Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to help prevent children accessing inappropriate material on social media.

Protecting children is at the heart of the Government’s Online Safety Bill. All companies in scope will need to take robust steps to protect children from illegal content and criminal behaviour on their services. In addition, services which are likely to be accessed by children, which will include social media platforms, will be required to provide safety measures for child users to protect them from inappropriate and harmful content or activity, such as pornography, bullying and content that promotes or glorifies self-harm, suicide and eating disorders. If they fail to do so, they will be subject to tough enforcement action by the regulator, Ofcom.

Ahead of the Online Safety Bill, video-sharing platform (VSP) providers currently regulated by the VSP regime are required to take ‘appropriate measures’ to protect under-18s from potentially harmful material. Appropriate measures could include, but are not limited to, age assurance, parental controls, and comprehensive terms and conditions.