Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether his Department has made an assessment of the role of social media in (a) improving and (b) undermining community cohesion.

While social media can play an important role in society, it is unacceptable that people use it to spread hate and threaten our communities. Ofcom and DSIT use data and evidence to understand how potentially harmful content is encountered on social media, and the impacts this has on users. This includes users' experience of hate speech, disinformation, and content promoting terrorism, extremism, and radicalization, which can all undermine social cohesion.

The government engages with social media companies to make clear their responsibility to keep users safe, and with local authorities and communities to monitor the issues affecting cohesion, and work closely with them to bridge division and challenge hatred.