Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of misinformation and disinformation online on local communities.

While social media can play an important role in society, it is unacceptable that people use it to threaten our communities. Government engages with local authorities to monitor issues affecting cohesion, including misinformation and disinformation.

Under the Online Safety Act, Ofcom has broad information-gathering powers and has consulted on a new crisis measure which includes an expectation on platforms to conduct post-crisis analyses to improve transparency.

In Protecting What Matters – the government’s plan to improve social cohesion – we further committed to reviewing the Online Safety Act’s crisis powers to ensure they are fit for purpose and adequately tackling issues including mis- and disinformation.