Tech giants resist attempts at regulation and sanctions

Facebook and Google have told the Government they do not want any new online regulator intervening in complaints about content on their platforms before their own internal review systems have been exhausted. They have also said they must be given a right of appeal, including access to the courts, if they disagree with a regulator’s decision.

Sanctions should only be applied to systematic failures to adhere to any proposed regulations or directions rather than individual breaches, they say. And they warn that introducing a legal definition of harmful content — as opposed to illegal content — will be fraught with difficulty because of the subjective nature of assessing what constitutes harmful.