The UK government is preparing to compel social media platforms to give greater prominence to British news providers as part of a broader effort to combat misinformation online.
Ministers are drawing up plans to consult on rules requiring platforms such as YouTube and Meta to make UK news sites including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 more visible to users.
The move forms part of a new green paper and represents the government’s latest attempt to assert regulatory control over US-owned social media giants.
Existing prominence rules already ensure that public service broadcasters occupy the most accessible channel listings on televisions, keeping the BBC News reliably on the first channel.
The government is now considering widening these same prominence rules so that they apply directly to social media platforms and their content recommendation systems.
The proposals are designed to address growing concerns that trusted British news is being buried by foreign algorithms, while misleading and inflammatory content rises to the top of feeds.
Ministers see the new powers as a direct tool for tackling the spread of misinformation on platforms where large numbers of young people now consume the majority of their news.
A report published last week by Demos, a cross-party think tank, urged the government to apply prominence rules to social media platforms to “safeguard citizen access to public interest news.”
“In the platform environment, incorrect, misleading, and inflammatory content abounds, while accurate and reliable news sources face declining visibility,” the Demos report found.
It is understood that the government would first invite platforms to voluntarily sign up to the new rules, with legislation remaining on the table as a back-up option if firms decline.
Tech companies are strongly opposed to prominence rules, according to reporting by the Financial Times, because they resist regulation that overrides their own audience-driven algorithms.
“If [the government] wants a proper fight, prominence is the way to go about it,” one person at a leading social media platform told the FT.
The prominence plans come just days after Sir Keir Starmer announced a ban on under-16s using social media, citing harm to children’s wellbeing and the fuelling of unhealthy online habits.
That announcement triggered fierce opposition from major technology executives, with Elon Musk branding Britain a “police state” over the proposed restrictions on his platform X.
Other firms warned that a ban on younger users would drive children towards less regulated and potentially less safe sites, deepening concerns about the government’s approach to online safety.