The Government has instructed TikTok and other social media platforms to remove content linked to a trend in which people drive the wrong way down roads. Defence minister Luke Pollard said platforms should act to delete such posts.
Minister urges platforms to act
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Pollard said: “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.”
Call for self-regulation
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.”
Fatal crashes linked to trend
The development follows the deaths of three teenagers and two young men when the VW Passat they were travelling in collided with a police vehicle after going the wrong way along the A66. Officers PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, also lost their lives in the crash near Middlesbrough. One of the Passat's occupants had previously posted videos on TikTok showing him speeding recklessly.
Michael Robert Cahill, 23, Theo Rae, 17, Cole Robert Worthy, 16, Jacob Matusiak, 23, and 18-year-old Makai Saddington were all killed. In one clip, filmed by a passenger and posted in May set to rap music, a young man is seen in an Audi being driven at high speed through a housing estate with a police car's blue lights visible in pursuit. The vehicle then veers across a playing field in an apparent attempt to shake off the pursuers. Another video on an account associated with him shows a green Nissan being driven before being set alight, while separate images show him and a friend posing in cars wearing black balaclavas.
