Tech firms must act to stop spread of illegal content in a crisis, watchdog says
The communications watchdog has told tech platforms that in a crisis such as a terrorist attack, they must have a plan and act quickly to stop the spread of illegal content.
Illegal content going viral online “could pose a serious threat to public safety”, Ofcom said, citing riots that broke out following the Southport murders in 2024.
In the days following the murders of six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, violence erupted across the UK, fueled in part by misinformation circulating online about the attacker’s identity and background, including false claims that the attacker was an asylum seeker who had arrived in the UK the previous year.
In May last year Her Majesty’s Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services Inspectorate called on social media companies, Ofcom and the police to take faster action to combat misinformation in times of turmoil.
The watchdog’s then chairman, Sir Andy Cooke, said the dramatic events had encouraged greater use of social media sites and that tech companies “have a social responsibility”.
Calling for Ofcom to increase powers to remove posts more quickly, he said the Online Safety Act had “little or no impact on the real-time impacts of online content in situations of rapidly evolving, widespread disorder”.
Ofcom on Tuesday said it was strengthening its online safety code of practice and adding new measures on “what protocols platforms should have in place to respond to spikes in illegal content during a crisis”.
Illegal content may include false communications and state-sponsored misinformation.
The regulator also said that a real-world crisis, such as live streaming of a terrorist attack, could lead to a rise in illegal content online, including hate speech or the sharing of content created by a terrorist group.
Ofcom said tech firms must “act quickly and effectively during the crisis to manage the significant increase in the emergence of illegal content and address the risk that their platforms will be used to commit or facilitate crime.”
The regulator added that it would expect platforms to “deploy an interim response team as soon as possible when a crisis occurs” and subsequently conduct analysis of its response, including what decisions were made and how effective their plans were.
Ofcom added that major platforms such as Meta, which would include the world’s largest social media providers, should create a dedicated communications channel “through which crisis-related information can be shared by law enforcement” to support faster and more coordinated public safety efforts.
The update to the laws must be submitted to Parliament by the Government before it comes into force, and a timeline has not yet been set.
The government has been contacted for comment.
