Excerpt from article: "The UK government is about to do something that will make Silicon Valley shudder, or at least make social media executives think twice ab

Excerpt from article: "The UK government is about to do something that will make Silicon Valley shudder, or at least make social media executives think twice about flying over British airspace. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak looks all but certain to strengthen the UK’s Online Safety Bill with criminal sanctions for social media bosses, after fierce lobbying from the country’s ruling Conservative party. The bill aims to protect under-18s from harmful content; so if regulators find that Instagram has been steering British kids toward material encouraging suicide, Mark Zuckerberg could face up to two years behind bars. Harsh as it sounds, politicians across the main parties are eager for the stricter rules. The amendment will likely go in when the bill goes to the House of Lords, probably this spring. Barring any major events — like the prime minister being replaced again — the Online Safety Bill should pass before November 2023, when the UK’s current session of Parliament ends. Naturally, none of this has gone down well with some tech leaders. Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, called the move a form of tyranny, while others suspect a Silicon Valley vendetta by British politicians. But it is actually a prudent move. “Tyrannical” criminal sanctions have been part of regulatory life in Britain’s banking and construction industries for years, and their existence has helped keep lines of accountability clear and the process of regulation easier. In the last six months, jail sentences have been handed out to at least four people from the building trade because of fatal accidents, including the deadly fall of a 69-year-old builder who was working on a house extension last year; the manager overseeing the builder’s work was jailed for nine months after inspectors found the scaffold he’d been working on had no guardrails. Convictions have been more rare for financial rules that were introduced after the 2008 credit crisis to deter misconduct,(1)but they have created a clearer chain of accountability for banks, which have been forced to draw maps of executives’ roles and responsibilities to give to the country’s financial watchdog."