The UK government has said it will further expand the scope of online safety legislation by criminalizing the encouragement of self-harm ...
...— in a bid to tackle what it describes as “tragic and avoidable deaths caused by people seeing self-harm content online”.
Individuals posting such content online could also face prosecution under the new offence of encouraging self harm and the secretary ...
...of state for digital said the government wants to target “abhorrent trolls encouraging the young and vulnerable to self-harm”.
The government said the maximum penalties will be set out in due course.
It is already illegal to encourage or assist suicide, online or offline, in the UK so the creation of the new offence ...
...is intended to bring self harm content in line with an existing prohibition on communications encouraging suicide.
An inquest into Russell’s death concluded in September that social media had been a factor in her demise.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said the move to add an offence of encouraging self harm will make illegal ...
...“one of the most concerning and pervasive online harms that currently falls below the threshold of criminal behaviour”.
“I am determined that the abhorrent trolls encouraging the young and vulnerable to self-harm are brought to justice.
“Social media firms can no longer remain silent bystanders either and they’ll face fines for allowing this abusive and destructive behaviour to continue on their platforms under our laws.”
The a tug of war between controversy over the government’s entire approach and loud populist support for child safety claims attached to the bill has not reduced ministers’ claimed commitment to passing the ...
...legislation — despite the rebooted UK government expressing some freedom of expression qualms — but it remains to be seen how extensively it will rethink the regulation of ‘legal but harmful’ speech.
The bill is due to return to parliament on Monday December 5.