Security News > 2022 > December > UK lawmakers look to enforce blocking tools for legal but harmful content

The UK government is putting forward changes to the law which would require social media platforms to give users the option to avoid seeing and engaging with harmful - but legal - content.

Presenting the amended Online Safety Bill to Parliament this week, Michelle Donelan, the minister for digital, culture, media and sport pledged to create a "Third shield" to protect users from harmful content.

In notes published along with the Bill, the government promised to tackle anonymous abuse by social media platform users by giving users the option to verify their identity, and tools to have more control over the legal content that they see and who they interact with - such as excluding interactions with unverified users.

First proposed in April last year, a driving factor behind it was politicians' outrage at the ease at which children could access harmful and pornographic content.

The idea of preventing children from seeing nefarious content has not gone altogether though, especially since the tragic death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who died in 2017 following "An act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content", according to an inquest.

Rather than strict ID-base age-verification, platform providers would be forced to publish data revealing the risk of children viewing such content on their systems.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/12/09/uk_law_makers_to_enforce/