Online giants face a levy to pay for a social media referee

A SOCIAL media regulator could be funded by a levy imposed on tech giants like Facebook and Snapchat, the Culture Secretary has said.

Jeremy Wright, whose department is drawing up a White Paper on social network regulation, said he was also considering a similar levy to fund educational programmes on online harm.

Appearing before the digital, culture, media and sport select committee yesterday, Mr Wright told MPS the UK should not be afraid to lead the way in imposing regulations to rein in tech giants. “If global leadership for the UK means anything it means being prepared to take the first step on issues like this,” he said.

The Conservatives have previously threatened social media companies with a levy, and The Daily Telegraph has been campaigning for such companies to be subject to a statutory duty of care to provide stronger protection for children from online harms.

Mr Wright’s comments came as Facebook claimed to have removed 8.7 million pieces of content that exploited children, including naked images. It said that in the last quarter, 99 per cent of the 8 million pieces of content it had removed had been taken down before anyone had reported them.

Tony Stower, NSPCC head of child safety online, said the Government should stand firm on its plans despite Facebook’s “warm words”.

“Let’s be clear, police have told us that Facebook-owned apps are being used by groomers to target children,” he added.