Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to ensure that social media companies respond promptly and transparently to reports of harmful content, particularly where such content involves users under the age of 16.

The Online Safety Act establishes Ofcom as the independent regulator for online safety with powers to sanction in-scope services who do not comply with their duties, including user redress, child safety and age assurance.

Duties on content reporting and complaints procedures require services to enable users to report illegal content, report any breach of a service’s own terms and conditions, and require a service to take appropriate action in response to such complaints.

Ofcom has Government’s full backing to use all the powers given to it by Parliament in the exercise of its regulatory responsibilities.