Social Media: Fake News

Baroness Grender Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

I am happy to agree with the points raised by my noble friend. There is an irony at the moment, when our thirst for quick news feels so urgent, that the time we need to take to get accurate news is even more important. I commend those journalists who are playing such an important part in achieving that.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that, if anything, there should be an acceleration to pass laws to make social media companies more accountable, with a duty of care and the use of criminal sanctions? Unfortunately, last week the Secretary of State appeared to be slamming on the brakes, asking them instead to beef up their systems and, in his words,

“drive reliance on reliable narratives”.

Any delay to online harms laws lets social media companies off the hook at this critical moment. Will the Minister agree to an urgent meeting with Peers to provide detail on the progress of this legislation?

[Baroness Barran]

I will be delighted to meet noble Lords to discuss this. I stress that the Government have been absolutely clear that we want the social media companies, which have unparalleled engineering capacity, to be even more proactive in addressing this very urgent threat.