The UK’s Conservative government has reportedly come to a deal with backbench Tory MPs over jail sentences in the Online Safety Bill. The rebels wanted provisions in the bill to jail tech bosses for two years if they didn’t abide by the law, rather than just being slapped with a fine. BBC News is now saying that a compromise has been struck to get the rebels to back down.
The Online Safety Bill is currently going through the House of Commons, it’s nearly at the end of this process now. Afterwards, it will undergo several readings in the House of Lords being passed to the King to sign into law via Royal Assent.
Under the new rules, websites that host user-generated content such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook would have to take measures to stop kids from seeing harmful content. This could see things like age verification measures being put in place. While these measures may hurt people without a form of ID or deter people concerned about privacy from using the services, the bill enjoys wide support. Both the Conservative and Labour parties support the bill and so do child protection groups.
As the bill stands, companies that fail to implement adequate measures will face fines of up to 10% of their global revenue. The idea of holding managers at these companies personally liable was rejected after a consultation before the bill was introduced as it could have made the UK tech sector less attractive. Despite this, it looks as though personal liability will be added to the bill and managers in breach of the law could potentially face up to two years in jail, though it’s not clear what deal has been struck so the jail term may be shorter in the end.
In terms of the impact this law will have on businesses, it’s likely that revenues will be hit. People working at social media companies said that underage users would have to be removed from platforms under the new laws and this would mean fewer people are seeing ads, which are the main source of revenue for social media sites. This is a double whammy for social media firms as ad revenues are already down due to a weakening economy.
Source: BBC News
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