British online censorship regulations take effect
Date
12/17/2024 7:18:51 AM
(MENAFN) Britain's new online censorship law, the Online Safety Act, officially came into force on Monday, with the country's Telecom regulator, Ofcom, publishing a set of guidelines for social media platforms to follow. Under the new rules, platforms like Meta, Google, and TikTok must remove content related to illegal activities such as terrorism, human trafficking, and child sexual abuse, or face heavy fines.
The guidelines also prohibit content that incites racial or religious hatred or hatred based on sexual orientation, although these terms remain somewhat vague. Ofcom has identified some offenses as “complex,” involving interactions between users or behavior that may also occur offline.
While the initial draft of the law included a clause banning “legal but harmful” content, this was removed after criticism. However, there were discussions about reintroducing it in response to civil unrest in the UK, although it was ultimately not pursued.
Failure to comply with the rules could lead to fines of up to 10% of a platform's global revenue, with repeat offenders facing possible jail time for managers and even court orders to block access to platforms in the UK. The rules will affect over 100,000 global companies, including large social media platforms and smaller service providers.
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