Dorries to curb online threats to journalism

soCIAL media giants could be banned from removing content by recognised news publishers under new online safety laws, the Culture secretary said yesterday.

nadine dorries told MPs and peers that journalists had just as important a role as the online safety Bill in holding online platforms to account.

Miss dorries – who has been in the role for less than two months – wrote this week that journalists ‘are our first line of defence in the fight against fake news’.

But during evidence yesterday to the joint committee scrutinising the draft Bill, she was questioned over concerns that the Bill in its current form does not give enough protection to recognised news publishers.

Clauses within the draft Bill ensure that content on news publishers’ websites – including both articles and user comments – does not fall within its scope.

In addition, the largest and most popular social media sites, such as Facebook and twitter, will have a statutory duty to safeguard uK users’ access to journalistic content shared on their platforms.

If any of their content is taken down, journalists will have access to an expedited appeals process and the platforms will be held to account by regulator ofcom for arbitrary removals.

newspaper chiefs, however, have called for an additional ‘positive provision’ that will stop social media companies from removing any content from recognised news publishers at all.

they warn that platforms worried about the threat of huge fines and criminal sanctions will set their algorithms too strictly and, without this provision, will end up taking down legitimate news content. the suggested appeals process, meanwhile, will still take too long.

Miss dorries said she would consider the provision if it were added to the recommendations in the committee’s report. ‘then the stars can align and maybe we could do something,’ she added. With several of her proposed changes focused on child safety, Miss dorries also suggested she would seek to toughen up the Bill on young people’s access to online porn. ‘It is my mission to ensure that a child’s innocence is not wiped away by an algorithm,’ she said.

And Miss dorries said tech bosses could face prosecution by the end of this year if they are found guilty of safety breaches.

the former mental health minister said she was all too aware of the ‘devastating’ effect algorithms had in pushing children on to a path that ended with them taking their own lives.

In a scathing attack on Facebook, she warned its founder Mark Zuckerberg and communications chief sir nick Clegg that they would be ‘held accountable’ very soon unless they changed their ways.

‘Ensure innocence is not wiped away’