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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to reduce bullying and harassment on social media.

Bullying and harassment online is unacceptable. This government will establish in law a new ‘duty of care’ on companies towards their users - to ensure companies have robust systems and processes in place to keep their users safe.

This duty of care will have an emphasis on child protection and will increase the protections for all users, including the most vulnerable, from online abuse, bullying and harassment. Under new proposals companies will need to remove illegal content expeditiously and put in place systems to minimise the risk of illegal content appearing on their services.

For content that is legal but harmful, companies will need to make clear what content is acceptable on their services and enforce their terms and conditions consistently and transparently. In addition, companies will need to have effective systems for users to report harmful content.