Fines up to £60,000 for Tech Firms Ignoring Knife Crime. Social media companies will be fined up to £60,000 each time a post relating to knife crime is not removed from their sites. Crime and policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said the content that young people scroll through every day online “is sickening”.
The new sanction expands on previously announced plans to fine individual tech executives up to £10,000. The Home Office said today’s announcement follows “significant consultation” with the Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime. Patrick Green, chief executive of The Ben Kinsella Trust, a knife prevention charity, welcomed the measure.
The Ben Kinsella Trust is named after teenager Ben Kinsella who was fatally stabbed in 2008. In the year to March 2024, there were 53 teenage victims aged 13-19 in England and Wales. Mr. Green told Sky News that while knife crime has been happening “long before social media took hold”, online content glamorising the possession of a knife is hindering efforts to reduce it.
While welcoming today’s announcement, he said social media was “one part of a larger problem”. Government ‘can’t police the internet.’ Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty suggested violent videos viewed online should be used as evidence to prosecute under the new law.
