United Kingdom Ministry of Truth.

Somewhere, no doubt somewhere unpleasant, Hitler is laughing.

The UK government is taking a hard line when it comes to online safety, moving to establish what it says is the world's first independent regulator to keep social media companies in check.

Companies that fail to live up to requirements will face huge fines, and senior directors who are proven to have been negligent will be held personally liable. They may also find access to their sites blocked.

The new measures, designed to make the internet a safer place, were announced jointly by the Home Office and Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The introduction of the regulator is the central recommendation of a highly anticipated government white paper, titled Online Harms, published early Monday in the UK.

A brief listing of things which Must Not Be Allowed:

The regulator will be tasked with ensuring social media companies are tackling a range of online problems, including:

• Inciting violence and spreading violent content (including terrorist content)
• Encouraging self-harm or suicide
• The spread of disinformation and fake news
• Cyberbullying
• Children accessing inappropriate material
• Child exploitation and abuse content

As well as applying to the major social networks, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, the requirements will also have to be met by file-hosting sites, online forums, messaging services and search engines.

Meaning every time one kid texts "KYS" to another kid (or when The Phantom uses KYS as an example) the internet provider and the phone company pay a fine. Which they pass on to their customer base, meaning us.

This accomplishes two things. It institutes a new realm or tax and regulation which will be very profitable for government, and it makes cell phones and internet too expensive for the peasantry. Gasoline tax for the internet, essentially. The peasants shall walk, the lords shall ride.

This will end well, I'm sure.