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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made a recent assessment of the economic impact over the course of a person's life associated with online abuse for (a) women and (b) men.

Assessing the prevalence and economic impact of online abuse is difficult, even more so in the context of a single individual over their lifetime. While data on online abuse is limited, the government did assess the economic and social cost of a number of online harms in its impact assessment published in May 2021 to support the draft Online Safety Bill. The full methodology used to quantify the economic cost of online harms can be found from Page 70 of the impact assessment. The Government is currently working on a final stage impact assessment for the Online Safety Bill which will provide updated estimates of the economic cost of online harms.

The Government is committed to addressing data limitations in this area. This year, we have partnered with the Alan Turing Institute to launch an Online Harms Observatory with a particular focus on online hate. It will provide real-time insights into the scope, prevalence and dynamics of harmful online content using a mix of large-scale data analysis, AI and survey data. In addition, the government and Ofcom are continuing to conduct research looking at the prevalence and impact of online harms. The prevalence and impact of online abuse in a variety of contexts will be a key focus.

Online abuse can have significant and wide-ranging impacts on victims. This is unacceptable, and under the Online Safety Bill companies in scope will need to protect users from illegal abuse. Major platforms will also need to address manifestations of online abuse which may be legal but are still harmful to adults. Priority categories of legal but harmful content for adults will be set out in secondary legislation and these are likely to include some forms of online abuse.