Social media companies will have to give publishers a right of appeal before removing stories from their platforms, Nadine Dorries has announced.

The Culture Secretary, pictured, has announced a move to help publishers as part of the Online Safety Bill.

The Bill currently would not stop platforms from removing news publishers’ content or making it less visible if they decided to review it for potential breaches of their terms and conditions, even if they eventually found no fault with it.

But under a new amendment, the largest and most popular social media platforms will now also be required to ensure recognised such content remains viewable and accessible on their sites even if they are under review by moderators.

They will further be required to notify news publishers and offer them a right of appeal before removing or moderating their content or taking any action against their accounts.

According to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, this will “reduce the risk of platforms taking arbitrary or accidental moderation decisions against news publisher content which plays an invaluable role in UK society and democracy”.

Ms Dorries, pictured, said: “Our democracy depends on people’s access to high quality journalism and our world-leading internet safety law brings in tough new safeguards for freedom of speech and the press online.

“Yet we’ve seen tech firms arbitrarily remove legitimate journalism with a complete lack of transparency and this could seriously impact public discourse. These extra protections will stop that from happening.”