Ofcom: RT News Channel

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I thank the noble Lord. I agree, although I would not want to comment specifically on RT, for the reasons I have mentioned. However, in 2017 the Prime Minister said that the Russian state has been launching,

“a sustained campaign of cyber espionage and disruption”,

which has included,

“meddling in elections and hacking the Danish Ministry of Defence and the Bundestag”.

Therefore, I agree with the noble Lord’s view.

Regarding disinformation generally, we are working with the DfE to include information for schoolchildren on how to make judgments about what they read on social media, and a consultation will be coming out this year. We are also launching a programme of adult internet literacy, which will be very important in enabling older members of society to understand how this new technology works. In addition, we are engaged with international partners, such as the G7, the UN and the Council of Europe, but, above all, we are introducing the online harms White Paper, part of which will deal with tackling disinformation. Generally speaking, we will look at illegal harms and the much more difficult area of harms that are legal.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend take into account the fact that RT and other Russian actors have produced strong propaganda against the shale gas industry and that this is having a real effect on the debate in this country?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

As I have said, RT is regulated by Ofcom, which is independent of government, and I know that it will do its job.