The regulator is powerless to force social media firms to take action over the spread of criminal misinformation online until next year, despite new laws being passed in 2023.
Officials say they are confident that new powers contained in the Online Safety Act, which passed into law in October last year, will force tech giants to do more to tackle the sharing of false information, such as that being spread in the wake of the Southport stabbings.
But the new tougher regulations will not be implemented and policed by the watchdog Ofcom until after April 2025, leaving the Government largely powerless to penalise the social media firms for allowing disinformation to spread so readily on their sites.
Once enacted, social media companies will be required to remove any illegal content online, including misinformation and disinformation, where it amounts to a criminal offence, including content created by AI bots.
A failure to comply will lead to fines of £18m or 10 per cent of their global annual revenue, whichever is the highest.
But the powers will not come into effect until January at the earliest, prompting fears that websites will go unpunished if they allow misinformation to be shared, such as that spread about the Southport attacker’s identity that sparked far-right violence in the region.
i understands that there is frustration within the new government over the length of time it will take for the new powers to crackdown on social media giants to kick in, with the decision having been made by the Conservatives.
Elon Musk, the owner of X/Twitter, appeared to openly goad Sir Keir Starmer just hours after the Prime Minister used a press conference to warn social media firms that “violent disorder, clearly whipped up online … is also a crime, it’s happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere”.
In his televised address, the Prime Minister added that it was important for Government and tech firms to “work together” to keep the country safe, saying the Government “blaming everybody else and pointing fingers” does not work well.
Musk chose to amplify criticisms aimed at Sir Keir made by far-right activist Tommy Robinson, and described his response to the violence, that has also spread to London and Hartlepool as “insane”.
Downing Street chose not to engage with the criticism, with one senior government source telling i: “We’re getting on with delivering for the country, not scrolling Twitter to see what its owner thinks.”
Unlike in the UK, the European Commission has pressed on with implementing its own Digital Services Act and has charged Musk’s social media firm for breaching Brussels’s disinformation rules.
The billionaire SpaceX and Tesla boss has had a controversial reign at X since taking over the company in 2022, and has been accused of allowing misinformation and other harmful content to flourish on the site since then.
Under his leadership, the company has also restored the accounts of many figures previously banned for breaking site rules around hate speech, including in the UK such as Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins.
Since then, many users claim to have seen an increase in hateful content, as well as pornography and spam posts and accounts, despite Musk claiming he would “defeat the bots”.
A number of experts have raised concerns about the rising levels of misinformation spreading on the platform, which they warned was being used by political activists to stoke divisions and tension.
John Coxhead, a professor of policing at Staffordshire University, said groups were being “cynically stirred up by opportunistic populists with nothing better to do”.
Merseyside police are now braced for yet more violence in the area, with the Prime Minister choosing to make a second visit to the region in order to thank those who were involved in responding to the attack.
