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Tech giants will be punished for sexism and racism on their platforms despite moves to loosen rules on “legal but harmful” content, says the minister who helped draft the new plans. .
Damian Collins, who was the digital minister responsible for the bill until last month, said companies would be held liable for “legal but harmful” content about sexism and racism through their methods and their services.
This means that if they don’t deliver on what they promised in their job to protect people from these abuses, they will be punished by the Ofcom regulator, who has the power to fines up to 10 percent of the global turnover.
The ban – which is part of the cyber security bill – remains in the proposed law despite moves by the Government to strip out specific clauses outlining what is illegal and what is dangerous. adults should be protected.
It was followed by opposition from hard-line Tories and independent campaigners who feared social media companies would “wake up” and use the provision to block controversial and offensive content that could cause harm but would still be illegal.
However, Mr Collins said that major platforms such as Meta, owned by Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, have set standards of behavior in their terms and conditions of service such as hate speech, harassment and bullying.
‘A kind of consumer protection law’
We hope to actively block and remove specified illegal content including pornographic, malicious, fraudulent, and promotional or offensive content.
However, they are also entitled to crack down on “lawful but dangerous” programs that do not meet the criminal threshold of being illegal but violate their customs and traditions.
“If a program says we don’t accept bad language but it’s acceptable or it’s not very effective to remove it, we have to make sure they’re going to do what they say,” Mr Collins said.
“Ofcom because it gives the authority to do that, to do things that we can’t do at the moment and go behind the scenes and see what’s going on.”
“If they have policies to address that kind of behavior [such as race hate or self-harm], are they effective to enforce or not? It’s the same as consumer protection law: if you say on the label, you’re going to do something, do you do it?”
‘A criminal threshold’
The bill would also keep companies in the loop if they try to reduce their legal protections but it is dangerous amid fears that Elon Musk, the new boss of Twitter, could relax in the laws of the subjects.
Mr Collins said that “on the whole” the platforms were doing “the least” to stop the illegal but dangerous ones.
“The only problem is that companies are less clear about their terms and conditions. So the bill is important and companies need to be clear about the terms of their services,” said Mr Collins.
“If they say, they don’t accept racial hatred, if they lower the terms of service to accept it, that’s a very different response. [from Ofcom]. And there are criminal thresholds that apply as well.”
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