As part of the Plan for Change, tougher sanctions will be brought
in to combat the unacceptable content circulating online that
advertises deadly and illegal knives and other offensive weapons
to young people – or which glorifies or incites violence.
The government has already announced a significant fine of up to
£10,000 for individual tech bosses whose platforms fail to remove
this content within 48 hours following a police warning.
Following significant consultation with the Coalition to Tackle
Knife Crime, the government is going even further with an
additional fine of up to £60,000 to be paid by the company. This
means tech platforms and their executives could collectively face
up to £70,000 in fines for every post relating to knife crime
they fail to remove.
A greater range of online platforms will be liable under these
new laws to also include online search engines as well as social
media platforms and marketplaces, to capture all online providers
which might currently be failing to remove content.
The move bolsters further measures set out yesterday by the
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and Ofcom, to
protect children from a broad spectrum of harmful online content
including pornography, suicide and self-harm under the Online
Safety Act. The laws will be some of the most
comprehensive online safety protections in the world and mean
platforms must protect children from content including suicide,
self-harm, and pornography by taking steps such as introducing
age checks like photo ID matching or facial age estimation and
filtering out harmful content from algorithms.
Crime and Policing Minister, Dame said:
The kind of content that young people scroll through every day
online is sickening and I will not accept any notion that
restricting access to this harmful material is too difficult.
Our children need more from us. That is why we are now going
further than ever to hold to account the tech companies who are
not doing enough to safeguard young people from content which
incites violence, particularly in young boys.
Curbing the impact of this kind of content will be key for our
mission to halve knife crime, but more widely our Plan for Change
across government to do more protect young people from damaging
and dangerous content.
As previously announced, the Home Office will introduce a new
system to be carried out by a new policing unit backed by £1.75
million of funding to tackle the sale of knives online. This will
operate out of the Met, but on a national scale. They will be
responsible for issuing Content Removal Notices which inform the
tech platform of illegal content, giving them a 48 hour window in
which they must remove it.
Failure to comply will now result in a Civil Penalty Notice
rather than taking the company to civil court, which include the
respective fines for both executives and the wider company. This
will mean sanctions can be inflicted much more quickly and is the
same penalty that an employer may receive for employing an
illegal worker to reflect the vital importance of removing
harmful knife related content.
Patrick Green CEO of The Ben Kinsella Trust said:
The portrayal of knife crime on social media has significantly
hindered efforts to reduce it. Beyond merely normalising,
glamorising, and desensitising young people to violence, it has
often provided an illegal avenue for purchasing knives without
adequate safeguards, such as proper age verification.
Social media companies and their executives have repeatedly
failed to address these issues. Therefore, I welcome today's
announcement from the government to take decisive action and hold
these executives accountable.
I also thank the government for listening to the Coalition to
Tackle Knife Crime and for extending these sanctions to include
social media companies, who have a responsibility to keep young
people safe on their platforms.
These sanctions are part of a range of measures being introduced
by this government in its mission to halve knife crime in a
decade. These include:
-
banning zombie-style knives and ninja swords, with a
nationwide surrender scheme launching in July
-
introducing stronger 2-step verification for online retailers
selling knives online and banning delivery of weapons to
alternative addresses that don't match the buyer
-
requirement for online retailers to report any bulk or
suspicious-looking purchases of knives to the police
-
launching a consultation in spring on the introduction of a
licensing scheme for retailers who wish to sell knives
-
increasing prison sentences for selling weapons to under 18s
from 6 months to 2 years
-
introducing a new offence for possessing a weapon with intent
for violence with a prison sentence of up to 4 years
The sanctions for tech platforms will be introduced via an
amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill which was tabled on 24
April for committee stage.
