Extreme content Southport killer viewed remains online, Yvette Cooper warns
2 February 2025, 11:44
Violent videos which the Government has asked tech bosses to remove are still available to view.
Violent videos which Southport killer Axel Rudakubana watched are still online after the Government asked social media companies for them to be removed, Yvette Cooper has said.
The Home Secretary wrote to Elon Musk’s X, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, TikTok, Google and YouTube in late January calling on them to “urgently review” material accessed by Rudakubana.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Ms Cooper claimed material remains online despite her calls for it to be removed.
She told the BBC: “There has been some further contact with some of the social media companies, but our understanding is that many of those materials… that material is still available online.
“I think, frankly, that is disgraceful, because I think they have a moral responsibility to act.”
Under the UK’s Online Safety Act, from March platforms will be required to remove illegal content, including violent material.
Ms Cooper said the Government is willing to go further if social media giants do not comply.
She said: “We need to bring in the requirements to make sure we’ve got those legal powers in place and we will implement that.
“We are being clear that we are prepared to go further if the Online Safety Act measures are not working as effectively as we need them to do.”
Ms Cooper previously warned failing to remove the videos from social media could lead to further attacks like that carried out by Rudakubana.
The 18-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years after pleading guilty to murdering Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, at a dance class in Southport last July.
He also admitted attempting to murder eight other children and two adults, possession of a knife, production of a biological toxin, ricin, and possessing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism.
Before leaving home, he had searched online for “Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbing” – the knife attack on a bishop in Sydney, Australia, in April last year.
The graphic video was removed in Australia but is still available to view in the UK, Ms Cooper and Science Secretary Peter Kyle said in a letter to the tech bosses.
Rudakubana also had a PDF file entitled Military Studies In The Jihad Against The Tyrants, The Al Qaeda Training Manual, which led to him facing the charge under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
The ministers warned the killer had been able to easily obtain this document online and it “continues to remain available”.
