Competing start-ups may not have the resources to comply
Jimmy Wales has argued that laws on harmful content may result in stamping out challengers to big platforms, reports the Daily Telegraph. In a hearing with a UK House of Lords committee, the founder of Wikipedia pointed out that onerous legal obligations wold mean that only the largest platforms would have the financial resources to comply. He compared the situation to the car industry, where heavy regulation had prevented start-ups from breaking up the status quo. Only Tesla, with huge financial backing, had proved the exception, he said. The UK government is posed to introduce online harms legislation, but Mr Wales argued for the need to ‘preserve avenues for social innovation online, for new models of moderation and new systems of community control’.
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