As part of the Plan for Change, tougher sanctions will be brought in to combat content circulating online that advertises deadly and illegal knives and other offensive weapons to young people – or which glorifies or incites violence. 

The government has already announced a significant fine of up to £10,000 for individual tech bosses whose platforms fail to remove this content within 48 hours following a police warning. Following significant consultation with the Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime, the government is going even further with an additional fine of up to £60,000 to be paid by the company. This means tech platforms and their executives could collectively face up to £70,000 in fines for every post relating to knife crime they fail to remove.

A greater range of online platforms will be liable under these new laws, including search engines, social media platforms and marketplaces.

The move bolsters further measures set out by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and Ofcom, to protect children from a broad spectrum of harmful online content including pornography, suicide and self-harm under the Online Safety Act.  The laws mean platforms must protect children from content including suicide, self-harm, and pornography by taking steps such as introducing age checks like photo ID matching or facial age estimation and filtering out harmful content from algorithms.  

Crime and policing minister, Dame Diana Johnson, said:  ‘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 be key for our mission to halve knife crime, but more widely our Plan for Change across government to do more protect young people from damaging and dangerous content.'

The sanctions for tech platforms will be introduced via an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill, which was tabled on 24 April for committee stage.