Labour<\/a> government\u201d.<\/p>\n\u201cRather than smearing voters and demanding more state censorship, Labour should be focused on fixing the messes they\u2019ve created,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Powell made her comments in an article for Babelfish, as well as an interview with the comedian Matt Forde. Her intervention comes as MPs are pushing for tighter regulation of misinformation in the forthcoming elections legislation, known as the representation of the people bill.<\/p>\n
She also told the Guardian: \u201cThe spread of mis- and disinformation is a real and present danger to our democracy. This is not just about mega-donations from overseas crypto barons to Reform but also in the context of social media and the buying power this provides. We should look to strengthen the elections bill as much as possible to tighten up the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government\u2019s new elections bill will bring in votes at 16, a ban on donations in cryptocurrency, and cap on overseas donations, but campaigners believe it does not go far enough to tackle misinformation or the outsize influence of a handful of donors.<\/p>\n
Some civil society groups are hopeful that Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor who is set to challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership if he wins the Makerfield byelection, would look more favourably on reducing online misinformation.<\/p>\n
Some believe he is also sympathetic to the idea of bringing in a cap on donations overall to prevent billionaires dominating political funding, but his spokesperson declined to comment on that.<\/p>\n
Asked about the issue of false information online, Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, told the Guardian that the government was considering doing more to halt misinformation at times of public crisis such as riots or unrest.<\/p>\n
She said she was \u201cvery concerned\u201d about the role of social media platforms in times of unrest, adding: \u201cI definitely think particularly during moments of crisis and disorder and when public safety is important, we need to look at what more we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kendall pointed to a report last year from parliament\u2019s science, innovation and technology committee, which called for Ofcom to implement \u201ccrisis response protocols\u201d that would hold platforms responsible for misinformation. The media regulator has consulted on the issue, with more details expected to be announced this month.<\/p>\n
However, Powell is calling for more decisive action, saying the lack of regulation online is a \u201cfundamental threat to our democracy\u201d and it was common to encounter viral misinformation repeated by voters on the doorstep.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the Forde podcast, she said: \u201cI\u2019ve got children, my eldest is 22 and I\u2019ve got a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old and, and I know what they see and what they believe and what they get fed. It\u2019s frightening and that\u2019s true for some adults.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just a young person\u2019s problem. The echo chambers, the rabbit holes that people can go down and you get that on the doorstep, suddenly there can be something that comes up on the doorstep quite a lot and you\u2019re like, where the hell\u2019s that come from? It\u2019s not in the mainstream media at all. And it\u2019s gone absolutely viral on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cWe need to do more to regulate the algorithms and what drives contention and controversy and the business models of big, big tech as well. And we need to look at where politics and how politics is funded from abroad and from wealthy individuals and things like that and the power that that can bring you in the kind of social media age.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Reform\u2019s use of social media, Powell wrote in a separate article that Farage was \u201cimporting all the worst populist tactics which have undermined democracy elsewhere to Britain\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added that Farage was \u201cmired in controversy about his support for and use of cryptocurrencies\u201d after taking a \u00a35m gift from a Thailand-based billionaire.<\/p>\n
The undeclared gift, given in the months before Farage became an MP, is now under investigation by the standards commissioner. Farage has said it was for his security costs, and later that it was a reward for campaigning for Brexit.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cWe should go further \u2026 to regulate social media and tackle the scourge of dis- and misinformation which is ripping communities apart and undermining us all.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the fast-paced world we live in, with new technology emerging at breakneck pace, the integrity of our electoral system is a watching brief.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reform UK is destabilising British democracy by spreading divisive material that is being amplified by bots and troll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-623248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}