Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as well as other big tech bosses risk jail time if their social media platforms don’t block content deemed harmful under upcoming UK online safety laws, this warned. Saturday the Secretary of Culture, Media and Sports of the country, Nadine Dorries, in an interview with Times Radio.
According to the official, Zuckerberg and other top executives of social networks could “absolutely” be jailed if they do not comply with the new legislation once it takes effect.
Dorries expressed his hope that the law is a “heads up for online platforms” to “start doing what they need to do.”
The penalty for not removing illegal content from networks could be up to two years in prison.
On Friday, the British Government announced that a number of criminal offenses had been added to the bill, including revenge pornography, hate crime, fraud, sale of illegal drugs or weapons, promotion or facilitation of suicide, trafficking in people and sexual exploitation.
“Which [las empresas de tecnología] must do now is to eliminate those harmful algorithms in [sus] platforms. Stop directing people to suicide chat rooms, stop allowing hate, stop allowing human trafficking, stop allowing threats of hate, violence and rape, and take it all down now,” Dorries said.
Criticism and dismissal
However, the statements of the Secretary of Culture have been dismissed by critics such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC, for its acronym in English).
Andy Burrows, the NSPCC’s head of child online safety policy, told The Independent that “tech bosses would not be personally responsible for the ill effects of their algorithms or failure to prevent manipulation, and could only be prosecuted for not provide information to the regulator”.
