An nameless reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Social media companies can be ordered to guard youngsters from encountering harmful stunts and challenges on their platforms below adjustments to the net security invoice. The laws will explicitly confer with content material that “encourages, promotes or gives directions for a problem or stunt extremely prone to lead to severe harm” as the kind of materials that under-18s ought to be protected against. The invoice can even require social media corporations to proactively stop youngsters from seeing the very best threat types of content material, resembling materials encouraging suicide and self-harm. Tech companies might be required to make use of age-checking measures to stop under-18s from seeing such materials.
In one other change to the laws, which is predicted to grow to be legislation this yr, social media platforms must introduce harder age-checking measures to stop youngsters from accessing pornography — bringing them according to the invoice’s measures for mainstream websites resembling Pornhub. Companies that publish or permit pornography on their websites can be required to introduce “extremely efficient” age-checking measures resembling age estimation instruments that estimate somebody’s age from a selfie. Different amendments embody requiring the communications watchdog Ofcom to supply steering for tech companies on defending ladies and ladies on-line. Ofcom, which is able to oversee implementation of the act as soon as it comes into drive, can be required to seek the advice of with the home abuse commissioner and victims commissioner when producing the steering, as a way to guarantee it displays the voices of victims.
The up to date invoice can even criminalize the sharing of deepfake intimate photographs in England and Wales. In an extra change it would require platforms to ask grownup customers in the event that they want to keep away from content material that promotes self-harm or consuming issues or racist content material. As soon as the legislation comes into drive breaches will carry a punishment of a wonderful of £18m or as much as 10% of world turnover. In probably the most excessive instances, Ofcom will have the ability to block platforms.
