Dame Chi Onwurah

Dame Chi Onwurah

Labour — Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West

Speaking in the House of Commons on 17 July 2025

Debate

Social Media: Misinformation and Algorithms

Contribution

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for highlighting this incredibly important issue and for the work that she does in this area. She is absolutely right to say that. The Committee heard very moving and distressing evidence that suicide and self-harm content can be and has been amplified by social media algorithms and that that can play a role in suicide and self-harm, including by young people. Promoting suicide is illegal, and the Online Safety Act introduced an offence of promoting self-harm, but it does not do enough to tackle legal content that promotes suicide or self-harm, as with the rest of legal but harmful content, such as misinformation. The Committee’s recommendations that platforms should be held accountable for the algorithmic amplification of misinformation would address part of what my hon. Friend is concerned about. We hope that in implementing those recommendations, the Government would set out how they would fully address her concerns.

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