By Ben Kerrigan-
The new regulator to be established by the British government to combat harm on Online platforms will struggle to successfully achieve this on twitter. The Government is still undergoing consultations on whether this should mean the creation of a brand new regulator or whether it should be housed within an existing regulator, such as Ofcom
Internet trolls have long found twitter a convenient platform to express their hate, and twitter currently has no mechanism to promptly expel abusers and online trolls from their platforms.
Twitter has been used by online trolls to subject their abusers to relentless racist attacks, spreading of terrorist propaganda, encouraging suicides, and spreading fake news and misinformation. In a statement, Twitter’s head of UK public policy Katy Minshall said : “We look forward to engaging in the next steps of the process, and working to strike an appropriate balance between keeping users safe and preserving the open, free nature of the internet.”
What Twitter’s head of public policy did not say is how twitter will speedily address online troll abusers if they have no mechanism for reacting immediately to complaints made. The social media giant has set up complaint mechanisms, including an app designed to speed up complaints, but they are yet to confirm how quickly they can they can respond to those. There is currently no known mechanism for twitter users to delete unwanted comments from their twitter account, meaning users may have to wait a while for twitter to act on complaints.
The much needed proposals do not give a time limit for online platforms to act to remove or ban unwanted materials from online platforms,meaning they would have to wait for twitter to first act. Mandatory requirements for social media networks to use fact checkers to reduce the spread of fake news and disinformation is a positive step for the future. The test will be how quickly those fact checkers can be implemented compared with how long the fake news or disinformation remains on various platforms.
The proposals published in the white paper on Online Harms from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, aims to provide a more responsible online presence of information, particularly those that encourage public debate. It also aims to address hate crime, revenge pornography, Contempt of court and interference with legal proceedings, and sexting of indecent images by under 18s
The regulator’s enforcement powers aims to’ ”provide incentives to companies to comply, and are designed to be technically possible to implement. The regulator is expected to use these powers in a proportionate manner, taking the impact on the economy into account. These powers must also be designed and used in a way that creates a level playing field, so that companies with a presence in the UK are not disproportionately penalised.
The potential sanctions for non-compliance will spur companies to fulfil their obligations quickly and effectively and will be applied effectively across different types of online companies, which vary enormously in size and revenue and may be based overseas.
Aspects of the proposals include enforcement powers that will be an essential part of the new regulator’s toolkit. They include :Issuing civil fines for proven failures in clearly defined circumstances. Civil fines can be tied into metrics such as annual turnover, volume of illegal material, volume of views of illegal material, and time taken to respond to the regulator
The regulator will have ‘an obligation to protect users’ rights online, particularly rights to privacy and freedom of expression’. It would be funded by ‘fees, charges or a levy on companies whose services are in scope’.