Social Media and Health

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will certainly consider it and I look forward to talking to the hon. Gentleman about the idea more next week. Dialogue in this area is critical, but we should not only have dialogue; we also need concrete legislative action, but I am grateful for what he has said about the work that has been done. I am glad that he is also working in this area, and I look forward to discussing it with him more.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Three million of the four million videos taken down by YouTube in the last six months were identified and removed by artificial intelligence. What greater role does the Secretary of State see for technological development in helping to reduce online harm and keep people safe online?

[Matt Hancock]

Artificial intelligence clearly has a role in identifying material that needs to be removed in the same way that it is now being used to remove terrorist content. We are talking to companies that may be able to do this, but we also need to identify what material should be taken down and what should be left up. Defining that boundary is critical to training artificial intelligence to do its job, hence the importance of the decision to ask the Samaritans to do the work of identifying the boundary so that we can train artificial intelligence to identify what needs to be taken down.