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On 8 April 2019, the Department for Digital, Culture and Media and Sport (DCMS) launched its consultative Online Harms White Paper, which sets out the United Kingdom’s proposals for regulations that would enable the UK to be the safest place in the world to go online, as well as the best place to start and grow a digital business. The main online problems concern the misuse of online sites by terrorist groups and sex offenders, online bullying, and the use of disinformation that risks undermining democratic values and principles. Social media platforms use algorithms, which lead to “echo chambers”...

The service in question is an Urdu-language news and current affairs channel, UK44 - the United Kingdom’s first and only news and current affairs channel for the Pakistani and South Asian diaspora - which is licensed by City News Network. The issue concerned the broadcasting of abusive content amounting to “hate speech” against members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. Two episodes of the current affairs discussion show, Point of View, were broadcast in December 2017. According to the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, a guest - the same one in each programme, columnist Umar Riaz Abbas - made...

On 5 March 2019, the Attorney General’s Office published the Government’s response to its call for evidence examining the impact of social media on the administration of justice. The response revealed that although the risk to the legal process has increased with the proliferation of social media in recent years, it nevertheless remains relatively minor and it is still at a level whereby it does not pose a serious threat to the criminal justice system. The call for evidence was launched in September 2017 by the then Attorney General, Jeremy Wright, and closed on 8 December 2017. It asked for examples...

That’s Manchester is a local television service serving the city of Manchester and its surrounding area, however, it was held to have breached Ofcom’s Rule 9.5 by giving undue prominence to a product, service or trademark during two news reports. The first report concerned an initiative by the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce to encourage small businesses in the area to adopt their own website. The Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce was working in conjunction with a digital marketing service called UENI. The That’s Manchester newsreader, in their introduction, referred to the pairing...

On 18 February 2019, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee published its Final Report on disinformation and fake news (“the Report”), following on from its July 2018 Interim Report. Since then, the Committee has held three further evidence sessions, inviting UK regulators and the Government to give evidence, as well as receiving a further 23 written submissions. In November 2018 the Committee hosted an “International Grand Committee”, inviting parliamentarians from nine countries. The Report develops the areas covered in the Interim Report,...