AI minister Kanishka Narayan was promoted in the ministerial reshuffle in September (PoliticsHome)
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The minister for artificial intelligence has said the government needs to do “a lot more to win the battle of content online”.
The comments by Kanishka Narayan, MP for Vale of Glamorgan, come as Labour faces criticism that its communications strategy has not been good enough since entering office last year, and as the government tries to combat the spread of misinformation.
He cited digital ID as an example of where the government must be “winning” online.
“We need to try and do a lot more to win the battle of content online, and that involves us communicating in a much more modern way right across government and politics,” Narayan said in an interview with PoliticsHome.
“To be able to make sure that when a significant thing is happening, like an announcement on digital ID, we’re winning the battle of ideas and arguments as well as having the right set of rules and enforcement.”
Throughout this year, the government has attempted to enhance its communications operation by creating new social media accounts, including one on Reddit, which it officially joined in April. Speaking to PoliticsHome at the time, a government spokesperson said they wanted to “better reflect how the public consumes information”. The government also has a TikTok account, which is managed by a team of officials known as the New Media Unit.
PoliticsHome also revealed in July that No 10 was to host the first-ever Downing Street reception with online influencers, as part of its push to reach voters on platforms beyond traditional media.
In September, the government announced its plans to roll out mandatory digital ID, saying it would improve access to public services and help the state tackle illegal immigration. A More in Common survey found that net public support for digital ID had fallen from 35 per cent in June to -14 per cent in the weekend after the announcement.
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Liz Kendall told MPs on Monday that there has been “a lot of misinformation” and “scaremongering” spread about digital ID as the government tries to sell the policy to MPs and the public. One widely shared conspiracy theory about the scheme was repeated on the BBC’s Have I Got News For You comedy panel show, for which the BBC later apologised.
The government plans to ramp up communications around digital ID in response to the spread of fake information, PoliticsHome understands.
But some Labour MPs believe that the government is still not doing enough. Labour MP Noah Law told PoliticsHome that the government has been “a bit passive when it comes to misinformation”, and the threat is being accelerated by the development and spread of hyper-realistic deepfake AI images and videos. “I haven’t seen an effective response from the government,” added Chi Onwurah, Labour MP and chair of the Science and Technology Committee.
Some MPs have called for the Online Safety Act, which came into force this year, to be strengthened. It currently only covers misinformation where the content is illegal or could harm children, but does not cover legal content that could be harmful to adults.
However, it is unclear whether there is much appetite in government for further regulation. Multiple former officials and advisers told PoliticsHome that the government’s primary focus is on harnessing AI technology across both the private and public sectors to boost the country’s economic growth and improve productivity.
Narayan, whose brief includes online safety, said that the government would continue to look at Ofcom’s “realm of enforcement” as it starts to enforce the Online Safety Act. But he added that the government should continue to review what actions it can take “outside of just enforcement of the existing law”.
“We will continue to take a look at it,” he said.
Narayan is making his own effort to cut through to the public by starting his own TikTok account this month – @the.ai.minister – in which he answers questions like “why can’t AI tell the time?” and “should you be friends with AI?”. So far, he has around 100 followers.
“My hunch is most of the things that people see are not directly from the people that they’re following on a number of these platforms, but from effectively a marketplace of content,” Narayan told PoliticsHome.
“And government needs to look at how that marketplace is working, but actually compete in it in the most compelling way. We’ve got to catch up with the best quality of content that we’re seeing online, and make sure that we’re putting forward responsible content that is able to win attention in an increasingly very crowded landscape.”
The minister said that his parliamentary team use AI to help edit and produce captions for his social media videos, which he said gives them more time to be creative and “liven up democratic content”. He said, however, that he has never used AI to write his parliamentary speeches: “So far, I have not been culpable of standing up and saying ‘I rise to speak’ alongside all the other MPs who are saying it.”
Narayan is not the only minister to experiment with TikTok, particularly after the government announced that the voting age would be extended to 16 and 17-year-olds before the next general election. More backbench MPs have also joined the app in recent months.
33-year-old Labour MP Tom Rutland joined TikTok straight after the announcement, which he told PoliticsHome was a “conscious decision” to reach younger voters. He said, however, that as a backbench MP, he had not received any guidance or advice from the government on what platforms he should be using.
Meanwhile, TikTok remains banned on parliamentary networks and on government devices. The Conservative government banned the app on government devices in 2023 over data security concerns around the social media giant’s parent company, ByteDance, which is headquartered in China.
Minister Narayan insisted that this has “not really been a major trade-off” in his decision to use the app on his personal device.
“There has clearly been a very considered take on having TikTok on government devices, and we should be deeply respectful of that, because the starting priority for all of us is to maintain the security and integrity of information,” he said.
“There can be no compromise on that. Outside of that, of course, I’m still keen that we compete in this landscape for people’s attention, to try and make sure we’re winning the battle of hearts and minds for the ideas and values we hold there. Being on TikTok is part of that.”
The minister added that the country as a whole needed to be “nuanced in our information security”: “To make sure that we’re very clear on where the risk is and protect ourselves from that risk. Where there isn’t that risk, we should make sure that we’re engaging in the way that we find appropriate.”
Asked whether he sees China as a partner or an enemy, Narayan told PoliticsHome: “You’ll have seen in lots of areas, we have a long-standing relationship with China. In lots of areas, we are continuing to challenge China, especially when there are threats to the integrity of our economic base or our wider security.”
