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Tech giants told UK online safety laws ‘not up for negotiation’
Senior
cabinet minister promises not to dilute new measures despite Zuckerberg’s
attacks on countries ‘censoring’ content
Michael
Savage Policy Editor
Sat 11 Jan
2025 18.59 GMT
Britain’s
new laws to boost safety and tackle hate speech online are “not up for
negotiation”, a senior government minister has warned, after Meta founder Mark
Zuckerberg vowed to join Donald Trump to pressure countries they regard as
“censoring” content.
In an
interview with the Observer, Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, said that
the recent laws designed to make online platforms safer for children and
vulnerable people would never be diluted to help the government woo big tech
companies to the UK in its defining pursuit for economic growth.
His comments
come as Keir Starmer prepares a major big tech charm offensive this week in
which he will pitch the UK as the “sweet spot” for the development of
artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
However, the
prime minister will do so with his government facing constant and wild attacks
from Elon Musk, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent figures and a leading
Trump supporter.
Zuckerberg
also used a wide-ranging statement last week to reveal he was ditching
“politically biased” factcheckers and reducing restrictions on topics such as
immigration and gender on Meta’s platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and
Threads.
He added
that he would “work with President Trump to push back on governments around the
world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more”.
While he did
not single out the UK, which passed the Online Safety Act last year, Zuckerberg
said Europe had “an ever-increasing number of laws institutionalising
censorship”.
Kyle, who is
preparing to unveil the government’s AI strategy alongside Starmer this week,
said Zuckerberg was struggling with the same issues of free speech that he had
to consider as a legislator.
However,
Kyle said he would not countenance rolling back Britain’s new online safety
laws.
“The
threshold for these laws allows responsible free speech to a very, very high
degree,” he said. “But I just make this basic point: access to British society
and our economy is a privilege – it’s not a right. And none of our basic
protections for children and vulnerable people are up for negotiation.
“I was in
California speaking to these companies in December. I was there in November.
None of this has been challenged. There is a great deal of interest in our
direction of travel. I think there is a great deal of suspicion about some
countries around the world and the way that they are acting.
“But I think
we have not only led the world in online safety, I think we’ve done it in a way
which is sensitive and on the side of innovation.”
Under the
Online Safety Act, large social media platforms will eventually have to make
sure illegal content – including hate speech – is removed, enforce their own
content rules and give users the means of screening out certain types of
harmful content if they choose to do so.
The news
comes as the father of Molly Russell, the teenager who took her own life in
2017 after seeing harmful content online, warned this weekend that the rules
were not tight enough.
After last
summer’s riots, which were fuelled by online misinformation, Kyle asked Ofcom
to examine how illegal content, particularly disinformation, spread during the
disorder and whether further measures would be needed. He said that his
judgments on the issue would not be swayed by the demands of big tech.
“The safety
of people across Britain is not up for negotiation,” he said. “But also,
investing in a country where its citizens are safe and feel safe is a better
bet than one where they don’t. People do vote with their feet on these issues
and platforms upon which people don’t feel safe are ones that tend not to do as
well as others.”
This week’s
launch of the government’s AI action plan will seek to encourage tech
investment in the UK by pitching the country as less regulated than the EU and
well placed to host development. Kyle is also toning down the previous
government’s “overbearing” focus on AI safety concerns.
The action
plan’s launch coincides with big tech leaders moving closer to Trump as his
inauguration approaches. Meta is replacing its factchecking with a “community
notes” style system, similar to that used by the Musk-owned X.
Musk has
become an outspoken critic of the Labour government, amplifying far-right
criticism of Starmer. The tech boss’s attacks began in earnest last year over
the government’s response to the summer riots, when he accused Britain of
“turning into a police state”.
There is
increasing anger within the Labour party over comments made by Musk, whose most
recent forays into British politics have seen him make wild claims about the
safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips. She has said the comments had made her
more worried about her safety.
Musk has
also raged at the government for rejecting his calls for another national
inquiry into grooming gangs.
Starmer has
said his government is open-minded about holding one in future, but argued that
it should first prioritise enacting recommendations from a 2022 independent
report into child sexual abuse.
However, in
a sign Labour is trying to avoid fanning the tensions with Musk, Kyle said he
would be happy to talk with the billionaire, but only as part of his
determination to deliver the benefits of new technology to Britain.
“I am so
focused on getting our country to the point where we are fully exploiting all
of the technology that is out there, so that we then move to a position where
we’re creating more of it and innovating for more of it,” he said. “Nothing
will distract me from that mission.
“I’m
available to talk to any innovator, any potential investor, but it is on those
terms. The rest of it, I’m just not interested in - with the exception of when
it tips over into the kind of content which started to emerge around Jess,
where it does need challenging.
“But I have a very high threshold for this. My priority is to be 100% focused on what will put food on the plates of Britons today and into the future.”
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