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Britain’s government intends to make it illegal to encourage others to harm themselves online and will fine social media companies that fail to remove such content, as part of an overhaul of laws governing online behaviour.
Promoting suicide is already illegal, but Britain’s Ministry for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said in a statement that it now wants social media companies to block a wide range of content.
“Social media companies can no longer remain silent … and face penalties under our laws for allowing this abusive and destructive behavior to continue on their platforms,” Digital Secretary Michelle Donnellan said.
The Conservative government said the proposals aimed to block images and videos viewed by 14-year-old Molly Russell, whose death in 2017 sparked ongoing public concern.
In September, the coroner investigating her death ruled that social media platforms had fed her content that amounted to “romantic acts of self-harm by young people”.
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Under the proposals, social media companies would have to remove and limit users’ exposure to content that deliberately encourages people to harm themselves.
Last week the government said the new law would also ban the distribution of sexually explicit images that have been manipulated to show those who have not consented to appear in them.
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Full details of the latest proposals – including criminal penalties for people promoting self-harm and the scale of fines companies face – will come when legislative amendments are put before parliament next month.
Comprehensive legislation containing such penalties, known as the Online Safety Bill, has been slow to pass through parliament since its first draft in May 2021.
Previous versions called for “legal but harmful” content to be banned online, drawing criticism from tech companies and free-speech campaigners who said the definition was too vague and could be used arbitrarily to criminalize otherwise legal behavior. .
However, the bill has been strongly supported by children’s and mental health charities and by those seeking to limit racist and sexist abuse online.
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