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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he had had with social media providers on (a) misogynistic, (b) racist and (c) homophobic or transphobic online abuse; and what steps he is taking to tackle such abuse.

Ministers and officials have regular meetings and discussions with social media companies on a range of issues including online abuse. Details of ministerial meetings are published quarterly on the Gov.uk website.

The law does not differentiate between criminal offences committed on social media or anywhere else - it is the action that is illegal. What is illegal offline, is illegal online and we have also been clear that we expect social media companies to respond quickly to incidents of abusive behaviour on their networks.