Priti Patel is not a fan of big tech. The Home Secretary has spent much of her three years in office decrying the giants of Silicon Valley, frequently railing against the likes of Facebook, TikTok and Twitter for various failings. She’s ordered them to remove posts promoting illegal Channel crossings, ‘live up to their moral duty’ by tackling online child abuse and attacked them for publishing ‘appalling hate’ on their platforms. Her department has also mooted banning online anonymity and proposed an advertising campaign which criticises Facebook for daring to use end-to-end encryption for its messages.
Given all the dastardly things which occur on their platforms, just who exactly is funding such firms? Turns out the answer is, er, the Home Office itself. According to a recent answer to a parliamentary question by Geraint Davies MP, the department has spent more than £6 million on social media adverts since 2019 – the year that Patel took up her current post. Spending on Meta, the company which owns both Facebook and Instagram, is more than £4 million alone, with Twitter and Snapchat receiving £750,000 and £600,000 respectively. This year the department has already stepped up its efforts and has paid thousands to Reddit, which last year was embroiled in a censorship row with The Spectator.
Still, Patel is by no means alone in spending thousands of taxpayers’ cash on getting the message out. Over at DCMS, the Culture minister Nadine Dorries will no doubt be thrilled to learn her mandarins have already spent more than £40,000 this year so far on social media sites, including Twitter where Dorries has had one or two run-ins. Despite her protestations that ‘online hate has poisoned public life,’ there is clearly no sign of DCMS pulling its adverts anytime soon.
First prize for social media spend though goes to the Department of Education which has spent more than £9 million since 2019 on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube. The kids are all alright, indeed. In total, at least £15 million has been spent over the past three years by the four Whitehall departments who answered questions meaning, of course, the real figure is likely to be even greater.
Something to remember perhaps the next time ministers attack the same firms they help to bankroll.
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