U.K. May Legislate to Hold Social Media Companies to Account

Social media companies need to be held accountable for far more of their content than is currently the case, U.K. Minister for Digital Margot James said, suggesting ministers may legislate to enforce their obligations, according to Bloomberg.

“There are various forms of self-regulation which could be tightened“ around social media, but “my feeling is we need to get more of it on a statutory footing,“ James said on Wednesday in a telephone interview. While the government hasn’t formed an “agreed position“ yet, proposals will be made in the summer, she said.

James suggested that social media companies operating in Britain be overseen by an independent regulator, along the lines of how British press regulator IPSO monitors the standards of most of the U.K.’s newspapers and magazines.

“There doesn’t seem to be a great appetite among social media companies to self-regulate,“ said James, whose ministerial brief includes oversight of digital policy. “They have responded to government pressure in America and Europe to clamp down on terrorist-related content and child abuse content. But beyond that, I think it’s fair to say progress, if any, has been extremely slow.“

James said she wanted to create a simpler route for people who have been subject to online abuse to seek redress. But she added that government needed more time to formulate a formal procedure for the public to follow.

“We do want to achieve a much easier redress for people who have been slandered, libeled, abused online, and for all the hate speech which appears with impunity online," James said. “Increasingly countries like Germany and France and others are coming to the view that this is far too divisive in society and it needs to be brought to an end, and people’s rights that are enforceable far more easily offline, have to be more enforceable online.