extremist influencers exploiting Covid-19 to spread conspiracy theories and false narratives to promote their own agenda.

We are absolutely clear that online content which makes dangerous or incorrect claims about the virus, or propels extreme views must be tackled. In addition to our work with the social media platforms to address misinformation and disinformation and our work to build audience resilience to disinformation online through the SHARE checklist, we also work closely with the Home Office, whose existing programmes such as Prevent play a key role in tackling the issue of radicalisation in all its forms.