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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has evidence of Russian disinformation efforts aimed at disrupting UK society, including through (a) RT and (b) other front organisations such as the Internet Research Agency; and what steps her Department is taking to (i) monitor and (ii) counter Russian disinformation efforts.

Russia continues to use disinformation to attempt to justify its military action against Ukraine. Accompanied by baseless rhetoric and disinformation, Russian authorities falsely cast Ukraine as a threat to justify their aggressive stance.

The DCMS-led Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) is working to identify and counter Russian disinformation targeted at UK and international audiences. We are working closely with the major social media platforms, including Meta (Facebook’s parent company), to ensure that they are cooperating at speed to swiftly remove disinformation and coordinated inauthentic or manipulated behaviour, as per their Terms of Service. We are also ensuring that platforms are promoting authoritative content which accurately depicts the ongoing situation in Ukraine.

The government welcomes the actions that Meta and YouTube have taken to block channels connected to RT and Sputnik in the EU and the UK, and the Secretary of State has written to other major platforms, including Twitter and TikTok, to ask that they take similar action. We also welcome the actions Twitter has taken to label Russian-state affiliated accounts and media links and prohibit Russian state media from running adverts or monetisation on the platform.