Remove content celebrating dangerous driving, social media companies told

The government has told TikTok and other social media companies to take down content featuring a social media trend showing people driving the wrong way down roads.

Defence minister Luke Pollard said social media platforms should act to remove posts.

He told BBC Radio 5 Live: “We’ve communicated to those social media platforms that have been hosting content that celebrates this type of dangerous behaviour on our roads to take down that content.

“I think we all need to give the police time, but there’s also things we can be doing in the meantime to make sure that the internet is a safer place for everyone, that doesn’t celebrate and load views and therefore financial incentives on people to generate such awful content.”

He added: “I want to see social media companies step up.

“It’s one of the reasons they’ve argued against some of the regulations, saying they can police themselves. Well this is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate it. Remove the content that celebrates dangerous behaviour on our roads.

“While that content is online, the government will be using the powers in the Online Safety Act to compel the platforms to take it down.

“But if the social media platforms were to regulate themselves and remove it in the first place, not allow their algorithm to share this type of content, because they know exactly what type of content that algorithm is designed to share, then I think we’d be in a better place.”

More follows on this breaking news story...