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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to protect all UK citizens from online harms and misinformation.

On 12 May 2021, we published the draft Online Safety Bill, which sets out new expectations on companies to keep their users safe online. Companies will have to enforce their promises to users, remove criminal content from their sites, and protect children from harmful content including misinformation. The biggest companies will have duties on legal content that may cause significant physical or psychological harm to adults, including mis/disinformation such as anti-vaccination content and falsehoods about COVID-19.

The Bill will strengthen Ofcom’s existing duty to promote media literacy to build audience resilience to mis/disinformation and support users’ critical thinking skills. Ofcom will also be required to set up an advisory committee to build understanding and technical knowledge on how to tackle mis/disinformation.

The government is currently tackling mis/disinformation through the Cross-Whitehall Counter-Disinformation Unit, which develops a comprehensive picture of the extent, scope and the reach of mis/disinformation, and works with social media platforms to ensure appropriate action is taken in line with their terms of service.