Social media firms need to take action over “shocking misinformation”, online agitators and the “organisation of violence”, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said.
She told the Today programme social media firms are not acting quickly enough to remove “criminal material” after days of protests in UK towns and cities.
Her comments come after X owner Elon Musk said “civil war is inevitable” on his social media platform in response to a video showing people aiming fireworks at police.
The BBC has approached X, Meta, TikTok and Snap for comment.
The home secretary said social media companies need to “take responsibility” over online posts encouraging criminality.
“There’s been some shocking misinformation that has escalated some of this, but then there’s also been the deliberate organisation of violence as well,” she said.
“You can’t just have the armchair thuggery of the people being able to incite and organise violence and also not face consequences for this.”
She said social media firms are failing “recognise the impact” of online agitators, with some online posts about the unrest including “things which are clearly already criminal”.
“There are crimes that have been committed on social media in inflaming this and encouraging and promoting violence,” she said.
“There are areas where the social media companies do have clear requirements at the moment to remove criminal material and should be doing so, but sometimes take too long to do so.”
Ms Cooper said there are other areas where firms have “made commitments around their terms and conditions that are supposed to be enforced” – but posts are not being removed.
She said the government was “pursuing this” with social media companies this week.
And when asked specifically about posts made by English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – Ms Cooper said she had seen videos posted by “a series of agitators”, and would not comment on “individual pieces of material that may well be subject to a police investigation or a criminal investigation”.
The prime minister recently criticised the role social media has played in the unrest, telling firms last week – and “those who run them” – that “violent disorder clearly whipped up online” is a crime.
Just three days after the prime minister’s comments, Mr Musk made his post calling civil war in the UK “inevitable”.
Mr Musk’s comments have drawn ire from some online, with satirist Armando Iannucci saying the billionaire had been “taken in by your own platform, which amplifies noise at the expense of facts”.
Meanwhile Sunder Katwala, director of think tank British Future, said the post was “spreading a narrative that is crucial to socialising people with fairly extreme view towards condoning violence to protect their group”.
He said there needs to be “strong responses from government, Ofcom, and parliament” to the comments.
