Social media companies face multi-billion pound fines for breaking new Duty of Care laws
Oliver Dowden said the Government would shut down firms that failed to remove child abuse, terrorism or suicide content
15 December 2020 • 12:01am
The Culture Secretary unveiled the new Duty of Care laws in The Telegraph
Credit: Leon Neal /Getty Images Europe
Social media firms face multi-billion pound fines up to 10 per cent of their turnover for breaching Duty of Care laws, as ministers pledged there would be “no safe space online for horrors like child sexual abuse or terrorism”.
Unveiling the new Duty of Care in an article for The Telegraph, Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, said the Government would also take powers to shut down firms that failed to remove child abuse, terrorism or suicide content from their sites by blocking their access to UK users.
Grossbritannien: Besserer Schutz für Kinder im Internet nzz.ch - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nzz.ch Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Social media firms such as Facebook and Instagram could face multi-million pound fines under laws to ban content that encourages suicide and self-harm.
The Government wants to draw up offences banning the spread of such material, which has been implicated in deaths around the world.
Molly Russell, from north-west London, killed herself aged 14 in 2017 after viewing self-harm images on Instagram, leading to her father Ian campaigning for greater protections online.
A Government source told The Sun on Sunday: ‘A child seeing, and worse, being “suggested”, self-harm material is every parent’s nightmare. It’s right we act on this, and make sure tech firms are in no doubt this stuff must not be on their platforms.’
14 December 2020, 12:53 am EST By
After the death of a 14-year-old young teen in northwestern London in 2017, the government of the United Kingdom is considering fining social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram for failing to tackle sensitive content such posts that encourage suicide and self-harming.
Social Media Platforms Could Face Multi-Million Fines
According to a report by the Daily Mail, the social media platforms that fail to deal with these types of content can be fined for millions of pounds under the law.
Moreover, a bill that will likely be introduced early next year is also proposing that any frequently offending platform would be blocked altogether in the UK to help protect young people in the country who are online almost all the time.