Social Media: Antisemitism

(asked on 28th August 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to tackle anti-Semitic hate online.


Answered by
Simon Clarke Portrait
Simon Clarke
This question was answered on 8th September 2020

Antisemitism has absolutely no place in our society, which is why we’re taking a strong lead in tackling it in all its forms. In the refreshed Hate Crime Action Plan, we have reaffirmed our commitment to combating all forms of hatred and our total support for Jewish communities.

We have recognised that incidents of online hate crime are becoming more prevalent and we have committed to take action to reduce this in the Hate Crime Action Plan. In September the Communities Secretary confirmed £100,000 of funding for the Antisemitism Policy Trust to support the organisation’s ongoing work to tackle the spread of racist tropes online.

We have recently published a White Paper on Online Harms, which contains a range of legislative and non-legislative measures, setting out definitive plans to tackle a wide range of harms online, and opens a consultation on options for regulation.

The Online Harms White Paper sets out the government's plans for world leading legislation to make the UK the safest place to be online. We intend to establish in law a new duty of care on companies towards their users which will be overseen by an independent regulator. This regulator will set clear safety standards, backed up by mandatory reporting requirements and strong enforcement powers to deal with non-compliance.

We are also ensuring that the criminal law is fit for purpose to deal with online harms. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Ministry of Justice have engaged the Law Commission on a second phase of their review of abusive and offensive online communications. The Law Commission will review existing communications offences and make specific recommendations about options for reform, to ensure that criminal law provides consistent and effective protection against such behaviours.

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