Social media laws to be reviewed in wake of riots, says Starmer

Online misinformation laws will be reviewed after a spreading of falsehoods contributed to this month's far-right riots, Keir Starmer has said.

- Eleni Courea, Mabel Banfield-Nwachi

The prime minister said social media was "not a law-free zone" during a visit to a police station yesterday, hours before two men were jailed for encouraging people on social media to attack hotels housing asylum seekers.

Starmer was asked about the warning from the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, that the Online Safety Act was not fit for purpose and needed to be revisited. Starmer told broadcasters: "I do agree that we're going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder, but the focus at the moment has to be on dealing with the disorder and making sure that our communities are safe and secure." There have been calls for the Online Safety Act, which empowers the media regulator, Ofcom, to fine social media platforms that fail to tackle disinformation, to be enforced more quickly.

YouGov polling published yesterday suggested that 66% of people thought social media companies should be held responsible for posts inciting criminal behaviour, and 70% believed they were not regulated strongly enough.

Of those polled by YouGov this week, 71% said they thought social media companies did a bad job tackling misinformation during the riots.