Daily Mirror

‘Fine social media giants over abuse’

Labour wants social media crackdown

- BY JASON BEATTIE Head of Politics jason.beattie@mirror.co.uk

SOCIAL media companies should be hit hard with fines if they fail to take down abusive content, Labour will say today.

Deputy leader Tom Watson will call for a new regulator and tougher sanctions to police the “wild west” of the internet.

He accuses the companies of not removing fake news stories that are “spreading like wildfire”, and being too lax on harassment and bullying.

Mr Watson will say Britain should follow the lead of Germany, which fines social media firms up to £45million for not taking down hate speech within 24 hours. He thinks No10 is dragging its feet and the UK should consider creating a commission­er to hold tech firms responsibl­e for abuse on their sites. Mr Watson will say the likes of Facebook and Twitter have refused to change, adding: “Authoritie­s worldwide don’t have the baby teeth, let alone the sharp teeth, to make them take notice. Internatio­nal regulatory regimes are outdated and dangerous.” Responsibi­lity for overseeing social media here is shared by Ofcom, the Advertisin­g Standards Authority and the Informatio­n Commission­er’s Office.

Mr Watson, also Shadow Culture Secretary, will say “this bitty, incomplete” system is a “barrier” to bringing social media companies into line.

At the Byline Festival in Nutley, East Sussex, he will add that the protection the firms have enjoyed as “platforms” rather than publishers needs to be withdrawn, adding they “won’t go to the lengths they need to unless they have a legal liability”.

FOR too long social media giants haven’t taken responsibi­lity for their actions.

As a result, the internet has become a Wild West where anything can be published.

Abuse, racist content and vile images still pollute too many platforms. Fake news and inflammato­ry material are rife.

Firms such as Facebook and Twitter are starting to do more to police what they publish but they have been slow to act and there is little evidence they have grasped the scale of what needs to be done.

As Labour’s Shadow Culture Secretary Tom Watson points out today, other countries have taken a more robust approach.

In Germany social media companies face fines if they do not remove offensive items within 24 hours while Ireland is setting up a regulator to oversee digital content.

The UK also needs to update its rules. It’s a nonsense that we have one of the most heavily regulated newspaper industries but almost no oversight of what appears online. But we should tread carefully. Any new laws must be thought through to ensure they deal with the hatred and abuse but don’t curb media freedom and free speech

 ??  ?? DEMAND Labour is annoyed at likes of Facebook
DEMAND Labour is annoyed at likes of Facebook
 ??  ?? SCRUTINY Tom Watson
SCRUTINY Tom Watson
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