Written question asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated) on Wednesday, 26 January 2022, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 9 February 2022. It was answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative) on Wednesday, 9 February 2022 on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Social Media: Safety

Question: To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to replace references to harmful ‘content’ in the Online Safety Bill with ‘content and activity’, to cover the release of new social media products such as virtual reality.

Answer: The Government agrees that the scope of the Online Safety Bill must cover a broad range of online interaction, including both content and activity. This is already covered in the draft Bill. All online activity is facilitated by content: therefore references to “harmful content” in the Bill require companies to tackle harm associated with both activity and content. The Bill also requires companies to consider and mitigate the risks arising from the functionalities and ways in which people use their services, for example to contact other users, share content, or express a view on content through “likes” or “dislikes”. Under the Bill, if a company plans to release a new social media product, including one that enables virtual reality functionality, it will have to mitigate any risk of harm posed to users arising from this.

Secondary information