Social Media

(asked on 1st February 2021) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment the Government has made of the level of threat of (a) professionalised and organised bot activity, (b) trolling or doxing, and (c) politically motivated polarisation to UK public life (i) in general and (ii) in the context of the upcoming May elections.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 5th February 2021

The Government takes the issues of disinformation, online manipulation and abuse very seriously and remains committed to strengthening the integrity of our electoral system and giving the public confidence that our elections are modern, fair and secure.

The Defending Democracy programme is working to ensure a joined-up cross-Government approach to safeguarding UK democracy. The programme’s objectives are to protect democratic processes; strengthen the integrity of elections; encourage respect for open and safe democratic participation; and promote open, fact-based discourse.

The Government is committed to ensuring that democratic events are delivered safely and securely. During major democratic events the Government stands up an Election Cell. This is a coordination structure that works with stakeholders to identify and respond to emerging issues.

Online abuse of any kind is unacceptable.To ensure the law is fit for purpose to tackle abuses online, we have asked the Law Commission to review our laws on harmful and abusive online communications and highlight any gaps in the criminal law that cause problems in tackling this abuse. The Law Commission has consulted on provisional reforms and will issue final recommendations by summer 2021, which the government will carefully consider.

In addition, the Government has established a dedicated Counter Disinformation Unit. The Unit stands up during periods of heightened vulnerability such as democratic events, and supports the Election Cell by providing a picture of the extent, scope and the reach disinformation and working with partners to identify and respond to it in line with platform terms and conditions. The Unit was previously stood up during the European Parliamentary Election and UK General Election in 2019. It stood up in March 2020 in support of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and remains operational.

The Government is also preparing legislation to address some of these issues. Last year we published the Full Government Response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation, which sets out the new expectations on companies to keep their users safe online.

The Online Safety Bill will establish a new duty of care on companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator. Under the new framework, companies will be held to account for tackling illegal activity and content, such as illegal online abuse and illegal hate crime. Some companies will also need to address legal but harmful content for adults, including some forms of online abuse.

We are also developing a package of electoral integrity measures which we will bring forward when Parliamentary time allows.

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