Who Is Melanie Dawes, the Woman About to Regulate Social Media in the UK
Melanie Dawes will soon be in charge of regulating social media in Britain. But as a result of trolling she’s suffered online, the Chief Executive Officer of watchdog Ofcom almost never uses one of the most prominent platforms coming under her watch, Twitter Inc.
Her experiences, including being targeted by a prominent conspiracy theorist, echo Ofcom research that showed a majority of British people have had “potentially harmful” encounters online, such as bullying, attempts at fraud, or exposure to posts promoting suicide.
“I decided that it wasn’t something that was going to be worth it, to be honest,” Dawes said of Twitter and other social media platforms in an interview. “There are a lot of people in public life, including a lot of women in public life, who’ve had a worse time of it than I have.”
The UK is preparing to introduce controversial and sweeping new legislation designed to protect the public. The Online Safety Bill has spent five years and six Conservative party culture secretaries being drafted, and gives Dawes and Ofcom significant new powers.
Development of the bill began years before 56-year-old career civil servant Dawes arrived at Ofcom. When it was first tabled, she was the most senior bureaucrat at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which she became after a 15-year stint at the UK Treasury.
As such, her personal experiences didn’t influence the legislation’s creation or development. But her firsthand knowledge of the toxic content that proliferates on social media will make her a more informed auditor once it’s passed by the UK Parliament and receives royal assent.
Pending Parliamentary approval, the Online Safety Bill gives Ofcom power to demand information from social media and
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