Culture secretary says X ‘didn’t even bother to turn up’ to meeting about abuse, intimidation and doxxing on social media
Good morning. We will be hearing from Andy Burnham today because he is back at work having taken time off following the death of his father. And already we have heard from Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, who has been doing a media round.
She has condemned Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, describing it as an “absolute disgrace”.
I had the social media companies in to see me yesterday to talk to them about their responsibilities in this regard. All of the different social media companies have completely different terms of service, different standards that they apply to online hatred directed at individuals.
Some of them will automatically remove that content. Some of them, frankly, won’t.
I have made a commitment to the RNLI and to, not just charities but public sector workers, police officers, and others who are being routinely harassed and abused online in the course of work, that we will tighten up the law. We will make sure that where, for example, people’s addresses are being published online, that we just do not allow that to happen, that those things will have to be either blocked or taken down immediately.
We cannot have a situation where not just charity volunteers, but shop workers and social workers and police officers are being routinely harassed online in the course of their work.
