Is the Era Of Self-Regulation In The Technology Sector Over Now?

Technology companies in Britain are experiencing new rules, sanctions and surveillance from an independent regulatory body as the British government articulated the "era of self-regulation" in the sector to be over.

Lawmakers across the major economies are beginning to try to docile the liberty of technology companies, but the UK stands out for being categorically raking in its new approach.

Digital Minister of the British government, Margot James said that we planed the most assertive law adopted by any G7 member country.

An independent regulatory body funded by the industry will supervise and implement the rules.

The British government will impose a new legitimate “duty of care” on companies to take steps to handle illicit and detrimental activity on their services, according to plans to be announced in a white paper on Monday.

Under the new regulation, tech companies will have to take “sensible and symmetrical actions” to prevent “digital harm”, ranging from terrorist outfits content and carnal abuse to problems that may not be unlawful but are nevertheless highly vandalizing, for example, disinformation, extremist contents and cyberbullying.[optin-monster-shortcode id="wxhmli4jjedneglg1trq"]

Under the new rule, senior managers of the tech companies will be held personally liable if the rules are violated, and regulator could put monetary penalties or could be sacked in Britain. The trade body of the UK based tech companies, TechUK argued that the white paper is a considerable step forward but added that making senior managers responsible for the unlawful or damaging content were the oppressive approach.

As per Jeremy Wright, Britain's digital secretary, the era of self-regulation for tech companies is finished now. He also added that the terrorist outfits contents shared on social media would have to be taken down in a short pre-decided period.

Giant social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were widely criticised after a terrorist live-streamed graphic footage of brutally gun downed at two mosques in New Zealand.

The UK’s white paper indicates increasing concerns among the lawmakers about the role of social media, in outspreading damaging contents.

A week ago, Australian government imposed the world's most stringent regulation aimed at blocking the weaponisation of social media platforms, which include putting top executive into jail and fining companies up to 10 per cent of their global turnover for failing to remove illegal contents.

The head of UK policy at Facebook, Rebecca Stimson said that they had tripled the team size to figure out illegal contents or damaging contents and till date they have scaled up team size to the tune of 30,000 people but admitted that there is still more to do.

The former conservative culture secretary, John Whittingdale said that the "duty of care" on the senior management of the technology companies was well-meaning but jeopardised dragging UK natives into a severe censure regime instead.

There will be a twelve-week consultation period on the whitepaper, and after that, the lawmakers will set outs its final plans. One crucial decision yet to make is whether the regulatory body should be a new body or an existing one, like Ofcom.