Emily Thornberry says risk posed to British democracy by bot farms and biased algorithms requires action
Online disinformation campaigns, including Iranian bot farms promoting Scottish nationalism and biased algorithms depicting London as “an overwhelmingly dangerous” city, are seeking to undermine British democracy, a senior Labour MP has warned.
Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, said online disinformation about the UK was being promoted by Donald Trump and other US and UK politicians, and Britain was “constantly suffering from disinformation campaigns from both state and non-state actors”.
Thornberry said it was time to challenge tech companies over “the threats that social media pose to our society”. The committee has written to X, Meta and TikTok calling on them to give evidence on the threat posed by foreign disinformation targeting the UK.
“We must start a proper dialogue with social media companies about the ways their platforms are being used to spread lies from abroad and undermine our democracy. And we need to do it urgently,” she said.
