According to the proposal that has been shared, a more decisive action is required considering that there are a number of growing problems online including the spread of terrorist content on various popular platforms. We should mention that the white paper has been produced by the UK’s secretary of state for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the secretary of state for the Home Department. The authors have written in the proposal, “There is currently a range of regulatory and voluntary initiatives aimed at addressing these problems, but these have not gone far or fast enough, or been consistent enough between different companies, to keep UK users safe online.”
To fight the problems that have been mentioned earlier, the UK government has been suggested to impose new rules on companies like Facebook and Google by the proposal. The rules should be made in a way that they make these companies monitor the content on their platforms more closely and give regulators more information. The new rules will also require technology giants to take reasonable action on user complaints immediately. If they fail to take timely action, fines would be imposed on them by a new regulator. However, as of now the scope of the rules still has to be decided by officials in the UK. As we mentioned earlier, this move by the United Kingdom is the latest one in Europe’s plan to regulate technology giants more closely. Europe has also passed a regulation called GDPR, which is considered to be one among the strictest moves to regulate personal data on the internet. Post the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the United Kingdom has been scrutinizing a number of technology giants including Facebook. Furthermore, after the video of a mass shooting at two mosques in New Zealand went viral on Facebook and other social media platforms, a renewed urgency has been imposed on the issue of moderating content on the internet. The proposal that has been shared will soon be debated upon by the Parliament in the United Kingdom. Member of Parliament Damian Collins, who is also the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has appreciated the white paper saying, “Member of Parliament Damian Collins, chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.”
