Asked by: Shockat Adam (Independent - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what consideration she has given to the potential merits of restricting or removing monetisation for accounts that repeatedly promote extremist content, harassment, misogyny or misinformation.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must tackle hateful online content where it is illegal or harmful to children. They must take steps to ensure their algorithms do not target users with this content. Under new duties to be introduced next year, the largest user-to-user platforms will be required to set out in Terms of Service content prohibited on their services, then apply these Terms consistently.
In Protecting What Matters, the government’s social cohesion strategy, DSIT and DCMS committed to developing options for reducing the inadvertent monetisation of harmful online content. We have engaged with platforms, the ad industry, and civil society on this issue.
Asked by: Shockat Adam (Independent - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what powers under the Online Safety Act 2023 she has used to address the financial incentives that reward harmful online content, and whether the Government plans to strengthen those powers.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must tackle hateful online content where it is illegal or harmful to children. They must take steps to ensure their algorithms do not target users with this content. Under new duties to be introduced next year, the largest user-to-user platforms will be required to set out in Terms of Service content prohibited on their services, then apply these Terms consistently.
In Protecting What Matters, the government’s social cohesion strategy, DSIT and DCMS committed to developing options for reducing the inadvertent monetisation of harmful online content. We have engaged with platforms, the ad industry, and civil society on this issue.
Asked by: Shockat Adam (Independent - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what discussions her Department has had with social media platforms on demonetising accounts that repeatedly breach platform standards on harmful content.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must tackle hateful online content where it is illegal or harmful to children. They must take steps to ensure their algorithms do not target users with this content. Under new duties to be introduced next year, the largest user-to-user platforms will be required to set out in Terms of Service content prohibited on their services, then apply these Terms consistently.
In Protecting What Matters, the government’s social cohesion strategy, DSIT and DCMS committed to developing options for reducing the inadvertent monetisation of harmful online content. We have engaged with platforms, the ad industry, and civil society on this issue.
Asked by: Shockat Adam (Independent - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the potential role of social media monetisation and advertising revenue in incentivising the creation and spread of extremist, misogynistic and radicalising content.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must tackle illegal content, including terrorist content and religious or race-based hatred, and protect children from legal but harmful content like abuse. The Government aims to halve violence against women and girls within a decade and has taken action, including requiring providers to remove NCII content within at least 48 hours upon receiving a valid report.
DSIT recognises concerns that social media can enable the monetisation of harmful content. DSIT and DCMS have committed to developing options to reduce inadvertent monetisation through advertising and are engaged with cross-sector experts on this issue while considering proposals via DCMS’ Online Advertising Taskforce.