social media companies will face very
significant fines if they fail to remove
and limit
the spread of illegal content under new
proposed laws published by the
government today
big tech firms will have to abide by a
legal duty of care
to protect children our media editor
amal rajan has the details
this is frida except that's not her real
name
and this isn't her real voice in her 20s
now
she was just 13 when the grooming began
online
i got a message from an older man um
just
hi friend request whatever and i added
him because
you're 13 and just try and add whoever
you can on facebook
to try and seem like you've got loads of
friends and stuff
i don't think it took too long for it to
get into him asking for more pictures of
me
and then sexual pictures of me and him
sending me sexual pictures
i still haven't reported it to the
police i probably never will
because of how long and painful the
process can be
i talked to the technology companies
that dominate the internet very very
often and they would say about this kind
of thing
you know what we've built as good
technologies we can to try and detect
this stuff
what would you say to them if they're in
the room now i'd ask them who is taking
responsibility for this because
currently the man
who has groomed me does not take any
responsibility for what happened
and the tech companies did not take any
responsibility for what has happened
so the only person taking responsibility
for it is me
which is horrible i am the only one
facing up to what's happened
i now call secretary oliver dowden to
make his statement
the culture secretary today outlined
some of the specifics
a 13 year old should no longer be able
to access pornographic images on twitter
youtube will not be allowed to recommend
videos promoting tech
terrorist ideologies and anti-semitic
hate crime will need to be removed
without
delay as part of the proposals senior
managers could eventually face
criminal prosecution though that will
require secondary legislation
there will be exemptions for smaller
firms so as not to stifle innovation
and articles or comments on news
websites will be unaffected
to protect free speech i don't think
those firms are taking it seriously
enough
ian russell has been campaigning on this
issue since the death of his daughter
molly
who took her own life it later emerged
she had seen pictures of self-harm on
instagram
which is owned by facebook there are
things that they could have done
better they could have included criminal
sanctions
uh to senior management up front and
that would have put a bigger impulse
to bring about change which is much
needed
urgent though these issues clearly are
these proposals have been
years in the making are largely untried
and still face huge
practical challenges the sheer volume of
material online
puts addressing this stuff beyond the
reach of mere manpower
then there's the fact that one person's
online harm is another's
freedom of expression but despite all of
that
a consensus has emerged in the west that
these
global data giants have had a free pass
for too long tech giants have invested
billions in safety
and say they welcome regulation these
new rules probably won't be in place
until 2022
leaving plenty of time for their
lobbying amal rajan
bbc news