Make platforms that promote violent content pay towards riot costs, Streeting says | Wes Streeting
Wes Streeting has called on Keir Starmer to take urgent action against X and other online platforms that are helping to escalate social tensions, suggesting they should be forced to contribute to rebuilding costs following the riots in Belfast.
The intervention by the former health secretary, who is seen as a likely rival to Keir Starmer in any leadership contest, comes after Downing Street said any response would be left to media regulator Ofcom, meaning any action was unlikely for at least two months.
Streeting, who condemned what he called “the forces of darkness online and offline”, said it was an inadequate response to a spate of posts on X – including from the platform’s trillionaire owner Elon Musk – calling for an angry response to the stabbing attack in Belfast.
It follows a similar pattern of provocation before the unrest in Southampton in response to the case of Henry Nowak, who was handcuffed by police on his deathbed after his killer falsely accused the young student of racial abuse.
Alongside calls from far-right agitators such as Tommy Robinson for people to protest,
Streeting told the Guardian: “We are long past the time for threats. We must act. Incitement to violence is a crime in the offline world, so it should be prosecuted as a crime in the online world too.”
“If platforms are knowingly promoting this dangerous content, bosses should face criminal action and companies should be made to pay the cost of cleaning up and rebuilding Belfast, along with thugs on the ground.
“We have been too timid in the face of brothers who seek to reshape our society and stir up hatred; we must and still can stand up to the forces of darkness online and offline.”
The Online Safety Act requires social media companies to remove any posts that break the law, for example by encouraging violence, and Ofcom is enforcing this. X has agreed with the media watchdog to submit a quarterly report stating its compliance on this matter, but the first of these is not due for at least two months.
Ministers are also planning to amend the Online Safety Act to require social media companies to act more quickly to remove provocative content during riots or other crises. However, this must be submitted to parliament for 40 days, so it will not come into force until mid-July at the earliest.
In response, after X was flooded with sexualized images of women and children generated by the Grok AI tool, Starmer threatened to block the platform in the UK unless urgent action was taken to resolve the problem, and encouraged X to stop using the tool through his Grok account and on Grok at X.
When asked why similar measures were not taken for posts inciting violence in Belfast or Southampton, Downing Street said existing measures were taken and some platforms were fined for breaches of Ofcom’s Online Safety Act.
A No 10 spokesman said: “We condemn anyone who seeks to fuel division or incite violence and those who break the law must face the consequences, whether offline or online.
“We will not tolerate platforms being used to spread harm, abuse or division. Platforms have a clear responsibility in law to remove illegal content and Ofcom has our full support in using its enforcement powers to hold them to account.”
