Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps her Department plans to take to work with global social media companies on ensuring that those companies are taking effective steps to mitigate the harmful spread of disinformation in countries where religious or belief minorities suffer persecution and discrimination.

The UK Government takes the issue of disinformation very seriously. We are working closely with social media platforms to help them identify and take action to mitigate the harmful spread of disinformation and misinformation online. In addition, we actively support NGOs and other organisations in research to inform technology companies, partner governments and others about the misuse of online platforms for disinformation purposes, and to disrupt advertising revenues from websites.

We do not target our counter-disinformation work specifically related to countries where freedom of religion or belief is threatened.