UK's Ofcom to Tweak Social Media Rules in Response to Summer Riots

The UK plans to extend its rules against illegal material online to cover how social media companies respond to crises like the recent riots in the country, according to a statement from British regulator Ofcom on Monday. 

The agency released its first guidelines for the Online Safety Act, a law passed in 2023 to govern illegal material on internet platforms. In the release, Ofcom said it is planning additional measures for next spring that include new proposals for removing material tied to child sexual abuse and terrorism. It will also introduce “crisis response protocols for emergency events.”

Violent protests broke out across the UK in August after the fatal stabbings of three young girls in Southport and false rumors that the attacker was a Muslim asylum-seeker. The riots were a major challenge for the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer in his second month in office. Starmer appealed to social media companies to halt what he called “violent disorder clearly whipped up online.” 

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, repeatedly criticized Starmer for his handling of the riots. The aftermath prompted Starmer's Labour party to consider stricter rules to curb incendiary content online, Bloomberg News reported earlier. 

Ofcom said on Monday that companies have three months to complete an assessment of illegal harms on their platforms under the agency's first rules. Failure to comply can bring fines of up to 10 percent of a platform's worldwide revenue or, “in very serious cases,” a court order to block access to its service in the UK, according to the regulator.

“These laws mark a fundamental re-set in society's expectations of technology companies,” Peter Kyle, the UK technology secretary, said in a statement on Monday. “I expect them to deliver and will be watching closely to make sure they do.”

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