Counter-Disinformation Unit: Israel and Palestine

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps their Counter-Disinformation Unit is taking to identify and combat disinformation on social media in respect of the conflict in Israel and Palestine.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Viscount Camrose) (Con)]

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology takes the threat posed by disinformation in relation to the conflict extremely seriously. We are taking a three-pronged approach, working in lockstep with communities, technology companies and across government. The Government are working to identify fake accounts, known as bots, and working closely with social media companies to ensure the removal of illegal content and content in breach of their terms of service.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Given the second Question today, perhaps the Minister will confirm that much of the work of the unit is outsourced to an artificial intelligence company, logically.ai, which I understand is based in Yorkshire. I am interested in exactly how the output of the unit is conveyed to others. The Minister has confirmed that there is active interaction with social media companies, and there is an effort to identify the sources of this misinformation, many of which are state actors. However, some are individuals in this country and elsewhere. What happens when those sources have been identified? Who takes the action further?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I will have to write to the noble Lord to confirm the Counter-Disinformation Unit’s use of logically.ai. Where the unit identifies disinformation being deployed at scale, it would first engage with the relevant ministry to allow it to respond. On occasion, it will engage directly with social media companies, if the content it is seeing either is illegal or runs contrary to the terms of service declared by that company.