Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of whether X continues to qualify for protection as a platform rather than a publisher under UK law.

The Online Safety Act imposes a range of duties on user-to-user service providers, including X, requiring them to proactively identify, mitigate and manage risks to users, and to be accountable for the safety of their platforms.

Service providers must proactively mitigate risk of use for illegal activity and must address illegal content when it appears. They must also prevent children from encountering the most harmful content and must implement age-appropriate measures to protect children from other kinds of harmful content.

Ofcom, the independent regulator, has powers to take robust enforcement action where service providers do not comply with Act duties.