The legislation will require social media platforms, video streaming services and search engines to take steps to minimize people’s exposure to foreign state-backed disinformation aimed at interfering with the UK. Such content would include, for example, incidents like the Ben Wallace video called a hoax earlier this year by Russian pranksters impersonating the Ukrainian prime minister. Culture Minister Nadine Dorries said the invasion of Ukraine highlighted Russia’s willingness to use social media to spread lies and disinformation. “We cannot allow foreign states or their proxies to use the Internet to wage hostile online warfare unhindered,” he said. “That’s why we’re strengthening our new online security protections to make sure social media companies spot and stamp out state-sponsored disinformation.” A Russian prankster duo called Vovan and Lexus claimed responsibility for the Wallace call, which took place in March. The pair were suspected of having links to Russia’s security services, which they denied. A clip of the call was posted on YouTube but has since been removed from the Google-owned video service. The amendment will be added to the forthcoming national security bill, which will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny by a committee of MPs next week. In its current form, the Internet Safety Bill, which is expected to be passed by the end of the year, already requires tech companies to take action on state-sponsored misinformation that harms people – such as death threats. “Disinformation is often spread by many fake personalities, with the aim of getting real users to unwittingly ‘share’ it,” said Security Minister Damian Hinds. “We need the big online platforms to do more to identify and stop this kind of coordinated inauthentic behavior. This is about this proposed change in the law.” Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST The amendment would add a new misinformation offense to the list of priority offenses in the bill, which tech companies are required to proactively prevent. These include terrorism, child sexual abuse and fraud offences. Breaches of the act will be punishable by communications regulator Ofcom with fines of up to £18m or 10% of a company’s global turnover, which could reach billions of pounds for some of the US-based tech giants. The government amendment was announced as the digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) committee proposed changes to the bill that would limit the influence of the culture secretary in making new rules for tech companies. The committee’s proposed amendments remove the right of the secretary of state to direct or block Ofcom from issuing codes of practice, including dealing with terrorist and child sexual exploitation content, before they are considered by parliament. “A free media depends on ensuring that the regulator is free from the threat of day-to-day interference from the executive branch,” said Julian Knight MP, Conservative chairman of the committee. “Government will still have an important role in determining the direction of travel, but Ofcom should not be constantly looking over its shoulder responding to the whims of a back-seat Secretary of State.” A DCMS spokesman said: “Technology changes rapidly and while the Bill will preserve Ofcom’s independence, it gives democratically elected governments and parliament the appropriate oversight to deal with any issues that fall outside Ofcom’s remit in the future.”
