{"id":624866,"date":"2026-06-06T19:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T19:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/624866\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T19:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T19:28:07","slug":"ministers-may-try-to-curb-spread-of-misinformation-during-social-unrest-liz-kendall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/624866\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministers may try to curb spread of misinformation during social unrest | Liz Kendall"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government is considering fresh action to halt the spread of misinformation during public crises, Liz Kendall<\/a> has said, insisting she will not be \u201cbullied off\u201d Elon Musk\u2019s X.<\/p>\n

The technology secretary was speaking after rioting broke out in Southampton over the police response to the fatal stabbing of Henry Nowak, a case about which Musk has repeatedly posted.<\/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

Rioting broke out in Southampton over the police response to the fatal stabbing of Henry Nowak. Photograph: Christopher Walls\/Sopa Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Kendall pointed to a report last year from the Commons science, innovation and technology committee that called for Ofcom to implement \u201ccrisis response protocols\u201d to hold platforms responsible for misinformation.<\/p>\n

The media regulator has consulted on the issue, with more details expected to be announced this month. The committee launched its investigation after the riots of summer 2024, when misinformation spread quickly after the murder of three girls at a dance class in Southport.<\/p>\n

Its report found that \u201cmisleading and hateful messaging proliferated rapidly online, amplified by the recommendation algorithms of social media companies\u201d.<\/p>\n

Kendall said the government was \u201clooking at not only boosting trusted sources of information, which I think is extremely important and there\u2019s probably more we could do there. But also, you know, enabling people to reset their algorithms.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI think lots of people think they see this stuff coming towards them. And it should be much easier for people to say \u2018let\u2019s have a reset\u2019 \u2013 so I am looking at that again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chi Onwurah, the chair of the committee, said: \u201cThe government must do more to stop the spread of misinformation online. My committee\u2019s report found the Online Safety Act to be woefully inadequate and riddled with regulatory gaps \u2013 yet most of our recommendations for how to improve this were rejected.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince then, the secretary of state has told my committee that the report was \u2018excellent\u2019. However, a year after its publication, no progress has been made to update the OSA. Our current regulation just isn\u2019t up to scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Keir Starmer accused Musk of \u201cinterfering in our politics\u201d<\/a>. However, Kendall said: \u201cI understand my colleagues, why they don\u2019t want to be there [on social media], but I didn\u2019t want to be bullied off any platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to get the government\u2019s message out; hopefully to some people who want to hear it and definitely to those who don\u2019t. Because I want to say that this government stands for hope and not hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk has repeatedly highlighted the Nowak case to his 240m followers on X<\/a>. One of his posts, sharing comments from the far-right MP Rupert Lowe, simply said \u201cRAGE\u201d. It was viewed more than 25m times.<\/p>\n

Kendall\u2019s last post on X, about a visit to Liverpool University to highlight taxpayer backing for innovation, was viewed 5,500 times and shared eight times.<\/p>\n

Labour MP Jess Asato is taking legal action against Elon Musk\u2019s xAI company. Photograph: Sean Smith\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

The Labour<\/a> MP Jess Asato is taking legal action against Musk\u2019s xAI company over demeaning sexualised material created by its Grok AI tool that spread across X earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The prime minister praised Asato\u2019s decision on Thursday, saying she was \u201cabsolutely right\u201d to take action.<\/p>\n

Analysis by the human rights group Amnesty last year claimed X\u2019s algorithms had contributed to what it called a \u201cstaggering amplification of hate\u201d<\/a> after the Southport murders.<\/p>\n

The Commons committee said the Online Safety Act, which was not fully in force at the time of the 2024 riots, did not contain adequate measures to contain misinformation.<\/p>\n

Kendall said: \u201cI think from the initial idea and discussion to implementation [of the act] was eight years. It is a long time. It\u2019s too long. It\u2019s too slow. This technology is developing so rapidly. MPs vote on a finance bill every year. It can\u2019t be beyond the wit of man or even womankind to do things more quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government is considering fresh action to halt the spread of misinformation during public crises, Liz Kendall has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-624866","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\/624866","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=624866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}