Internet: Safety

(asked on 13th March 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the need to introduce provisions within the Online Safety Bill to enable the improvement of media literacy skills of the UK through strengthening the duties of Ofcom, such as requiring (1) local authorities, or (2) media platforms and services, to play a role in education for parents.


Answered by
Viscount Camrose Portrait
Viscount Camrose
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
This question was answered on 21st March 2023

Ofcom has a statutory duty to promote media literacy under Section 11 of the Communications Act (2003). This covers services regulated under the Online Safety Bill. In December 2021, Ofcom published its ‘Approach to Media Literacy’ document, setting out its refreshed work programme to discharge its duty. This includes working with industry to publish best practice principles for platform-based media literacy interventions, and funding projects supporting children and their parents online.

The Online Safety Bill will strengthen Ofcom’s ability to discharge its existing duty, giving it new information-gathering and transparency-reporting powers to provide it with better visibility of industry efforts. It will also force regulated services to consider media literacy in their illegal content and children’s risk assessments.

Further, the government is delivering an expansive, non-legislative media literacy work programme through our Online Media Literacy Strategy. This includes providing £1 million in grant funding this year alone for new media literacy projects, including initiatives working with Local Authorities, and offering support to parents.

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