Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2018 to Question 124503 on Crime: Social Media, whether he has recently met with representatives of (a) Facebook, (b), Google, (c) YouTube, (d) Twitter, (e) Snapchat and (f) other social media platforms to discuss tackling the prevalence of videos and other social media content that glorifies gang and knife crime.

As part of our work to deliver the Serious Violence Strategy, we have established a social media action group to bring together Government, social media companies, police, and community groups to tackle violent material available via social media. The social media companies represented include Google (YouTube), Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. The group meets regularly and has received updates on the development of the new police capability to tackle gang related content online, which was announced by the Home Secretary on 17 June.

The Home Secretary has not met social media companies to specifically discuss violent online material. However on 11 June 2018, representatives from Google and Facebook attended a meeting of the Serious Violence Taskforce chaired by the Home Secretary, to present the action being taken to tackle violent content online.