UK Government to set new regulations for social media companies

London : The UK telecommunication regulator, Ofcom, will have the power to make tech firms responsible for protecting people from harmful content such as violence, terrorism, suicide content, cyber-bullying and child abuse under a new bill to be presented to Parliament next year, the UK government announced on Tuesday.

Under the new Online Safety Bill, social media sites, websites, apps and other services which host user-generated content or allow people to talk to others online that fail to remove and limit the spread of such harmful content will face fines of up to £18 million ($24 million) or ten per cent of their annual global turnover.