Washington attacks UK plan to boost trusted news sources online

Clash is latest pitting platform algorithms against government regulation

The US administration has voiced “serious concerns” over a UK government consultation about a potential prioritisation of trusted news stories on social media.

The consultative Green Paper was published in June by culture secretary Lisa Nandy. It seeks to protect the viability of UK public service media in competition with global platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and TikTok by requiring them to prioritise designated publishers in users' feeds. The trusted sources mentioned so far are the BBC, ITV, STV, Channel 4, S4C and Channel 5, although the government is considering extending eligibility to other providers.

The prioritisation proposals are part of a wider package of measures affecting public-service broadcasting and TV distribution.

A Commons Library briefing published 7th September summarises the Green Paper and outlines some of the responses received so far.

The UK proposal is one among several European efforts to exert greater control over social media, including the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) and age-verification and social-media restriction proposals in countries including France and Norway. Australia is considering legislation that would require social media platforms to allow users to disable recommendation algorithms.

Proposals requiring social media platforms to adjust their recommendation algorithms were criticised by a YouTube executive, who said they “could force YouTube to give special treatment to a small group of organisations hand-picked by a government.”

YouTube has now been joined by the US Embassy in the UK. In a published response to the Green Paper, it questioned the designation of “trustworthy” sources and raised concerns over the impact on free speech, adding that forcing platforms to alter algorithms risks “becoming a mechanism for viewpoint-based censorship.”

It also noted that the platforms affected are largely US-headquartered companies, arguing that prioritisation of designate sources could leave other providers less able to compete.

It explicitly asked the UK government to withdraw the proposal.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), while acknowledging the need to tackle disinformation on social media, also raised the issue of the government deciding what is “trustworthy”, arguing that this could damage plurality in the media and shut out independent voices.

The Press Recognition Panel (PRP) welcomed the government’s focus on misinformation, but warned against using the definition of “recognised news publisher” in the Online Safety Act as a proxy for trustworthiness, saying that designated news outlets should have independently audited complaints arrangements.

“News publishers should not qualify based on self-declared standards or complaints processes that have not been independently assessed,” PRP stated.

The US administration’s objections come at a time when countries around the world – as well as individual US states – are seeking to rein in some of the harmful or destabilising impacts of social media algorithms, which often prioritise clicks and engagement over other priorities.

The US embassy in London previously warned that a mooted ban on 16-year-olds using social media could place a heavy burden on American firms.

The administration has also threatened to retaliate against the EU if it fines US tech companies under the DSA.

The dispute over trusted news is best understood as part of a broader battle over regulation, as well as over who has the final say over recommendation algorithms – elected governments or tech platforms.