In his interview on Sky News this morning, Peter Kyle, the science secretary, said that he also wanted a wider change in how social media companies operating, with more emphasis on products being tested for safety before they are launched. He said:
I’m trying to create a situation where safety is baked in at the start of social media products before they land in society, because at the moment, they’re free to land products in society.
We deal with the harms, and then we’re sort of retrospectively legislating and regulating.
We need to get to a point where there is more testing of these products before they make it out into society.
We’re not there yet. I’m not there yet, but I’m taking steps forward, and I think social media companies can see the approach that I and this government are taking to make sure that safety is there right from the outset.
Good morning. Keir Starmer is in Washington today where he is holding talks in the White House with President Biden which should confirm a decision that might help Ukraine significantly in its war against Russia. Dan Sabbagh is travelling with him, and here is is overnight story.
The key meeting will take place late tonight. This blog will have closed by then, and most of our coverage of the Ukraine elements of Starmer’s trip will be on our Ukraine war live blog, which is here.
Back in the UK, parliament is now in recess, because the party conference season is starting this weekend (with the Liberal Democrats, in Brighton). The government is focusing on an announcement that will toughen the law on what it describes as “the sharing of non-consensual intimate images” – or ‘“revenge porn”, as it is more commonly known.
“Revenge porn” is already illegal; it is an offence under section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. But today Peter Kyle, the science secretary, is announcing that online porn will now be place in the most serious category of online offence under the Online Safety Act.
Explaining what this will mean in practice, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology says in a news release:
The Online Safety Act will require social media firms and search services to protect their users from illegal material on their sites, with protections due to come into force from spring next year. The most serious forms of illegal content are classed as ‘priority offences’ meaning regulated online platforms will have additional duties to proactively remove and stop from appearing on their sites.
Today’s move will mean intimate image offences are treated as priority offences under the Act, putting them on the same footing as public order offences and the sale of weapons and drugs online.
If firms fail to comply with their duties the regulator Ofcom will have robust enforcement powers, including imposing fines that could reach up to 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue.
And this is how Kyle explained it in an interview with Sky News this morning.
The two actions that will result from what I’m doing today is that social media companies must take action to prevent any material going online in the first place. They must prove to our regulator Ofcom that they have taken the measures – in other words, they are using the algorithms – to protect people, not to allow content to go on.
Secondly, if content does make it onto these platforms, the platform owners must take action to remove it swiftly. If they don’t, there will be very heavy fines as a result.
What I’m trying to do is move away from the fact where these companies are allowed to produce products into our society, harms emerge, and then we deal with the harms. What I’m trying to do is make sure the safety is baked in from the outset, so the harms don’t emerge in the first place.
There is not much in the diary today, but the UK politics news never dries. I’m sure we will find plenty to cover.
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