Social media executives received a warning last night as Ofcom insisted on taking urgent steps to address the rise in hate speech online.
Platforms have come under fire from the British media watchdog for not doing enough to shield consumers from offensive material.
This comes after days of violent civil unrest and rioting in British towns and cities following the July 30 knife attack that killed three young girls in Southport.
If video platforms do not take action to shield their users from content that could encourage violence or hatred, Ofcom has the authority to penalise them.
Ofcom’s authority to impose online content moderation standards has been further extended under the more recent Online Safety Act (OSA) in the United Kingdom to encompass a wide range of platforms, including social media services.
The regulator warned them in an open letter that the Online Safety Act’s tougher regulations are only a few months away.
However, it stated that “making your sites and apps safer for users doesn’t need to wait.”
Authorities chastised big businesses for not doing enough to combat bigotry and spread fake contests.
Former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel said: “Misinformation is undermining the police’s attempt at quelling the horrific violence and disorder.
“That is why Parliament must be recalled, so MPs can scrutinise the Government’s work to stop misleading online content and understand how they are cooperating with social media.”
Penalties under the OSA are capped at 10% of global yearly sales, so theoretically, the regulator has a lot more tools in its toolkit to deal with major breaches in content control.
Ofcom is still working on putting the regime into place, though.
It is anticipated that social media platform enforcement won’t begin until 2025, as the agency is still in the process of consulting on guidelines for businesses to follow.
We earlier reported that TikTok will not launch a feature that rewards screen time for European Union users, marking an early victory for the EU as it begins to push down on social media’s online addiction hazards.
