Duty of Care for Large Digital Platforms

Large digital platforms will soon be subjected to a legal “duty of care”.

22:03 15 April 2019

Large digital platforms have given us a great opportunity to connect with other people from all points of the globe, voice our opinions on various issues and express ourselves using different medium, among others. With billions of people from across the world using digital platforms, global regulation of internet content has become a major issue in the tech industry.

 

 

 

In January, the father of Molly Russel, the teenager who committed suicide, has blamed the unfortunate incident on the stream of self-harm content she was exposed to Instagram. Two months later, the Christchurch massacre was live-streamed on Facebook for 17 minutes before it was taken down. Despite the increasing amount of harmful content online, the tech sector is yet to present a clear action plan on how to regulate it.

 

 

 

Thus, the UK government has decided to step in. On Monday, it announced that large digital platforms will be subjected to a legal “duty of care” funded through a crowd-pleasing social media levy. Under the proposals, platforms will commit to improving the overall safety of the digital realms they preside over.

 

 

 

The duty of care is backed by politicians and other organisations, including the Children’s Commissioner, College of Policing and the NSPCC.