(C) Alec Muffett's DropSafe blog.
Author Name: Alec Muffett
This story was originally published on allecmuffett.com. [1]
License: CC-BY-SA 3.0.[2]
Social networks risk quitting Britain under online safety laws, Reddit claims
2024-04-01 00:00:00
The Online Safety Bill, which will shortly be passed to the Palace for the formality of Royal Assent before finally becoming law, marks a major step forward in regulating the big social media platforms.
Already the principle underpinning the legislation – the idea that platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and others owe their users a “duty of care” and have responsibility for the potential harms inflicted by their products – has inspired legislation across Europe and around the world.
A similar duty was introduced in the UK in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, to ensure that factory bosses, mine owners and others took responsibility for the safety of work environments.
Once the new legislation bites, it should make the internet – currently a “Wild West” – a much safer place for those under 18 in the UK.
No longer will the big internet platforms be able to shrug off harms caused to children as “nothing to do with us” in cases, such as Molly Russell’s, where those platforms had a part to play.
The idea for the legislation – championed by The Telegraph since 2018 – came from Prof Lorna Woods and William Perrin of the Carnegie UK Trust. Both have since been honoured with OBEs for their groundbreaking work.
The Act will mark the end of the era of “self-regulation” for social media companies and gives users a powerful and independent regulator (Ofcom) to appeal to when things go wrong.
Most importantly, it makes it a legal requirement for social media companies to understand the risks presented by the design and functionality of their services and mitigate the most serious of them.
In short, they will no longer be able to live in denial or pretend everything is fine.
Child abuse and terrorism content; fraudulent or harmful adverts; illegal content, including animal cruelty; and for children, pornography are all covered by the new Act.
Importantly, it will also give bereaved parents – like the Russells – the right to access their child’s encrypted data should a tragedy occur.
The Act also has strong provisions protecting freedom of speech and privacy.
Paul Nuki
[END]
[1] URL:
https://archive.ph/o/94rzg/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/01/online-safety-laws-social-networks-quitting-britain-reddit/
[2] URL:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
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