Amid a wave of violent anti-immigration riots in Britain and a recent anti-immigration “hit list” online, the British government on Wednesday called on social media to take responsibility for harmful online content. Government regulator OfCom has published an open letter to British online service providers addressing content on their platforms that could incite violence and crime in the UK.
Ongoing violent far-right unrest and a series of online incidents have raised concerns about the risk that online platforms can pose in inciting hatred, violence and crime. The unrest was initially sparked by online disinformation suggesting that the perpetrator of a violent attack in Southport was an Islamic migrant. A list of immigration lawyers and services across the UK was subsequently circulated on Telegram as targets of anti-immigration protests.
Nick Emmerson, president of the UK Law Society, wrote to the Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Home Secretary on Monday raising the alarm about the list. He said:
I have written (…) asking that the threats against the legal profession be treated with the utmost seriousness. A direct attack on our legal profession is a direct attack on our democratic values and we support our members who are being targeted.
The Law Society stated that “39 immigration centres were mentioned in online discussions, along with the names of firms and individual lawyers”.
The UK government says social media “clearly needs to do a lot more”. Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary Jim McMahon told the BBC: “We don’t know if it will be protests like we’ve seen in other places or if it’s a list just designed to spread fear and terror or even provoke.” The BBC says it has asked Telegram for comment but has not yet received a response.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) wrote at the time of the Southport attack that “algorithms amplify false information.” It went on to say that “anti-Islam and anti-immigrant users weaponize false information.” The ISD noted that Telegram is mostly unmoderated and “serves as a hub for national and international far-right communities” to spread hate speech, “disseminate locations and targets for further action,” provide “practical advice for potential rioters,” and “incite extremist violence.”
OfCom said it was “engaging with various online services” to understand how they can best prevent and/or mitigate the risk of their platforms being misused to spread disinformation and hatred, “to incite violence and to commit other crimes under UK law”. It outlined existing online safety obligations, such as that “video-sharing platforms based in the UK must protect their users from videos that are likely to incite violence or hatred”.
OfCom also discussed the impact of the Online Safety Act, which has yet to come into force. It said that while this law will set out responsibilities for online services and platforms, “some of the most widely used online sites and apps will need to go further in due course” to protect users. It urged online platforms to “act now”:
New security obligations under the Online Safety Act will come into force in a few months, but you can take steps now to make your websites and apps safer for users.
The public prosecutor’s office also warned against sharing online content that incites violence. On X (formerly Twitter), it wrote that it takes “online violence seriously” and will “take criminal action if the legal requirements are met.”
