Lisa Nandy to meet TikTok amid ‘epidemic’ of dangerous behaviour on social media

Lisa Nandy has said she will meet TikTok “in the coming days” as she told MPs there is more to do to address an “epidemic” of young people using social media to encourage dangerous behaviour.

It comes after two police officers died last month when their vehicle collided with a car being driven the wrong way along a dual carriageway in Teesside, killing five young men as well.

A social media account, thought to have belonged to one of the five, posted videos last year appearing to show dangerous driving, the BBC reported. The videos have since been removed.

Cleveland Police said there is “no evidence to indicate that filming” which took place before the crash “has taken place for the purposes of TikTok”.

Culture Secretary Ms Nandy paid tribute to Matthew Blades and Tom Clough, the “incredible” police officers who were killed on the A66, as she spoke in the Commons on Thursday.

She added: “There is more that must be done to tackle what is becoming an epidemic in young people, in particular, using social media to encourage dangerous behaviour.

“We’ve obviously been in close discussion with them and with other social media companies since this tragic, appalling incident. But there is more that we intend to do as a Government .”

Shadow culture secretary Rebecca Paul said the deaths of the police officers had “renewed concern about videos on TikTok and other platforms which glorify dangerous driving and police chases”.

She added: “The behaviour these videos encourage can have fatal consequences. We know the Government has recently raised this with social media companies, yet the content remains up.

“What more will the minister and Secretary of State do to ensure TikTok and other platforms crack down on this before more lives are lost?”

Ms Nandy said she would be happy to meet her Tory counterpart to discuss the issue.

The Teesside crash came a week after one in Ireland killed five teenagers when the car they were travelling in was driven the wrong way down a motorway and was involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle.

After that crash, the Irish Government and opposition politicians criticised social media companies for failing to restrict or quickly remove content depicting dangerous driving.

The UK Culture, Media and Sport Committee has urged social media companies, including TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Meta, to set out how they identify dangerous driving content on their platforms and how much they have removed in the past year.