Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to help tackle online harassment and abuse on social media.

The Online Safety Act will require social media platforms to take more responsibility for the safety of their users. Platforms will need to remove all illegal abusive content and protect children from harmful content, including hateful and abusive content.

Where anonymous abuse does not meet the criminal threshold, adult users of the largest services (Category 1) will have the choice to filter out content from non-verified users. Those services must also offer user empowerment tools to adult users, which when applied will reduce the likelihood that they are exposed to certain legal content, including abusive content.