Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will hold discussions with social media firms to help ensure that they conduct investigations into allegations of incidents of online abuse.

Ministers and officials have regular meetings and discussions with social media platforms on a range of issues, including to discuss incidents of online abuse. Details of Ministerial meetings are published quarterly on GOV.UK.

Under the draft Online Safety Bill, social media firms will need to protect users from illegal abuse. Services will need to have effective systems in place to minimise and remove illegal content and protect children from harmful abuse. Major platforms will also need to address legal but harmful content for adults. Priority categories of legal but harmful content for adults will be set out in secondary legislation and these are likely to include some forms of online abuse.

If platforms fail in their duties under the Bill, they will face tough enforcement action including fines of up to 10% of global annual qualifying turnover.

The draft Bill has been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee which reported its recommendations on 14 December. We are considering the Committee’s report and will introduce the Bill as soon as possible.