UK intends to silence social media companies if they don’t reduce abuse Business and Economy News
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The new bill will not allow the government to take criminal action against some senior executives whose companies do not comply with the rules.
Britain has said a new law would penalize social media companies up to £ 10m or £ 18bn ($ 25m) in revenue if they fail to fix mistakes like racist hate crimes online, even top executives could face criminal action . .
The Online Security Bill seeks to strengthen the right to freedom of expression and the government assured Wednesday that it will protect democratic political debate and journalistic content.
“It’s time for technology companies to hold them accountable and protect the British from harm. If they don’t, they will be punished,” said Home Secretary Priti Patel.
Technology companies have been accused of doing little to combat online abuse, with football clubs and other sports authorities boycotting the world’s largest social media platforms in the past month to highlight a growing problem.
Extensive legislation was first proposed more than two years ago and has been extended beyond the initial vision of protecting young people online. It also adds measures to combat online fraud.
Heavy fines
The bill will establish a duty of care on social media companies and websites to ensure that they take swift action to remove illegal content, such as hate crimes, harassment and threats against people, including abuse below the criminal threshold.
The material considered to be “terrorist”, the content of suicide, and the conditions for the removal and dissemination of child sexual abuse will also be included, and should be reported to the authorities.
Companies that fail to do so face severe fines from the Ofcom regulator, which could also block access to their sites.
“The bill has reserved powers for Ofcom to take criminal action against some senior executives who do not comply with Ofcom’s information requests,” the government said. “These will be filed if technology companies fail to meet their new responsibilities.”
The proposed law will also require companies to preserve freedom of expression and recover unjustly removed material.
It will also ban technology companies from discriminating against specific political views, adding that Ofcom will be responsible for arbitrarily removing journalistic content, the government added.
Major web platforms like Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc will be banned from “discriminating against certain political views and applying protections equally to different political opinions, regardless of their connection,” according to the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports. he said in a note.
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