Duty of care could bar social media sites

Social media sites could be blocked if they breach proposed new duty of care laws. Baroness Morgan, the Culture Secretary, will tell Parliament that Ofcom should be given powers to protect children and other users from online harms. A power for the regulator to order the blocking of websites which commit “serious, repeated and egregious violations” of their duty of care remains on the table.

SOCIAL media sites could be blocked from the UK if they breach proposed new duty of care laws, which will be kick-started today.

Baroness Morgan, the Culture Secretary, will tell Parliament that Ofcom should be the regulator and be given powers to protect children and other users from online harms, as disclosed last week by The Daily Telegraph.

The tech giants including Google and Facebook will be expected to remove quickly illegal content linked to terrorism and child abuse and to protect children from potentially harmful material such as that which could encourage suicide and self-harm.

Ministers have yet to decide on the sanctions but a power for Ofcom to require internet service providers (ISPS) to block websites or apps which commit “serious, repeated and egregious violations” of their duty of care remains on the table despite reports last year that it might be dropped.

The new regulator is also expected to have powers to fine the tech giants, potentially up to 4 per cent of global turnover, which would cost Facebook up to £2billion and Google up to £5billion.

Lady Morgan is known to favour a regulatory model similar to that used to police the City with firms required to name individual directors who would be personally responsible for any breaches of the statutory duty of care.

Like finance bosses, they could face criminal prosecution. The Government is not expected to unveil its full duty of care plans until the spring although the findings from its consultation on last April’s White Paper will be published today. “This is a staging post,” said a source.

It will, however, pledge to protect free speech amid fears that too draconian a regime could stifle legal comments that might cause offence but not harm.

The legislation will cover firms which have user-generated comments online although Ofcom will be tasked to draw up guidelines to advise companies on who might be affected and how.

‘Any regulator will only succeed if it has the power to hit rogue companies hard in the pocket’

Codes of conduct setting out what companies will be expected to do to meet their duty of care will be drawn up and policed by Ofcom, with the Home Office leading on terror and child abuse.

Today’s announcement will be one of Lady Morgan’s last acts as Culture Secretary before she leaves in tomorrow’s Cabinet reshuffle, the third politician to hold the post in just 18 months.

John Carr, the secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, said it was critical for the regulator to have power to block sites, otherwise “it will effectively be defanged before its creation”.

The father of Molly Russell, the 14-year-old schoolgirl who took her own life after viewing self-harm images on Instagram, said the new regulator needed to be able to take services offline that repeatedly failed in their duty of care.

Ian Russell said: “Cases like Molly’s highlight the need for the Government’s online harm legislation to be implemented quickly, with effective and proportionate sanctions against those that persistently fail to protect children and vulnerable people from harm.

“Ultimately the regulator must be able to take down services that fail in their duty of care by repeatedly distributing harmful content.”

Mr Russell, who has previously accused Instagram of “helping to kill” his daughter, also called for Ofcom to be given interim enforcement powers to “prevent misery and help save lives” as soon as possible.

In the Conservative manifesto and Queen’s Speech, Boris Johnson pledged the Government would legislate to “make the UK the safest place in the world to be online”.

The Daily Telegraph has campaigned since the summer of 2018 for a statutory duty of care to do more to protect children from online harms.

Andy Burrows, the NSPCC’S head of child safety online policy, said: “Any regulator will only succeed if it has the power to hit rogue companies hard in the pocket and hold named directors criminally accountable for putting children at risk on their sites.

“Boris Johnson can protect families and support law enforcement by standing firm against some of the world’s most powerful companies. To do that it’s imperative that we have a duty of care model that puts the onus on big tech to prevent online harms or answer to an independent regulator.”