Behave or face law: UK tells online biggies

London, April 22: Britain’s health minister Jeremy Hunt threatened to impose new regulations on social media firms unless they did more to protect young people using their services.

Hunt said the groups were “turning a blind eye” to the effect social media had on children’s wellbeing — an accusation that comes as Facebook and others face heightened scrutiny worldwide over their impact and influence.

Google’s UK operation ■ said it was committed to protecting children and had introduced features to help parents set screen time limits. There was no immediate comment from Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and other firms.

Hunt did not say what kind of regulations the government could impose, but gave the companies an April deadline to come up with measures to tackle cyber bullying and control the amount of time youngsters spent online.

“I am concerned that your companies seem content with a situation where thousands of users breach your own terms and conditions on the minimum user age,” Hunt said in a letter sent to tech firms and reported in the Sunday Times.

“I fear that you are collectively turning a blind eye to a whole generation of children being exposed to the harmful emotional side effects of social media prematurely.” Managua ( Nicaragua), April 22: A reporter was shot and killed during a live broadcast from an area of Nicaragua roiled by violent anti- government protests this week, local media reported on Saturday night.

The man, identified in Nicaraguan media as Angel Gahona, was reporting live in the town of Bluefields in the country’s southern Caribbean coast, when a shot rang out and he fell to the ground bleeding in the head, video footage showed.

He was describing a damaged cash machine while videoing with his phone as a cameraman filmed behind him. Local newspaper El Nuevo Diario said he was broadcasting live on Facebook.

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