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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential sanctions that can be imposed on social media companies that fail to tackle disinformation from Russian-backed sources relating to the war in Ukraine.

As the Secretary of State set out in her statement on 3 March, we have been engaging regularly with the major platforms, who have taken a number of positive steps in response to the situation. Apple has paused all product sales in Russia, Google has added new safeguarding features to Google Maps and Search and Whatsapp is hosting a helpline for Ukraine’s State Emergency Service that sends people information and critical news about the local situation.

From the moment the Russian President began his invasion, we have been clear that he must not be allowed to exploit our open and free media to spread damaging propaganda in Britain. This is especially true in the case of RT, whose own Editor-in-Chief has called the network an “information weapon” of the Russian state. We welcome the action Youtube has taken to prevent access to RT in the UK, and the Secretary of State has written to other major platforms, including Meta and TikTok, calling on them to take action to block access to RT on UK services.

In addition, the Counter Disinformation Unit continues to works closely with platforms to flag specific pieces of disinformation and have them removed where they violate a platform's terms of service.