Laws are needed to tackle “nonsensical” conspiracy theories about coronavirus vaccines, Labour’s shadows health secretary has said.
Jonathan Ashworth said there should be penalties for social media platforms which allow misinformation to spread, and he urged the Government to bring forward its Online Harms Bill.
Speaking on Sky’s Sophy Ridge show, Mr Ashworth said: “I looked on my phone this morning and you can still find stuff on TikTok and so on.
“So we want to work with the Government and find a way of stamping this out. I think it would involve financial penalties.”
He said fewer people choosing to take the vaccine due to online misinformation was “the last thing we want”.
Mr Ashworth called on the Government to deal with “some of the dangerous, nonsensical anti-vax stuff that we’ve seen spreading on social media.”
Some of the “poison garbage” conspiracy theories on social media suggested that the vaccine is being developed by “big global business people who want to use it to insert microchips into people”, he said.
