Social media faces tougher regime on harmful content

BORIS JOHNSON has promised to introduce criminal sanctions against social media bosses who fail to protect users from “foul content” in a potential shift in duty of care laws.

The Prime Minister signalled he was prepared to go beyond current sanctions which are largely limited to multibillion pound fines if tech companies fail to protect users from online harms.

The draft Bill now before Parliament proposes that criminal sanctions against senior social media managers should be held only as a reserve power that could be introduced in the future if fines fail to clean up the internet.

However, responding in the Commons to demands from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer for a cross-party approach to online abuse in the wake of the death of Sir David Amess, Mr Johnson said the Government was willing to “look at anything to strengthen the legislation. We will have criminal sanctions with tough sentences for those responsible for allowing this foul content to permeate the internet,” he said.

“What we hope also, is that no matter how tough the proposals we produce, the Opposition will support it.”

Mr Johnson also pledged that the Online Harms Bill, currently being scrutinised by a Parliamentary committee, would be brought before the Commons for its second reading as soon as possible, raising the prospect that it could become law by next summer.

The draft law follows a campaign by The Telegraph for “duty of care” laws to combat online harms, and a Tory manifesto commitment to make the UK “the safest place in the world to be online”.

Earlier this year, the Government announced Ofcom will have powers to impose fines up to £18million or 10 per cent of global turnover – whichever is greater – and to shut down platform providers who fail to remove child abuse, terrorism or suicide content from sites by blocking their access to UK users.

However, it stopped short of criminal sanctions against named directors whose companies fail to comply with the duty of care, as demanded by children’s charities and campaigners including the NSPCC.

Instead, it said these will be held back as “reserve” powers to be used against tech giants if they fail to clean up their act or do not allow Ofcom access to their algorithms, which are blamed for promoting harmful content to children.

Mr Johnson’s comments are the strongest sign yet that he is willing to impose criminal penalties.

They came as Sir Keir urged Mr Johnson to use the “inescapable desire” of MPS, after the killing of Sir David to “clamp down on the extremism, the hate and the abuse that festers online”.