Minister refuses to rule out changes to UK online safety bill

Her comments came a day after Downing Street said it was considering measures backed by 36 Conservative MPs that could lead to executives being jailed for up to two years for breaches in the law.

The MPs who have signed the amendment include the former home secretary Priti Patel and the former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith.

Labour also confirmed on Friday it would back the amendment, increasing the pressure on the prime minister to back down.

The amendment would give Ofcom, the communications watchdog, the power to prosecute executives at social media companies that are found to have breached the law. If ministers include it in the bill, it will mark the third time the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has bowed to the demands of his backbenchers, after U-turns on planning and onshore windfarms.

The bill is aimed at cracking down on a range of online content that ministers believe is causing serious harm to users and was informed in part by the testimony of Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who accused the company of repeatedly putting profits ahead of user safety.

The bill will force companies to remove any content promoting self-harm, depicting sexual violence or facilitating suicide. It will also require companies to impose and enforce strict age limits and to publish assessments of the risks their platforms pose to young people.

As it is written, the bill gives Ofcom the power to levy fines on companies of up to 10% of their global turnover for breaches in the law. Ofcom will be able to prosecute executives only if they fail to cooperate with an investigation. This has upset many Conservative MPs, however, who believe the regulator should be given tougher powers.

The father of Molly Russell, the 14-year-old who took her own life in 2017 after seeing harmful content related to suicide and self-harm on social media, gave his backing to the amendment.

Other changes to the bill, which has its report and third reading stage in the House of Commons next week, include altering earlier plans to tackle content seen by adults that is harmful but falls below the threshold of criminality, such as cyberbullying and sexist and racist material.

Tech companies will be required to state clearly in their terms and conditions how they will moderate such content. Users will also be given the option of asking to have such content screened out when they are on social media platforms.