As anger grows over the Southport stabbing, terrorism laws will be overhauled and tech companies will be pressured to remove a “tsunami” of online violent content that inspires murderous behavior, ministers say. said.
After it was revealed that Axel Rudakvana had accessed violent content in his bedroom before stabbing three girls to death in July, Keir Starmer said: “With just a few clicks, people can It's not true that some people can watch video after horrible video.'' The case is never dismissed. ”
“You can't say that the content this person viewed before committing these murders should be accessible or should be on mainstream social media platforms,” the Prime Minister said, adding that even if the criminal He promised to amend the law to allow prosecution under terrorism laws even if no act had taken place. consistent ideology.
Rudakubana was 17 when he killed Bebe King, 6, Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7. He had been referred to anti-radicalization programs three times before his murder.
According to the Guardian, Prevent officials only saw him in person once, although the plan was mentioned three times. All three times, Prevent decided it should not take his case.
According to communications regulator Ofcom, the number of people viewing content online that depicts or encourages violence or harm is increasing every year. 11% of users over 18 have viewed such content, up from 9% a year ago.
After Mr Starmer warned of the need to “protect children from the tsunami of violence that is freely available online”, technology secretary Peter Kyle said in an interview with the Guardian that the technologies that are hosting the worst violence In a message on the platform, he said: Don't wait for the Prime Minister to say “before you remove material that murderers are consuming, that they think is inspirational.”
“I think the people who are responsible for platforming this kind of content understand the benefit and the need to take it down themselves,” he said.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Parliament businesses they must take action before a code of practice on illegal content is set out in March under the Online Safety Act, followed by a code on child safety this summer. He said that there is. “Companies should not profit from hosting content that puts children's lives at risk,” she said.
Neil Bass, a former police officer who led counter-terrorism operations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, warned that violence could increase as a result of lax content controls. Earlier this month, Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, announced changes that founder Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged would mean “less opportunity to catch the bad stuff.”
“With little control or moderation, easy access to vast amounts of material, as much violence as you want…access to online violence will only get worse,” Bass said. “Social media companies don’t have enough responsibility.”
Kyle said: “The technology companies that produce these platforms, products, and services spend billions of dollars on development, yet they are not doing enough to ensure that their products are secure before they are deployed. I’m frustrated that I haven’t spent the time and resources.”
He accused the Conservatives of delaying the introduction of online safety laws that would potentially prevent much of the illegal violent content circulating online and potentially unsafe violence for children. “The Conservative Party turned a blind eye as some of the events were unfolding,” he said. “During her leadership campaign, Kemi Badenoch called parts of the Online Safety Act 'legislation of hurt feelings'.”
This week, after the Southport killer pleaded guilty, Mr Starmer announced a public inquiry into how the law could be changed so that lone killers with “extreme personal violence” could be charged with terrorism offences. He promised to find it immediately.
Starmer likened the incidents to mass killings by lone shooters in the United States, which are not bound by any particular ideology. “When you look at the facts of this case, I think most people would say this was clearly extreme violence and clearly intended for terrorism. I fully accept and understand that. ” he said.
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Starmer described the threat as “perpetrated by loners, sociopaths, young men in their bedrooms, accessing all kinds of material online, desperate for notoriety, and sometimes inspired by traditional terrorist organizations.” He also insisted on extreme violence, and attributed it to “extreme acts of violence that take place in the bedroom.” My own sake.”
Jonathan Hall KC, senior lawyer and independent reviewer of terrorism law, will consider whether the law's structure and definitions need to be expanded. There will also be a review of the anti-radicalisation programme, led by senior lawyer David Anderson.
Some lawmakers are concerned that expanding the definition of terrorism could jeopardize civil liberties. Former Conservative minister David Davis said the government should be wary of the idea. “Security concerns are always a pretext for the erosion of civil liberties, and because it rarely works, countries continue to expand their freedoms. As a result of the attempt, the innocent will be punished.”
Cooper said he plans to investigate how Rudakbana was referred to Prevent three times, but the case cannot proceed any further. She told MPs that the introduction took place three to four years before the Southport incident, including evidence that he had an interest in school shootings and terrorist attacks. Each time, she said, his case was investigated by anti-terrorism police, but no expert help was sent.
She said initial research concluded that “too much emphasis was placed on the absence of ideology.”
Several MPs pursued Mr Cooper when they were told that he and Mr Starmer were in possession of the toxin ricin and al-Qaeda training manuals, and this was revealed to the public much sooner, with reports across England following the murder. It was questioned whether there was a possibility that the speculation that led to the riots could have been suppressed. .
Mr Cooper said it was “really sad” that some Conservatives were asking about contempt of court provisions, which meant speaking publicly about the details of a trial could risk a collapse of the trial. He said the focus should be on how the attack happened.
Patrick Hurley, the Labor MP for Southport, accused those of spreading “bright lies” about the attack, saying it was being done “for their own political gain, with the interests of justice secondary”. said.
Mr Starmer vigorously defended the flow of information at a press conference, saying: “If this trial had collapsed because I or anyone else had revealed critical details during the police investigation…then the despicable individuals who committed these crimes would have quietly walked away.”Free people. The possibility of justice was shattered for the victims and their families. ”
