Javid’s threat to web giants in crackdown on knife crime
WEB giants will face tough new laws to prevent the spread of knife crime, the Home Secretary warned yesterday – as he spoke of fears for his own children’s safety.
Sajid Javid said it was time for a legal crackdown on social media images promoting gang culture, in the same way that child sex abuse images and terrorist propaganda have already been outlawed.
In a warning to online firms, he said: ‘My message to these companies is we are going to legislate and how far we go depends on what you decide to do now. At the moment we don’t have the legislation for these types of [knife crime-related] content.
‘I have it for terrorist content and child sexual abuse images.’
Google is among several firms which have been criticised for hosting content glamourising gang culture. Rappers using its YouTube video platform post so- called ‘drill’ music videos to boast about the number of people they have stabbed or shot, using street terms.
The platform has been forced to take down dozens of videos by drill artists, after warnings from the Metropolitan Police that they were raising the risk of violence.
Speaking to BBC Radio 1 yesterday, Mr Javid confessed that things have become so bad he has stayed up into the early hours because he was concerned about what might happen to his own children. ‘I do worry about my children,’ he said. ‘ My eldest daughter has started going out more than she used to.
‘But I do worry, and there are some nights that I’ve stayed up into the early hours waiting for her to get back home.’
Figures released last month showed knife crimes soared 8 per cent to 39,919 – or 110 a day – in the 12 months to September. Separate official data published last week said the number of people stabbed to death on our streets has hit its highest level since records began in 1946 – with 285 fatal stabbings in England and Wales in the year to March 2018, up from 212 the previous year.
Yesterday, a former gang member – identified only as Robert – told Radio 1 he has no doubt about the link between drill music and knife crime.
‘I believe stricter measures do need to be put in place so people cannot release footage of people calling people out, bragging about knife crime and violence,’ he told the station’s Newsbeat programme. ‘In London it’s normal. It’s just one of those things: You wake up, have breakfast, you stab someone.’
Mr Javid told the programme that the way the web giants have tackled child porn and terror content shows that they can clean up their platforms.
‘A couple of years back the internet companies were not taking it seriously enough to remove this content,’ he said.
‘I went over to the US and spoke to five tech giants and said you need to do more.They are doing an incredible job today and what I want to see is the same emphasis to that [knife crime] content.’