Facebook, Instagram and Twitter should be slapped with a profits tax in a bid to protect youngsters amid an online “Wild West”, MPs say today.
Addiction to social media should potentially be classed as a disease, according to Parliament’s cross-party group on Social Media and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing.
The 0.5% levy on the profits of the tech giants would fund research, “educational initiatives” and “establish clearer guidance for the public”.
It comes after the father of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017, said Instagram had “helped kill” his daughter.
Publishing its latest report, the group also called for a “duty of care on all social media companies with registered UK users aged 24 and under in the form of a statutory code of conduct, with Ofcom to act as regulator”.
The code, which would establish rules around social media and known harms to young people – such as self-harm, disordered eating, low-self-esteem, lack of sleep and over-dependence on social media – should be in place by the end of October, it recommended.
Chairman and Labour MP Chris Elmore said: “For far too long social media companies have been allowed to operate in an online Wild West – and it is in this lawless landscape that our children currently work and play online.
“This cannot continue.
“As the report makes clear, now is the time for the Government to take action.”
NSPCC head of child safety online, Tony Stower, said: “Children have been left to fend for themselves in the Wild West Web for far too long.
“They have been put at unacceptable risk when using social networks and it has to stop.”
A Government spokeswoman said: “The Government will soon publish a White Paper which will set out the responsibilities of online platforms, how these responsibilities should be met and what would happen if they are not.
“An internet regulator, statutory ‘duty of care’ on platforms, and a levy on social media companies are all measures we are considering as part of our work.”
