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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 19 October 2016 to Question 48756, what steps the Government plans to take to ensure that its expectations for social media providers to have robust processes in place to deal with abusive content are met.

Government continues to engage intensively with industry, including major social media companies, and charities through the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) a multi-stakeholder forum representing over 200 organisations with an interest in internet safety. UKCCIS has published a guide for providers of social media and interactive services to help make their platforms safer for children and young people under 18. UKCCIS is working to ensure this guide influences policy and practice by online service providers both within and outside the UK. Government expects industry to review and improve its child internet safety provisions as technology changes.

Leading providers report on their online safety practices voluntarily as part of the safety framework of the ICT Coalition for Children Online: http://ictcoalition.org/