Social media and internet companies have agreed to a voluntary “take-down” procedure to combat rising incidents of online contempt of court, a senior government law officer has announced. Facebook, Google and Twitter have struck a deal that allows officials for the solicitor-general to flag up online comments that are viewed as being in contempt and ask for them to be removed. But Robert Buckland, QC, the solicitor-general, acknowledged to The Times that the technology companies would not be lawfully required to submit to a request from his office. Mr Buckland, the second most senior law officer in England and Wales, said the scheme would be kept under review to see if stricter measures were needed. Under the scheme, launched yesterday, special points of contact at
The internet 's largest social media and tech firms will implement voluntary self - regulation to avoid rising online contempt of workplace incidents in the UK . additionally , Google and Twitter have agreed to allow officials working for the uk 's attorney general to remove problematic online comments which they will request to be removed . The firms in particular are not under a legal obligation to submit to the requests and will consider each incident on a case - by - case basis .