Social media firms put public at risk in wake of Southport murders, MPs say

Social media business models endangered the public by incentivising the spread of dangerous misinformation after the 2024 Southport murders, MPs have concluded.

- Robert Booth

The Commons science and technology select committee called for new multimillion-pound fines for platforms that do not set out how they will tackle the spread of harmful content through their recommendation systems.

The MPs warned that rapid advances in generative artificial intelligence, which allows for the creation of convincing fake videos, could make the next misinformation crisis "even more dangerous" than last August's violent protests after three children were killed by a man wrongly identified online as an asylum seeker who had arrived by small boat.

They also called for AI-generated content to be visibly labelled and said divisive and deceptive content amplified on social media after the attacks may have been part of a foreign disinformation operation.