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Social media giants could face criminal sanctions over online harms, warns Culture Secretary

Jeremy Wright, Culture Secretary - This content is subject to copyright.
Jeremy Wright, Culture Secretary - This content is subject to copyright.

Social media firms could face criminal sanctions for failing to protect users from online harms, the Culture Secretary has warned on eve of a visit to meet tech bosses in the US.

Asked on the BBC if the Government would introduce criminal sanctions in its forthcoming White Paper regulating the social media firms, Jeremy Wright said: “We will consider all possible options for penalties.

“It’s important that those companies understand that there are meaningful sanctions available to us if they don’t do what they should. That’s what I think we owe the families of teenagers [like Molly Russell who took her life after viewing self-harm images].”

Mr Wright is to fly to the US this week with digital minister Margot James to discuss the Government’s plans to regulate the industry with tech chiefs including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

“What I will be talking to them about is what the UK government thinks is necessary to keep its citizens safe,” said Mr Wright on the Andrew Marr show.

“I want to make sure that what we put forward is effective in that regard. I will be talking to the companies about how to do that. I am not asking them for their permission to do that, I am asking how we will make it effective.

“The British Government will come to its own conclusions about what is exactly necessary to keep our citizens safe. There’s no doubt that we can’t any longer rely on the internet companies to do it for themselves.

“We need to take action as a Government and we want to do that. We need a good design. I want to make sure the design is right.

“It’s in the interests of Molly Russell’s family and all those many parents who worry about what their teenagers might be doing online that we get the design of the system right.

“In order to do that I have to make sure we have worked through the questions we need to ask ourselves, the mechanisms we need to put in place and consequences that will flow if the online companies don’t meet their responsibilities.”

He declined to speculate what would be in the White Paper, saying it was important the Government took time and consulted so it got it right.

“When we have developed this proposal and when we have seen it operate, that’s when we will be judged on whether it success in making the internet a safer place.”

The White Paper, which has been developed over the past eight months, is due to be published at the start of March.

The Daily Telegraph has been campaigning for a statutory duty of care to be imposed on social media firms to force them to do more to protect children from online harms.