Speeches by Whittingdale.

“I’d be grateful if you were. She came to talk to a group of Members of Parliament to express her frustration that this was happening and that she had been unable to tackle it. I will certainly put you in touch.”

“On that point, the person I was talking to is quite a well-known musician. She has had literally hundreds of accounts created in her name and using her image, but with which she has had no involvement whatsoever. She is having to spend literally hours every day trying to get them taken down, but as soon as she does, mo…”

“Can I ask the other two platforms what their approach to this issue is? Mr Agranovich, can we start with you?”

“With disinformation, we are essentially talking about content that is posted for public view. There is a separate issue around encrypted messaging.”

“A video went up saying that my colleague George Freeman had defected to Reform, and he was very upset about that.”

“All three of you have told us about how active you are in seeking out and removing inauthentic accounts. Over the course of the inquiry, we have heard from Governments that disinformation currently represents one of the greatest threats to democracies. We have talked to Government institutions in France, Moldova, Eston…”

“You don’t allow private individuals to be deepfaked.”

“Did you say you do or you don’t allow that?”

“You are unfortunate in being the one person in the room.”

“May I ask specifically about deepfakes, where a person’s personality, image or voice is used without their permission to propagate a message? We have heard that during an election that is potentially an offence; the electoral commissioner talked about that. Last week, I met somebody to whom this happened. She had been …”

“These elections are happening now. Are you telling us that there are teams active at the moment monitoring what is going out on your platform relating to the elections in Hungary and Armenia?”

“Finally, in the next few months we have two extremely important elections, where there is a high risk of attempts to interfere. One is in Hungary, in about three weeks’ time, and one is in Armenia a bit later. We know that those are likely to be subject to Russian attempts to influence the elections. To what extent are…”

“Mr Agranovich, to what extent are you working with the bodies that are trying to prevent disinformation from being spread?”

“I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Africa is of huge importance, and if ever we needed a reminder of the risk posed to the values we hold dear from hostile powers, in particular China, we had a perfect demonstration in the statement earlier today. Thirdly, I want to touch on media freedom, which I am delighted…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. He is right about the importance of the work, which is not always fully visible, including in established countries—I have a particular knowledge of and interest in the Baltic nations, which are on the frontline against Russia. Latvia especially has a Russian minority population t…”

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to debate the future spending of the Foreign Office. The Foreign Affairs Committee, which I sit on, shares the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) about the impact of the settlement, which will result in significant reductions in headcount within th…”

“On Saturday, Prime Minister Carney said: “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.” Why was our Prime Minister not able to make the same statement? Was Prime Minister Carney wrong?”

“The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister may be aware that at the end of this week the UK takes on the chair of the global Media Freedom Coalition—a partnership of 51 countries pledged to protect journalists and the freedom of the press. How could the UK have any credibility in that role, given the revelations of the …”

“Absolutely.”

“President Zelensky has been critical of the city administration, in terms of resilience, but I think you have said that you have not spoken to him directly for something like four years. Is that still the case? How do you respond?”