Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of bringing social media companies into the scope of UK publishing law.

The government has not made an assessment of the merits of bringing social media companies into the scope of UK publishing law. Instead, the Online Safety Act 2023 imposes a range of duties on social media providers, requiring them to proactively mitigate risk of use for illegal activity and must address illegal content when it appears. Providers must also prevent children from encountering the most harmful content and must implement age-appropriate measures to protect children from other kinds of harmful content.