Foreign-owned Social Media Companies

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the first point is to ensure that we bring the Online Safety Act into force in full. That is a foundation on which we can build. It is fairly new legislation that the last Government brought in, which we supported. I hope the Act helps and shows providers the responsibilities they have to ensure that there is a proper debate with good and accurate information. Disinformation is not a new issue, but it is a serious one, because information can travel around the world far faster than it ever has before. Let us see how the Online Safety Act works, make sure that it does and use it as a foundation to build on.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, has my noble friend the Leader seen that, just in the last couple of hours, there has been a report from the United States that the founder of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced his intention to reduce fact-checking on his platforms and to move the way in which those platforms operate closer to the way that X, formerly known as Twitter, now operates? I think most people in this House know what that means. Does she agree that, in those circumstances, it is more important than it has ever been for safeguarding within our national environment to be as strong as it can possibly be?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point about fact-checking. I think all platforms will want to ensure their information is as accurate as possible. In fact, the Meta decision does not apply to this country; it applies only to the US and it does not remove fact-checking in Europe, which will remain.