Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s comments that there may need to be tighter regulation of social media to tackle growing levels of racism have polarised public opinion.
He was speaking in the wake of far right riots across the UK triggered by the murder of three young girls in Southport that have resulted in several people being jailed for stirring up racial hatred and violence online.
He told BusinessCloud: “The negativity of social media is outweighing the positivity at the moment. Do they want social media to be a force for good or is the intent to allow it to continue to divide society? If it’s latter, the regulatory approach is going to have to change significantly.”
The story has attracted a diverse range of views on LinkedIn and we’ve selected some of the comments below.
Free speech is sacrosanct
John Whelan, chief executive officer at My Digital, said: “Free speech is one of our greatest rights and those who seek to curtail it must be viewed with suspicion. It is of course your right to be offended, but it is so easy to get offended that we must defend our right to offend with vigour.
“Andy Burnham (who I also greatly admire and it remains on my bucket list to meet him one day) displays a patronising approach to the subject because he, presumably, does not need his social media feed filtering but assumes that others (those less smart than he) do.”
Laws already exist
Jonny Clark, organiser of Liverpool Slush’D and Seedlegals Angel Investor of the Year 2024, said: “We already have laws about hate speech and incitement to violence – they are just very selectively enforced, just like most other laws we have.
‘Social media firms may need tighter regulation’ – Andy Burnham
“It’s why somebody who just ‘gestured’ towards the police during a civil disturbance last week has been sentenced to two years in prison, whereas recently somebody who committed the r*pe of a minor was spared a custodial sentence.
“The legacy media on both sides of the political spectrum will be salivating at the thought of this, because none of them have a strong commercially-viable answer to the shift towards online, real-time ‘social’ media.
“I cannot understand how anybody can look at any aspect of our society – energy, planning, the military, immigration or economy – and think ‘more legislation’ is the answer to our ossification.
“What ‘tighter’ regulations can we have, Andy? Fines if posts aren’t auto-blocked based on keywords? Sanctions if certain videos are shared? Extradition of execs from Silicon Valley if Community Notes points out how MPs twist the truth in their posts?
“The past four weeks have been amongst the worst I’ve ever seen in the UK. The current debate is not the answer.”
X is a ‘vile place’
Nina Wyers, marketing and brand director at The Floorbrite Group, said: “X is a vile place full of extremist views. I’ve seen horrific things on there.”
Threads is ‘crank-free’
Simon Barlow, principal consultant at Perpetual Partnerships, said: “It’s (X) a dumpster fire on there. (I’ve) moved over to Threads, much friendlier and without the cranks.”
Not all social media’s fault
Experienced non-executive director and chairman Barry Nightingale said: “Broadcast and print media have been guilty too. (It’s) easy to demonise social media but like all media the policy should be don’t watch, listen or read and the vitriol will eventually abate.”
Too easy to blame far right
David Lathwood, joint managing director of BIC Advisory, said: “I get the distinct impression that the authorities are massively underestimating the ‘spontaneity’’ factor and built up resentment here. I read on Friday that 75 per cent of those arrested in Southport following the riot live within five miles of where they were arrested – as opposed to ‘they’ve been bused in to cause trouble’ narrative.
“It’s much too easy (and dangerous) to blame the ‘far right’ here in my view – although I guess that Andy Burnham will find it difficult not to.”