Highlights
- Nandy says publishing someone's address is not currently automatically a criminal offence
- Meta said such content would not be taken down automatically; TikTok said it would
- Ofcom admits impact of Online Safety Act has been "underwhelming" so far
CULTURE SECRETARY Lisa Nandy has branded X, owned by US billionaire Elon Musk, an "utter disgrace" after executives failed to attend a meeting about online abuse directed at lifeboat volunteers.
Nandy said the US company did not respond to the invitation to social media firms to discuss charity workers' home addresses being posted online. Police officers and journalists covering protests against life-saving rescue missions involving small boat migrants have also been targeted, she said.
"X didn't even bother to turn up yesterday, which I think is an absolute disgrace," Nandy told Times Radio on Wednesday (16), adding that the company had shown a "real contempt for people's safety and security".
Speaking on LBC, she said, "X didn't even bother to turn up, which I think tells you everything about their disgraceful attitude to their own moral and social obligations. And the government is determined to act."
Doxxing is the act of publicly sharing private or identifying personal information about someone online without their consent, usually to harass, intimidate, or harm them.
RNLI volunteers targeted
Nandy's department intervened after demonstrations against small boat migrants in Dover and Portsmouth resulted in Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) volunteers being targeted. Videos on social media showed volunteers being called "traitors" after helping dinghies to safety, prompting the charity to change its security advice to caution against wearing its branding.
"I'm really, really very angry about the treatment of RNLI charity volunteers and staff who've been attacked online," Nandy said. "They've had their names and their photographs published for doing the life-saving work that they're doing."
She added that police officers and journalists had also had their addresses published online, and that shop workers were "routinely being filmed and harassed" at work, with footage then posted online, as part of a campaign by the trade union USDAW.
Nandy said she was prepared to change the law to make it a specific criminal offence to post a person's address online. Current legislation only criminalises this "doxxing" where there is clear intent to cause harm and distress.
"I was astonished when I took on responsibility for this a few weeks ago to find that publishing people's addresses online is not automatically a criminal offence and isn't automatically taken down by the social media companies," she said. "Some are very good, some are very poor."
Of the discussions with social media firms, Nandy said Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, indicated such content would not be taken down automatically, while TikTok "said they would do so".
Musk's history with UK regulators
The snub marks a further deterioration in relations between X and the department, which began a boycott of the platform this year. Musk has repeatedly criticised former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer's government and the Online Safety Act, and backed Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, following the summer riots of 2024.
The Asian minister also confirmed that no tech company had yet paid a fine under the Online Safety Act, saying enforcement by Ofcom had been "incredibly slow".
Ofcom's Oliver Griffiths admitted the regulator was "underwhelmed" by progress on the largest platforms used by children, telling the House of Lords communications committee the act would not be fully operational until mid-next year.
Separately, a US court dismissed a challenge to Ofcom's authority brought by message boards 4Chan and Kiwi Farms, ruling the regulator had immunity from US law. Ofcom had previously fined 4Chan £520,000 for breaching the act.
X has been contacted for comment.
