During the Queen’s Speech, plans for the Online Harms Bill were revealed which will help to keep children safe online, stop racial hate, and protect democracy.
The draft Bill marks a milestone in the Government’s fight to make the internet safe. Despite the fact that we are now using the internet more than ever, over three quarters of UK adults are concerned about going online, and fewer parents feel the benefits outweigh the risks of their children being online – falling from 65 per cent in 2015 to 50 per cent in 2019.
Under the new rules, social media sites, websites, apps and other services hosting user-generated content or allowing people to talk to others online must remove and limit the spread of illegal and harmful content such as child sexual abuse, terrorist material and suicide content.
There will be further provisions to tackle prolific online scams such as romance fraud, which have seen people manipulated into sending money to fake identities on dating apps.
The State Opening of Parliament took place on Tuesday this week, bringing in a new parliamentary session.
Numerous new bills were announced by the UK Government to help the country recover and grow after the Covid-19 pandemic.
John Lamont MP said:
“This is vital new legislation which will help to protect younger people online by removing harmful content such as child sex abuse.
“A few weeks ago we saw an unprecedented social media boycott by footballers in protest at the way social media firms fail to remove racist abuse. This draft bill will crack down on this appalling content, and hold tech companies to account if they fail to remove it.
“Too often we find people scammed out of their own hard earned cash by fraudsters. So we will also legislate to protect people from fake investment opportunities and so called ‘romance scams’ on social media and dating apps.
“This landmark bill will protect those who need it, and importantly will penalise social media companies if they fail to act.”
