To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of preventing social media users from seeing how many likes posts have to support the mental health of people who use those media.
Answered on
2 September 2019
As set out in the Online Harms White Paper, the government expects companies to be transparent about design practices which encourage extended engagement, and to engage with researchers to understand the impact of these practices on their users. In the future, we expect the online harms regulator will continue to support research in this area to inform future action and, if necessary, set clear expectations for companies to prevent harm to their users.