The Government has told TikTok and other social media companies to take down content featuring an “absolutely idiotic” social media trend showing people driving the wrong way down roads.
The warning comes after two police officers were killed when a car driving the wrong way on a dual carriageway in Middlesbrough crashed into their vehicle in the early hours of Saturday (August 22).
Seven people killed in Teesside crash
Pc Matthew Blades, 37, and Pc Tom Clough, 38, were killed when a Volkswagen Passat, that had been pursued by police, hit the marked armed response vehicle seconds after the chase was terminated.
Cole Robert Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, and 23-year-olds Michael Robert Cahill and Jacob Matusiak were also pronounced dead at the scene in Teesside. The crash on the A66 in South Bank, near Middlesbrough, claimed the lives of seven people.
Government calls on platforms to act
It is the second fatal tragedy involving teenagers being killed while driving down the wrong side of the road after a similar incident in Ireland a week before. The incident occurred on the M9 motorway with alleged footage appearing on social media of the lead-up to the horror crash.
Since then, a number of shocking videos of this nature have been reportedly found on social media platforms, leading to Defence minister Luke Pollard calling on social media platforms to act on removing posts.
He told BBC Radio 5 Live: “We’ve communicated to those social media platforms that have been hosting content that celebrates this type of dangerous behaviour on our roads to take down that content.
“I think we all need to give the police time, but there’s also things we can be doing in the meantime to make sure that the internet is a safer place for everyone, that doesn’t celebrate and load views and therefore financial incentives on people to generate such awful content.”
Online Safety Act powers
He added: “I want to see social media companies step up. It’s one of the reasons they’ve argued against some of the regulations, saying they can police themselves. Well this is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate it. Remove the content that celebrates dangerous behaviour on our roads.
“While that content is online, the Government will be using the powers in the Online Safety Act to compel the platforms to take it down.
“But if the social media platforms were to regulate themselves and remove it in the first place, not allow their algorithm to share this type of content, because they know exactly what type of content that algorithm is designed to share, then I think we’d be in a better place.”
Cleveland police and crime commissioner Matt Storey said it is “absolutely idiotic” for any drivers to be taking part in a social media trend showing people driving the wrong way down roads.
Asked about reports that at least one of the young men who died in a wrong-way collision Teesside early on Saturday had been involved in filming dangerous driving in TikTok videos, Mr Storey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Yeah, there has been speculation around that, but what I’ve been trying to say all throughout this is it’s really best for people to avoid that kind of speculation.”
But talking about the social media trend, he said: “Without being able to say whether that was anything like involved in this case, it’s absolutely idiotic for anybody to be doing anything other than being completely 100% focused on the road when they’re behind the wheel of a vehicle.
“And for somebody to be filming themselves or doing anything like that is absolutely ridiculous, and of course nobody should be doing that.
“And it is a worrying situation if that’s becoming more prevalent because it is incredibly dangerous.
“As I say, it may not have been the case in this situation, we don’t know, but anybody who is doing that, wherever it might be, is absolutely wrong to do so.”
One of the teens killed in the crash on Saturday had previously posted footage of him being chased by a police car.
