Now web giants face fraud and hate crime crackdown

Online Safety Bill will force firms to protect users

WEB giants are facing a major crackdown on the worst illegal activity taking place on their platforms.

The Online Safety Bill will now include people smuggling, hate crimes, fraud and revenge porn as ‘priority’ illegal content.

It means tech companies will be forced to protect users from being exposed to such content rather than waiting for it to be flagged.

Under changes to the draft legislation announced yesterday, the Government has also added three new criminal offences to deal with internet trolls. The worst offenders could be jailed for up to five years for threatening to kill MPs and celebrities. Spreading Covid19 disinformation would also be covered under a crime of sending a false communication.

Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said the updates would ‘bring the full weight of the law against those who use the internet as a weapon to ruin people’s lives’.

The Government is looking at ways to strengthen the draft Bill. It is understood more changes are likely to be announced before it is put to Parliament, which is expected within the next month.

The Bill will impose a duty of care on tech giants to protect users against illegal or harmful content, with regulator Ofcom given the power to hand out huge fines for any breaches.

Under the draft legislation, only terrorism and child sexual abuse were deemed ‘priority’ illegal content, where tech giants had a duty to prevent users from seeing it in the first place. Previously, firms only had to take down illegal content down when users flagged it.

The Bill will now name more illegal content within the category, including revenge porn, hate crime, fraud, the sale of illegal drugs or weapons, the promotion of suicide, people smuggling and sexual exploitation.

The Government said this would remove the need for them to be set out in secondary legislation later on and allow Ofcom to act faster against firms that fail to remove it.

The Daily Mail has regularly exposed how criminals use the

‘Enshrining free speech’

internet to promote their illegal activities. Last October, for example, we revealed that hundreds of drug dealers were using Instagram to peddle potent cannabis to children in a billion-pound industry.

Mrs Dorries has also announced three new communications offences to strengthen protections against harmful online behaviour.

Trolls will now face up to five years in prison for the most egregious online abuse such as making threats to ‘rape, kill, inflict physical violence or cause serious financial harm’.

It is designed to offer better protection for MPs, celebrities and footballers, while also clamping down on stalkers and domestic abusers.

Posting ‘false’ content – such as fake Covid-19 cures and bomb hoaxes – will also become an offence, while a harm-based communications offence will be introduced to make it easier to prosecute online abusers.

The Government said it would also help defend people’s right to free expression, with posts that are offensive but not harmful no longer within the scope of criminal law.

It will not be possible to prosecute people for posting views others disagree with, or posts intended to serve the public interest. Public debate will also be protected by an exemption for the Press. Mrs Dorries said: ‘This government said it would legislate to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online while enshrining free speech, and that’s exactly what we are going to do.

‘We are listening to MPs, charities and campaigners who have wanted us to strengthen the legislation, and today’s changes mean we will be able to bring the full weight of the law against those who use the internet as a weapon to ruin people’s lives and do so quicker and more effectively.’