The UK government has published the draft legislation of its the Online Safety Bill in a bid to clamp down on abuse online.
It aims to tackle many digital issues including online scams generated by social media users, such as romance fraud “which have seen people manipulated into sending money to fake identities on dating apps”, the government said.
But fraud via advertising, emails or cloned websites will not be included in the bill, as the UK government said it does not fall under “user-generated content”.
The bill will also make tech firms responsible and accountable for the “user-generated” harm happening on social media. This includes verbal abuse and illegal content, and senior managers will be legally responsible for the enforcement or face criminal charges.
Home secretary Priti Patel said: “Ruthless criminals who defraud millions of people and sick individuals who exploit the most vulnerable in our society cannot be allowed to operate unimpeded, and we are unapologetic in going after them.
“It’s time for tech companies to be held to account and to protect the British people from harm. If they fail to do so, they will face penalties.”
The draft legislation will be scrutinised by a joint committee of members of parliament (MPs) before a final version is formally introduced to parliament.
Protecting young investors
Debbie Barton, financial crime prevention expert at Quilter, said: “We are delighted to see the government take the first step in tackling online investment scams by including user-generated fraud within scope of the Online Safety Bill.
“For the first time, social media sites will have a duty to prevent sham investment schemes from appearing on their sites and this will have a big impact on protecting investors, particularly young investors, from financial harm.”
But Barton thinks the work to crackdown on scams is not done.
“The government should now consider including fraud facilitated through advertising, emails or cloned websites,” she added. “With each day that passes, around £214,000 ($300,000, €246,250) is lost to UK consumers from clone firm fraud, so the government should not kick the can even further down the road and should take action with this bill.
“It would be hard to explain to an investment scam victim why they have suffered as a result of scam facilitated through an online advert, whereas they would receive protections if the scam was instead published by a user on social media.”
