The Online Safety Bill has been approved by the Houses of Parliament.
The proposed law - which will become official when it gains Royal Assent - has been signed off by Parliament after a vote in the House of Lords.
Technology secretary Michelle Donelan told BBC News that the bill - which compels tech companies to remove images depicting child sexual abuse, controlling or coercive behaviour, extreme violence, animal cruelty and other harmful content - is “extremely comprehensive”.
She added: "As soon as this bill gains Royal Assent, the regulator will be working even more hand in hand with those social media platforms and you'll see them changing the way that they're operating.”
The bill’s approval - which has been questioned amid debate about the potential of restricting freedom of speech and other concerns - was dubbed as “slightly unreal” by academics at the University of Essex, who acknowledges the “complexity” of the potential legal challenges it could incite from tech giants like Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Professor Lorna Woods told the same outlet: "I think when you're waiting for anything for a long time, there's always that sense of, 'Oh, it's here'.
"I think maybe the complexity leads itself to that sort of challenge and that could delay the full coming into force of the regime."
Imran, the head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, cheered its passing as he reflected that "too much tragedy has already befallen people in this country because of tech companies' moral failures", such as 14-year-old Molly Russell taking her own life in 2017, which according to a coroner was due to being shown content that promoted suicide and self-harm.
However, critics of the bill, like digital rights campaigners Open Rights Group, said the bill represented "a huge threat to freedom of expression with tech companies expected to decide what is and isn't legal, and then censor content before it's even been published".
Lawyer Graham Smith mused the bill had “good intentions” but had scope for privacy violations.
He said: "If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, this is a motorway.”
