The UK government, through The Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS), has proposed Social Media platforms should filter unverified accounts, to hide negative posts and messages from several websites. If this gets through, important social media platforms will be forced to allow users to filter content from unverified accounts. The government’s safety bill will also cover the posting of scandalous topics like “revenge porn”, promoting suicide online, human trafficking, and online extremism.
The UK Secretary of Culture, Nadine Dorries, stated this action could reduce anonymous trolling, and that these online safety laws could get social networks to set a filter for unverified accounts, and find 10% of their global turnover if they fail to avoid toxic content.
Even though the proposed law won’t stop many users to post abusive messages or creating anonymous accounts, social networks would be forced to give people the option to “opt out” when any posts from unverified accounts is showed up.
The DCMS suggested that Social Media Platforms should filter unverified accounts, by establishing different verification methods, like submitting government ID or linking their account to a registered mobile phone number network. The final verification method would be left to the social networks decision.
Source: BBC
