Home Office minister Dame Diana Johnson said social media giants have an “obligation” to deal with criminal offences being committed on their platforms.

She said: “If there are criminal offences being committed on social media platforms now, then these social media companies have an obligation now to deal with that.

“If they’re having incitement to violence on their platforms, that needs to be dealt with now, today. We don’t need the Online Safety Act to deal with that.”

Cumbria Police said a man was jailed within 24 hours of posting racially aggravated, offensive online content on social media.

Billy Thompson, 31, of Mill Street, Maryport, admitted an offence under section 127 of the Communications Act and was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison.

The court heard how, on Wednesday, he posted a racially aggravated and threatening comment on a Facebook social media post informing the public of a dispersal order being imposed in Carlisle relating to potential planned disorder, police said.

He was arrested the same day, charged on Thursday and appeared before North Cumbria Magistrates’ Court and was in jail by the evening.