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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government is taking to (a) ensure that young people are only able to access age appropriate internet and social media sites and (b) hold sites to account when they expose children to inappropriate content.

In April we published the Online Harms White Paper, which set out our plans for world-leading legislation to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. We intend to establish in law a new duty of care on companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator.

Alongside the White Paper, Government published the Social Media Code of Practice. This voluntary guidance sets out actions that the Government believes social media platforms should take to prevent bullying, insulting, intimidating and humiliating behaviours on their sites. The Code is also relevant to other sites hosting user-generated content and comments. We are aware that many social media companies meet the standards set out in the Code of Practice, although Government does not actively monitor this.