Oliver Dowden warns Facebook of UK crackdown on Big Tech

Oliver Dowden has told Facebook to prepare for a major crackdown on Big Tech firms, saying Britain's regulators "won't shy away" from intervening in the market.

The Culture Secretary met with Sir Nick Clegg, the former Liberal Democrat leader who is now Facebook's global affairs chief, on Thursday following the social network's shock move to enforce a news blackout in Australia last week.

Facebook blocked Australian publishers from the site in response to new media laws being introduced in the country, which would force it to pay for news.

The Australian government ultimately agreed concessions to the laws with Facebook, and the company restored news content on Friday.

However, the show of Facebook's power has prompted fresh scrutiny from governments and regulators, with various countries including Canada now said to be looking at similar media codes.

Mr Dowden said the social network's decision to ban news from its site was a "concerning move which looked like Facebook was putting it’s bottom line above the public interest. We must avoid such nuclear options being taken again."

Facebook said the call had been "constructive" and that "the Government’s general preference is for companies to enter freely into proper commercial relationships with each other".

The company said in the UK, it had already struck deals under its Facebook News initiative which sees news articles appear in a dedicated feed on the social media site.

However, despite those deals, Mr Dowden signalled the UK had become increasingly concerned that "we do not have properly functioning digital markets, and the UK will be at the forefront of global efforts to address this".

"Tech titans have become the gatekeepers of online knowledge and the custodians of virtual public squares, and the Government won’t shy away from intervening to protect the interests of the public when it needs to."

Already Britain has taken steps to curb the dominance of Big Tech in markets such as search and advertising, and is in process of setting up a new digital markets unit within the Competition & Markets Authority which will be handed new powers.

The Government is yet to decide what those powers are, although the CMA has recommended it be able to levy billions of pounds in fines on tech giants.

It is also bringing in new laws to help protect children using social media sites, through the Online Safety Bill.

Mr Dowden said: "We will hold these companies to account and bridge the gap between what they say they do and what happens in practice. "We will prevent these firms from exploiting their dominance to the detriment of people and the businesses that rely on them."

The UK is hosting the G7 Summit in June, and Mr Dowden is expected to use the Digital and Tech Ministerial to discuss competition concerns in digital markets.

"Levelling the playing field" in digital markets has been a major UK ambition for years, with the country among those to have introduced a unilateral "digital services tax", levied on revenue generated by major tech firms in Britain.

The measure, which was introduced last year, is expected to be temporary until a global deal has been reached on how to tax tech giants, which historically have been able to book revenues in low tax countries.

On Friday, there were signs of progress towards a reform of the global taxation rules, with Janet Yellen reportedly having said the US would no longer insist on a "safe harbour" measure, which would allow tech firms to elect into the tax overhaul.

According to the Financial Times, the US was pushing for a deal over the proposals by July.