Southport Attack

Sorcha Eastwood Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The thing about the social media companies is that they have incredibly sophisticated technology and resources. They know exactly how to target every single one of us online with things in which we might be interested, and they use their algorithms in all kinds of sophisticated ways. They have the capability to do far more to identify this dangerous content and take action on it. I believe that they should use those capabilities, rather than rowing back from content moderation and reducing the responsible action that they take.

[Sorcha Eastwood (Lagan Valley) (Alliance)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Constituents across Lagan Valley send their thoughts and prayers not just to the families of Elsie, Alice and Bebe, but to the community of Southport. Something that has deeply concerned me for a long time is the radicalisation of young people in particular. As the Home Secretary explicitly stated, there is an online surge of young people becoming radicalised, including those who are interested in and look at content on violence against women and terror-linked activity. How will a lack of ideology be captured so that we can identify potential perpetrators? What laws can we pass in this House not only to stop social media companies profiting, but to ensure that they are aware of such violent and terrorist content on their platforms?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right to raise that issue. The director of MI5 has talked about how the security services are seeing far too many cases of very young people being drawn into poisonous online extremism, and 13% of all those investigated for involvement in UK terrorism are now under 18. That is a disturbing fact for us all. The hon. Member is also right to say that we need to consider the complexity. Some young people become radicalised around an ideology early on. Others become obsessed with violence, and still others may switch between different extreme ideas and perspectives, but all of them are at risk of becoming dangerous to communities if they get drawn down that extremist track, and if their ideas get poisoned by things that they see online. That is why the issue is so important, and is a central part of the inquiry.