Social media platforms could face immense fines in the United Kingdom after the government introduced new laws to tackle illegal content including fraud and child sexual abuse material.

The new laws dictate that social media companies must implement safeguards that combat illegal content that could lead to harm such as encouraging suicide, extreme pornography, and drugs, and starting Monday, every site included in the Online Safety Act must take steps to stop such content from appearing and taking it down completely should it appear online.

The crackdown on illegal content was "just the beginning," said Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, adding that “In recent years, tech companies have treated safety as an afterthought. That changes today."

Companies that violate the act could face fines reaching up to £18m or 10% of their global revenue, which for corporations like Facebook’s owner, Meta, or Google could amount to billions of pounds, while in the most severe cases, services may also be taken down.

Ofcom, the UK watchdog responsible for overseeing the act, has released codes of conduct for tech platforms to adhere to in order to remain compliant with the legislation, which outlines 130 “priority offenses” or forms of illegal content that companies must address as a priority by ensuring their moderation systems are designed to handle such material.

The codes of conduct include hiding children’s online profiles and locations by default from unknown users, implementing measures that enable women to block and mute those engaging in harassment or stalking, setting up a reporting channel for organisations that assist in handling online fraud cases, and utilizing “hash matching” technology, which is used to detect illegal images, to prevent the spread of terrorist content and non-consensual intimate images, also known as “revenge porn.”

In a December interview with The Guardian, Jon Higham, Ofcom’s online safety policy director, stated that the largest and riskiest platforms were not implementing many of the safety measures recommended by the watchdog, adding that none of them appeared to be fully adopting all of the measures.

Mark Jones, a partner at the law firm Payne Hicks Beach, described the new illegal harms measures as a “significant shift” in addressing illegal or harmful content, as they mandate tech companies to take a proactive approach in detecting and removing dangerous material.