New online laws will make UK the ‘safest place to surf the net’

NEW safety laws to crack down on fake news on the internet will leave no hiding place for online criminals, Ministers said last night.

They sought to calm fears about the proposed rules by insisting they will protect young internet users and target online crooks.

Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said the ‘ground-breaking’ Bill ‘will make the UK the safest place to surf the web’.

She also unveiled a Media Literacy Taskforce to help vulnerable and ‘hard-to-reach’ people understand what they read online. The Online Safety Bill, to be debated by MPs this week, has sparked concerns that it could damage Press freedom and lead to legitimate online content being censored.

Senior Tory MP David Davis said the ‘seriously flawed’ Bill would still allow a Minister ‘and a few MPs’ to decide what could be published online in some cases. The former Brexit Secretary added: ‘If Vladimir Putin came up with something like this, we’d rightly condemn it.’

The new online regime, to be debated by MPs this week, aims to crack down on false and harmful information on the internet by requiring social media platforms, search engines and websites to beef up protection for users.

Companies failing to comply face fines of up to 10 per cent of their annual global turnover as well as being forced to improve their practices and block non-compliant sites.

But defenders of free speech say the threat of huge fines will cause tech companies such as Google and Facebook to censor legitimate content, stifle public