Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions she has had with representatives from (a) Facebook, (b) Google/YouTube, (C) Twitter, (d) Snapchat and (e) other social media platforms on tackling the prevalence of videos and other forms of social media content that glorify gang and knife crime.

The Home Office is aware that gangs make use of a number of social media platforms to incite violence and taunt rival gangs and we work closely with the police to identify good practice in tackling this issue and to encourage the police to take action. Operation Domain is an ongoing successful Metropolitan Police Service project taking action against gang-related activity online, working with social media companies to remove relevant content.

The Government has been clear that social media companies should be going further and faster when taking down content. Ultimately, this material should not be made available in the first place. I intend to meet these companies in due course.