Violent material viewed by the Southport killer should be removed from social media to ensure it does not inspire further attacks, the home secretary has told tech companies.
In a letter to X, Meta, TikTok, Google, and YouTube, Yvette Cooper said the ease of access to such content, including an al-Qaeda training manual, was “unacceptable” and that the firms had a “moral responsibility to act”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that online platforms must act now.
Axel Rudakubana was last week jailed for 52 years after pleading guilty to murdering Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, at a dance class in July.
As well as the three killings, Rudakubana pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of eight other children and two adults injured in the attack.
Searches of his home uncovered material which suggested an obsession with violence, including the academic study of an al-Qaeda training manual downloaded from the internet.
Police have said Rudakubana used techniques set out in the manual when he carried out the attack.
Reeves told the BBC that it was “totally unacceptable” that he “was able to access – really easily – such hateful material”, adding that online platforms “have a moral responsibility to take that content down and make it har
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