Liz Kendall said the government is considering fresh action to halt the spread of misinformation during public crises, after rioting in Southampton over the police response to the fatal stabbing of Henry Nowak brought the issue back into sharp focus. She said ministers are looking at what more can be done when disorder breaks out and public safety is on the line.
The technology secretary said she was "very concerned" about how social media platforms behave in moments of unrest, and said the state should examine whether stronger steps are needed to stop harmful claims from racing through feeds. She said the government is looking at boosting trusted sources of information and making it easier for people to reset their algorithms, arguing that many users can see troubling content building long before it reaches them. Her comments came on Thursday, the same day Keir Starmer accused Elon Musk of "interfering in our politics" and said he was "absolutely right" to do so.
Kendall’s remarks matter because they move the argument from general anxiety about online abuse to a live question of government response. Last year, the Commons science, innovation and technology committee urged Ofcom to put crisis response protocols in place so platforms could be held responsible for misinformation after the summer 2024 riots, which followed the murder of three girls at a dance class in Southport. The committee said misleading and hateful messaging spread rapidly online and was amplified by recommendation algorithms, a warning that now sits behind the government’s latest thinking.
There is, though, a gap between the warning and the fix. Chi Onwurah, who chairs the committee, said the Online Safety Act still is not up to scratch and that no progress has been made to update it, despite the report being described as excellent by the secretary of state. She said most of the committee’s recommendations were rejected, leaving regulation riddled with gaps. Ofcom has already consulted on crisis response protocols and is expected to set out more details this month, but the government has not yet spelled out what fresh powers or controls it wants to see.
Kendall also tried to place herself inside the same online fight she wants to regulate. She said she did not want to be bullied off any platform, added that she intended to keep getting the government’s message out, and said she wanted to speak to people who want to hear it and definitely to those who do not. Her last post on X about a visit to Liverpool University was viewed 5,500 times and shared eight times, a small but telling contrast with the much larger megaphone used by Musk, who has repeatedly highlighted the Nowak case to his 240m followers. What happens next depends on whether the government turns this warning into rules before the next crisis does the damage for it.
