LGA welcomes new duties on major social media firms to be included in Online Safety Bill, amid concerns at abuse faced by councillors

The Local Government Association has welcomed the Government’s announcement that it will add two new duties to its Online Safety Bill to strengthen the law against anonymous online abuse.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said the first duty would force the largest and most popular social media sites – known as ‘category one’ companies – to give adults the ability to block people who have not verified their identity on a platform.

A second duty would require platforms to provide users with options to opt out of seeing harmful content.

Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries said: “Tech firms have a responsibility to stop anonymous trolls polluting their platforms.

“We have listened to calls for us to strengthen our new online safety laws and are announcing new measures to put greater power in the hands of social media users themselves.

“People will now have more control over who can contact them and be able to stop the tidal wave of hate served up to them by rogue algorithms.”

Responding to the new measures, Chair of the LGA’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board, Cllr Nesil Caliskan, said: “Social media is a significant part of our everyday lives, and everyone should be able to access online platforms safely. These new duties reflect recommendations made by the LGA and will support people to feel safer online and to have more control over online interactions.

“Councillors experience daily online intimidation, abuse and threats made against them. These harmful behaviours are entirely unacceptable. Enabling councillors and other users to choose whether to engage with anonymous or unverified accounts is a valuable tool that still ensures those who need to remain anonymous online are able to do so."

Cllr Caliskan added: “The user empowerment duty will reduce the risk of online harm by allowing users to better control the content they see. We would encourage the Government to go further and ensure users can opt out of algorithms and ‘suggested content’ altogether.

“We would like to see Ofcom produce a mandatory Safety by Design Code of Practice to ensure providers consider and mitigate risks of harm, including minimum requirements for verifying social media accounts under the new user verification duty.”