• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, May 3, 2017

The home of the stiff upper lip may soon be handing out stiff fines to social media companies that fail to remove illegal content in a timely fashion, according to recommendations from British lawmakers publicized this week.

The prospect of major penalties in Britain is another red flag for social media companies operating in Europe, where they are already on the defensive in Germany and elsewhere over fake news and hate speech.

The UK parliamentary committee, convened last year after the murder of Jo Cox, a member of Parliament from the Labour Party, blasted social media companies including Facebook and Twitter for not doing enough to combat banned content including hate speech, terrorist propaganda and material depicting child abuse including child pornography.

The report noted that “there is a great deal of evidence that these platforms are being used to spread hate, abuse and extremism.

That trend continues to grow at an alarming rate but it remains unchecked and, even where it is illegal, largely unpoliced.”

Additionally, “It was shockingly easy to find examples of material that was intended to stir up hatred against ethnic minorities on all three of the social media platforms that we examined – YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.”

Although the committee flagged the offending videos, not all of them were removed: for example, YouTube refused to remove a video by American white supremacist David Duke titled “Jews admit organizing White Genocide.”

The report also bashed Google for making money off such videos through advertising: “It is shocking that Google failed to perform basic due diligence regarding advertising on YouTube paid for by reputable companies and organisations which appeared alongside videos containing inappropriate and unacceptable content, some of which were created by terrorist organisations.”

While the authors acknowledged that social media companies are in the process of implementing new measures to combat illicit content, they warned that they are nowhere near the goal, adding: “Thee biggest and richest social media companies are shamefully far from taking sufficient action to tackle illegal and dangerous content, to implement proper community standards or to keep their users safe. Given their immense size, resources and global reach, it is completely irresponsible of them to fail to abide by the law, and to keep their users and others safe.”

In order to encourage the big tech platforms to take action more swiftly, the committee issued a number of recommendations, including requiring them to pay for any time spent by British police dealing with matters which should be the companies’ responsibility.

Noting that “Social media companies currently face almost no penalties for failing to remove illegal content,” the report also proposed: “We recommend that the Government consult on a system of escalating sanctions to include meaningful fines for social media companies which fail to remove illegal content within a strict timeframe.”

In April, German cabinet ministers approved a plan that would make social media companies liable for fines of up to €50 million, or $53.3 million, if they fail to remove certain kinds of illegal content within 24 hours of being notified.