Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what discussions he has had with Ofcom on (a) the prevention of and (b) the number of instances of online bullying.

Government is committed to working with Ofcom to ensure the Online Safety Act is implemented quickly and effectively. Under the Act, platforms will need to remove illegal abusive content and, if children can access their site, protect children from harmful content, including abusive content.

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