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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding from the public purse the Government has allocated to preventing the spread of misinformation on covid-19 since 1 March 2020.

Government takes the issue of disinformation very seriously. The DCMS-led Cross-Whitehall Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) was stood up on 5 March 2020, bringing together cross-government monitoring and analysis capabilities from DCMS, the Home Office, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Cabinet Office. In response to the current situation, we have trebled the size of the coordination team at DCMS.

CDU capability is resourced full time through existing cross-government teams.

Addressing the challenges of disinformation and misinformation is a whole of government effort and we are working around the clock with Whitehall departments, the social media platforms, and disinformation specialists in academia and civil society to lead the fight against misinformation and disinformation.