‘Give social media users power to switch off algorithms’

SOCIAL media users should have the power to opt out of algorithms that could show them harmful content, a former culture secretary and senior peer have said as the Government finalises proposals for new duty of care laws.

In a joint oped for The Daily Telegraph, Jeremy Wright MP and Baroness Kidron said the new regulations should ensure the algorithms tech giants use to decide what people see are not “dominated by the most extreme” content.

The pair also warned the pandemic, which has seen an increase in online harms such as child abuse, had underscored how the Government needs to bring forward the legislation urgently.

It is understood ministers are getting close to unveiling broad proposals for imposing a statutory duty of care on tech giants – a measure The Telegraph has campaigned for since 2018.

Mr Wright and Baroness Kidron said it was crucial that the new regime put a responsibility on social media giants to clean up their algorithms so they did not bombard users with damaging content. As part of this, they said social media algorithms should be turned off by default and users should have to opt into them and agree to be targeted.

Some social media sites allow users to switch off the algorithms determining what shows up in their feeds. However, apps often prefer to only allow information to be organised by algorithms that show users more and more of what they calculate will keep them online.

It comes after the father of 14-yearold Molly Russell last year accused Instagram of “helping to kill” his daughter, who took her life after viewing selfharm and suicide images.

Mr Wright and Baroness Kidron said: “Instead of always acting too late, we should expect online platforms to scan the horizon and design in protection against emerging harms as they appear.

“That may mean removing features that are easily exploited by bad actors, providing age-appropriate versions of products, higher default settings that give consumers more options to opt in to targeting and above all companies taking responsibility for what they recommend and promote.”

Mr Wright was the architect of the 2019 White Paper that first proposed a statutory duty for tech giants. It was a parliamentary amendment by Baroness Kidron that created the first statutory online safety rules, the Age Appropriate Design Code, due to come into force next year.last month, they became joint chairmen of an all-party group scrutinising the new online regulation.

Ministers are considering arming Ofcom with a range of sanctions from levying huge fines or banning apps from the UK to prosecuting senior executives of tech companies that repeatedly fail in their duty of care.

A spokesman for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said: “We’re developing new laws at pace to protect people online while promoting an open and vibrant internet.” They added the department will publish its final plans later this autumn.