(Bloomberg) — The U.K. is toughening its upcoming Online Safety Bill to police illegal and harmful behavior on the internet.
Currently, online platforms like Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc.
are required to take down illegal content after it has been reported to them. The new law will require companies to show how they proactively prevent such content spreading, and on Friday the government extended the list of content covered by this requirement to include crimes like revenge porn and the promotion of suicide.
Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries is also adding measures to the bill that are aimed at cracking down on malicious users through new criminal offenses.
Lawmakers will vote on the legislation in the coming months.
They include online messages to convey threats of serious harm such as death threats and knowingly sending false communications with the intention to cause harm, such as spreading a message that drinking bleach cures Covid-19.
The current laws regulating malicious communications date from 1988 and 2003.
The newly proposed legislation won’t apply to print and online journalism, television, radio, and film, the government said in the statement late Friday.
Ministers are still considering whether to criminalize so-called cyber-flashing, epilepsy trolling and the encouragement of self-harm.
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