THE MP for Warrington North has launched a scathing attack on the Government's approach to online safety.

Debated in Parliament this week, the Online Safety Bill has been a core piece in the Government's legislative agenda for a long period of time, having been delayed a number of times.

The bill is up for debate in the House of Commons this week, before a vote will take place to determine whether the bill will become a new law.

Warrington Guardian: Ms Nichols has taken issue with measures the Government is planning to implement to regulate online abuseMs Nichols has taken issue with measures the Government is planning to implement to regulate online abuse (Image: Newsquest)

Charlotte Nichols, MP for Warrington North, accused the Government of a lackadaisical approach to online safety, with her suggesting that the Government would be allowing social media companies to 'mark their own homework.'

The comments were made in reference to one Tory MP's suggestion that social media companies should self-regulate through the use of 'accredited technology.'

Paul Scully, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Tech and the Digital Economy, said that companies will be using 'accredited technology to identify and remove illegal terrorism, and CSEA (child sexual exploitation and abuse) content, or prevent users from encountering that content or crucially to use their best endeavours to develop or source technology to tackle CSEA.'

He added: "What we'll do as we expand on the changes that we're making, is, first of all, make sure that anything that is illegal already goes off the table.

"Anything that is against the terms and conditions of those companies that are hosting... that content will have to not be seen."

Warrington North's Labour MP clapped back: "Noting that since Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, the hate speech has ballooned on the platform and the number of staff members at Twitter dealing with identifying images of child sexual abuse and exploitation has halved, how can the minister be sure that these social media companies are able to be marking their own homework in the way that he suggests?"

The Tory minister responded: "Because if they don't, they get a fine of up to £18million or 10 per cent of their global turnover, whichever is higher.

"And secondly, as you are finding from Twitter, there is a commercial impetus on this as well, because advertisers are fleeing that platform as they see the uncertainty that is being caused by changes on that platform."

Ms Nichols was revealed to be the north west's most-abused politician online after an investigation was undertaken to scan social media for abusive and aggressive comments and mentions of MPs.

Warrington Guardian: Ms Nichols said: Since Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, the hate speech has ballooned on the platform.Ms Nichols said: Since Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, the hate speech has ballooned on the platform. (Image: Parliament UK)

The Labour MP had the fifth-highest proportion of online abuse of all MPs in the country.

Speaking at the time, Ms Nichols said: "I'd like to say I'm surprised, but frankly, I'm not.

"That's not to say it's not upsetting, and that I'm not growing increasingly concerned about my safety given some incidents that have spilt over into 'real life' violence by people that have been whipped up online into hating me and don't see me as human anymore."