Social media bosses will reportedly be grilled by Parliament as part of a new cross-party inquiry into the dangers of so-called “fake news”.
Facebook, Google and Twitter are expected to be called in for questioning by the committee amid fears the prevalence of inaccurate stories is undermining democracy.
The Commons Culture Committee is reportedly discussing the launch details and hopes it will begin holding sessions by late spring or early summer.
Committee chairman Conservative MP Damian Collins told The Sunday Telegraph some "fake news" stories were being distributed "maliciously" and that social media sites had a responsibility to combat the spread of inaccurate content.
“What’s interesting is we've accepted that search engines have a responsibility to combat piracy on their websites,” he said.
“In a similar way, I think social media [companies] have a responsibility to ensure their platforms are not being used to spread malicious content.”