To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of using the forthcoming Online Safety Bill to legislate for what constitutes harmful but legal online content following engagement with stakeholders and civil society.
Answered on
16 March 2021
The forthcoming Online Safety Bill will require all companies in scope to assess the likelihood of children accessing their services, and to provide additional protections from harmful material for children, where appropriate. Companies providing high risk, high reach services will be required to take steps in respect of legal but harmful content and activity that is accessed by adults.
The government will set out priority categories of legal but harmful material for adults, and legal but harmful content and activity impacting children in secondary legislation.