The new law aims to protect a victim from having to individually flag each platform-specific instance of abusive content to the platform in question.
The UK government is proposing a new law which would force tech platforms to remove intimate content within 48 hours of it being flagged as non-consensually shared or abusive.
Platforms that don’t act in time “could face fines of up to 10pc of their qualifying worldwide revenue or having their services blocked in the UK”, the government said.
The measure also intends that such images would only need to be reported once in order for action to be taken to remove them from all platforms where they appear, and to ensure blocking or deletion of any future uploads.
This aims to protect a user or victim from having to individually flag each platform-specific instance of abusive content to the platform in question.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer said: “The online world is the frontline of the 21st century battle against violence against women and girls. That’s why my government is taking urgent action against chatbots and ‘nudification’ tools.
“Today we are going further, putting companies on notice so that any non-consensual image is taken down in under 48 hours.”
The measure is a proposed amendment to the UK’s Crime and Policing Bill, and would also extend powers to internet service providers to block access to “rogue websites” that might fall outside legislative authority yet still be hosting such content.
The government’s technology secretary Liz Kendall said: “The days of tech firms having a free pass are over. Because of the action we are taking, platforms must now find and remove intimate images shared without consent within a maximum of 48 hours. No woman should have to chase platform after platform, waiting days for an image to come down.”
The UK’s media regulator Ofcom will be involved in handling the enforcement of the new measures, which intend to classify intimate image abuse in line with terrorist or child abuse material as per the country’s Online Safety Act.
The UK government is also considering a ban on social media for under-16s, as are Ireland and other European countries.
French lawmakers have initiated a ban on social media for under-15s, while the country’s prosecutors recently raided X’s Paris offices as part of a multi-layered investigation into the company which is partially focused on deepfake content generated by its Grok chatbot.
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