Kevin Brennan
Main Page: Kevin Brennan (Labour - Cardiff West)Department Debates - View all Kevin Brennan's debates with the Leader of the House
(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
First, I wish my hon. Friend every success with the new all-party group. I think there will be great interest in it. It is fantastic that in Birmingham company formations have risen by 10%. The city is thriving under the new Conservative Mayor, Andy Street. There is a new headquarters for HSBC. Birmingham is the test city for the 5G mobile network and, as my hon. Friend says, it will be the host of the 2022 Commonwealth games. I know she and I share the Government’s belief in extending growth and opportunity right across the United Kingdom.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
May we have a debate on Facebook? This week we learned that the brilliant political comedian Matt Forde had his ads banned from Facebook because his show is called “Brexit through the gift shop”. Should Facebook not be more concerned with blocking the fake news and Russian bots that are undermining our democracy, rather than being a slave to an algorithm that cannot recognise a simple joke?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. We are all so deeply concerned about the way that social media giants are pushing harmful content to those who really must not see it. They should be doing the exact opposite to that. Yet, at the same time, because of the technical way in which these things work, they are unable to tell the difference between a joke and a piece of serious content. The Government are clear that much more needs to be done to tackle online harms. We are committed to introducing legislation. He will be aware that we will be bringing forward a White Paper soon to look very closely at what more needs to be done. In the meantime, the social media giants are being told very firmly that they need to take more responsibility for what they allow.