Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps their
Counter-Disinformation Unit is taking to identify and combat
disinformation on social media in respect of the conflict
in Israel and
Palestine.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Science, Innovation and Technology () (Con)
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology takes the
threat posed by disinformation in relation to the conflict
extremely seriously. We are taking a three-pronged approach,
working in lockstep with communities, technology companies and
across government. The Government are working to identify fake
accounts, known as bots, and working closely with social media
companies to ensure the removal of illegal content and content in
breach of their terms of service.
(LD)
Given the second Question today, perhaps the Minister will
confirm that much of the work of the unit is outsourced to an
artificial intelligence company, logically.ai, which I understand
is based in Yorkshire. I am interested in exactly how the output
of the unit is conveyed to others. The Minister has confirmed
that there is active interaction with social media companies, and
there is an effort to identify the sources of this
misinformation, many of which are state actors. However, some are
individuals in this country and elsewhere. What happens when
those sources have been identified? Who takes the action
further?
(Con)
I will have to write to the noble Lord to confirm the
Counter-Disinformation Unit’s use of logically.ai. Where the unit
identifies disinformation being deployed at scale, it would first
engage with the relevant ministry to allow it to respond. On
occasion, it will engage directly with social media companies, if
the content it is seeing either is illegal or runs contrary to
the terms of service declared by that company.
(Con)
My Lords, there has been a huge rise in anti-Semitism and
Islamophobia on social media, much of it due to disinformation.
What steps are His Majesty’s Government taking to educate the
public to spot disinformation and stop them forwarding and
repeating it?
(Con)
My noble friend makes an important point. In the escalating
battle between those pushing disinformation at us and our
attempts to limit it, media literacy is key. Under the terms of
the Online Safety Bill, which is due to become law in just a few
days, Ofcom is obliged to produce a media literacy strategy to
generate awareness of and resilience to misinformation and
disinformation. It is obliged also to create an expert advisory
committee on misinformation and disinformation online. In
addition, there is now a media literacy programme fund that
awards up to £700,000 of grant funding for media literacy
programmes. All this is dependent on platforms setting out
clearly their terms of service, so that users can access them in
the full knowledge of the kind of information that they can
expect to see.
(Lab)
My Lords, the EU Commission has formally opened an investigation
into X, the platform previously referred to as Twitter, to ensure
that it complies with the Digital Services Act following the
onslaught of the current conflict in Israel and Gaza,
Palestine. Could the Minister outline what discussions and
engagement have taken place with the European Commission in
relation to its and the UK’s investigations?
(Con)
On 11 October, shortly after the commencement of hostilities, the
Secretary of State for DSIT convened a meeting of social media
platforms. These included Google, YouTube, Meta, X, Snap and
TikTok. She made her expectation very clear that not only would
illegal content be rapidly and urgently removed but authoritative
content would be promoted to create more clarity around what is
accurate content in this fast-moving and difficult situation.
Those meetings are ongoing daily at official level and are
accompanied by detailed correspondence on the acts of those
platforms.
The
My Lords, it is good to hear that the Government are engaging
with the social media platforms on this incredibly serious issue.
Twitter has most aptly been renamed X, but without irony: one
goes into this area with great caution, as it is distressing and
nasty. I am told that X is currently laying off people whose job
it is to monitor and remove posts that contain disinformation.
Given this, and given that we have made progress in looking at
social media platforms, what are we doing to require them to do
this other than simply engaging with them?
(Con)
I absolutely agree with the most reverend Primate about the
seriousness and horror of the situation. On requiring social
media companies to act, the Online Safety Bill will become law in
a matter of days; it places much more rigorous requirements on
the social media companies to remove content which is illegal and
is harmful to children and to have only content that is
consistent with their published terms of service.
(Con)
My Lords, what are Ministers doing to engage with the leaders of
the relevant religious communities to persuade their followers to
avoid inflammatory actions and words, which are causing such
trouble and intercommunity tension?
(Con)
That is an important part of the Government’s approach to this
very difficult, nasty situation. Last week, the Secretary of
State met leaders of Jewish communities, and ongoing meetings are
similarly being convened by DLUHC with all communities. We are
establishing bridges between these communities and the social
media platforms. One advantage they have in that dialogue is that
they are accorded trusted flagger status, which greatly reduces
the amount of time it takes to raise content of concern.
(Lab)
My Lords, the House has previously debated the role and work of
the Counter-Disinformation Unit. I do not think anybody was
particularly convinced by the assurances which the Minister gave
back in July. These issues have been brought into sharp focus by
recent events. At the time of that last debate, we were promised
a meeting. Unless our Front Bench was left off the invite list, I
am not aware of that follow-up meeting having taken place. Given
some of the Minister’s responses today, that meeting is now more
urgent than ever. Can the Minister commit to meet with those of
us who are deeply concerned about this issue?
(Con)
I remember the July debate very well. I made a commitment then to
meet with concerned Members, which I am happy to repeat. Again, I
ask that concerned Members write to me to indicate that they
would like to meet. Those who have written to me, have met with
me.
(LD)
My Lords, the Minister mentioned that the Online Safety Bill will
come into law very shortly. Will he commit to setting up the
advisory committee on disinformation and misinformation as soon
as possible after this? The current situation clearly
demonstrates both the need for it and for it to come to swift
conclusions.
(Con)
I very much share the noble Lord’s analysis of the need for this
group to come rapidly into existence. It is, of course, the role
of Ofcom to create it. I will undertake to liaise with it to make
sure that that is speeded up.
(Con)
My Lords, it was reported that a hospital had been hit.
Immediately—sadly, in this modern day—the media like to break
news, not to check how accurate it is. In practice, when we find
out exactly what did happen, the damage has already been done
because it went out to billions of people who wanted to believe
that the Israelis did it.
(Con)
That was very concerning. I am unable to comment specifically on
the role of the BBC reporting on it. Combined with other sources
of misinformation and disinformation online, it greatly amplified
the damage that was done. We continue to work with the social
media companies to ensure that they promote authoritative
versions of the truth based on their use of fact-checkers,
whether third-party independents or part of their own
organisation.
