By Labour pushes for emergency laws to ‘stamp out’ anti-vax posts
Emergency laws to “stamp out” anti-vaccine content online should be introduced, Labour has said.
The party is calling for financial and criminal penalties for social media firms that do not remove “dangerous” false scare stories about vaccines.
“One person who does not take the vaccine because of this harmful content is one too many,” according to Labour.
This comes with the news of the rapid progress being made on the first effective coronavirus vaccine.
The opposition claims dedicated anti-vaccination groups with hundreds of thousands of members on social media are “churning out disinformation”.
Shadow culture secretary Jo Stevens and shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth have written to Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden insisting that the “spread of disinformation online presents a real and present danger” to vaccination efforts.
Ms Stevens said: “The government has a pitiful track record on taking action against online platforms that are facilitating the spread of disinformation.
“It has been clear for years that this is a widespread and growing problem and the government knows, because Labour has been warning them for some time, that it poses a real threat to the take up of the vaccine.”
The two shadow cabinet ministers said in their letter to the culture secretary: “What we need is action now and – since these companies have been unable to take action themselves – we are calling on the government to introduce emergency legislation which would include financial and criminal penalties for continued failure to act.
“Labour would give the government the votes it needs to get such a bill through the House of Commons.”
A government spokesperson said: “Letting vaccine disinformation spread unchecked could cost British lives.
“We take this issue extremely seriously and have secured a major commitment from Facebook, Twitter and Google to tackle it by not profiting from such material, and by responding to flagged content more swiftly.”
