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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to ensure that statutory regulation of online platforms explicitly reflects the harms and impact of online abuse and other forms of online violence against women and girls.

Under the draft Online Safety Bill, companies in scope will need to minimise and remove illegal content including criminal online abuse targeted at women. They will also have to protect children, including young girls, from harmful or inappropriate content.

Major platforms will also need to address legal but harmful content for adults. Priority categories of legal but harmful content for adults will be set out in secondary legislation and these are likely to include forms of online abuse that disproportionately affect women and girls, like misogynistic abuse. These companies will have to set out clearly what legal content is acceptable on their platforms and enforce their terms and conditions consistently and transparently.

Ofcom will have a suite of enforcement powers available to use against companies who fail their duties. These powers include fines for companies of up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying annual global turnover, and business disruption measures.