Harsher sanctions for companies advertising knives to young people

New, harsher measures are to be introduced for online knife advertising to young people, which glorifies or incites violence.

Significant consultation with the Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime has meant that the government has increased the initial fine of up to £10,000 for individual tech bosses who don’t remove the content within 48 hours, to £60,000 paid by the company. Cumulatively, tech platforms and their leaders could face up to £70,000 in fines for every post relating to knife crime they fail to remove.

The range of platforms policed under these new laws will be widened, and will now include online search engines, social media platforms, and marketplaces.

Backed by £1.75 million of funding, the Home Office is to introduce a new system carried out be a new policing unit to tackle the sales of knifes online and will be responsible for issuing Content Removal Notices to inform platforms of illegal content.

Should companies fail to remove flagged content, they will receive a Civil Penalty Notice rather than be taken to civil court, which means that sanctions can be inflicted much more quickly.

Crime and policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said: “The kind of content that young people scroll through every day online is sickening and I will not accept any notion that restricting access to this harmful material is too difficult.

“Our children need more from us. That is why we are now going further than ever to hold to account the tech companies who are not doing enough to safeguard young people from content which incites violence, particularly in young boys.

“Curbing the impact of this kind of content will rekey for our mission to halve knife crime, but more widely our Plan for Change across government to do more to protect young people from damaging and dangerous content.”

These new sanctions are one of a range of new measures the government is introducing to achieve its mission of halving knife crime in a decade, including banning zombie-style knives, introducing two-step verification for online knife sales, and a requirement for online retailers to report any bulk or suspicious-looking purchases of knives to the police.