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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions officials in her Department have had with representatives of social media platforms on tackling the use of anonymous accounts to abuse people.

Officials have regular meetings and discussions with social media platforms on a range of issues, including the use of anonymous accounts.

The Online Safety Bill will require companies in scope to manage the risk of online anonymous abuse. Companies will need to remove and limit the spread of illegal content and prevent children from harmful abuse. Major platforms will also need to set out clearly what legal content is acceptable for adult users on their services and enforce their terms and conditions consistently and transparently. This applies whether a user is anonymous or not.

If platforms fail in their duties under the Bill, they will face tough enforcement action including fines of up to 10% of global annual qualifying turnover.

The draft Bill has been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee which reported its recommendations on 14 December. We are considering the Committee’s report and will introduce the Bill as soon as possible.