Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of recent reports that social media platform algorithms may promote harmful or extremist content to users.

Social media companies must keep people safe on their platforms and holding them accountable is a departmental priority. Under the Online Safety Act, services must tackle illegal content, including terrorist content and that which stirs up hatred based on religion or race, or incites violence. They must also protect children from additional forms of legal content, including that which is hateful or abusive.

The Act is clear that services should take steps to ensure their algorithms do not promote these kinds of content. Ofcom also has robust information gathering and enforcement powers to ensure that services operate their algorithms safely.