Minister tells social media firms to remove posts that ‘celebrate’ dangerous driving after A66 crash
Developing story first seen 3 hours ago
New details have emerged about the fatal A66 crash in Middlesbrough, including the names of the five young people who died alongside two police officers, and TikTok's response to government pressure to remove videos glorifying dangerous driving. Defence minister Luke Pollard said his department has already told platforms to take down content celebrating such behaviour and warned the government would use Online Safety Act powers to compel removal if firms fail to act voluntarily, arguing this is a chance for social media companies to prove they can regulate themselves.
The five who died in the Volkswagen Passat were named as Cole Robert Worthy, 17, Theo Rae, 17, Makai Saddington, 18, Michael Robert Cahill, 23, and Jacob Matusiak, 23; PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough also died when the car, believed to have cloned plates, hit their marked armed response vehicle head-on after driving the wrong way up the A66 during a seven-minute police pursuit. Ofcom said platforms must limit children's exposure to content promoting dangerous stunts and confirmed TikTok is already under investigation over its age-checking safeguards; TikTok denied its content endangers children, saying it bans and removes dangerous driving footage. The crash came less than a week after five teenagers died in a similar wrong-way collision on the M9 in County Kildare, Ireland.
- Minister demands platforms remove videos glorifying dangerous driving after A66 deaths
- Seven died, including five teenagers/young adults and two police officers
- TikTok denies risk to children; already under Ofcom investigation
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Middlesbrough is where the deadly A66 crash happened: a car being pursued by police went the wrong way up the road and hit an armed response vehicle, killing five young people in the car and two police officers. The government is now pressing social media platforms, particularly TikTok, to remove videos that appear to celebrate or glorify dangerous driving, arguing this kind of content can encourage risky behaviour.
The key figures are Luke Pollard, a defence minister speaking for the government, and TikTok, which has faced pressure over the material and denies its platform endangers children. The regulator Ofcom also has a role, since it oversees how platforms handle harmful content aimed at or reaching children, and it is separately looking into TikTok's age-checking measures.
This matters because it touches on a wider debate about how much responsibility social media firms bear for content that could inspire dangerous or fatal driving, and what powers the government has under the Online Safety Act to force platforms to act rather than relying on them to do so voluntarily.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters argue that this is a proportionate and urgent response to a preventable tragedy: seven people, including two police officers, are dead after a pursuit connected to a culture of dangerous driving that some online content actively glamorises. They contend that platforms already prohibit this material in their own terms of service, so ministers are simply asking for consistent enforcement rather than imposing new speech restrictions, and that the Online Safety Act exists precisely to give regulators leverage when self-policing has previously proved patchy. On this view, protecting children from being drawn into imitating fatal stunts is a legitimate and pressing public safety concern that outweighs any inconvenience to platforms.
The case against
Others are more cautious about ministers directing what may or may not appear online, even with good intentions. They point out that terms like 'celebrate' are inherently subjective, risking overzealous takedowns of news coverage, dashcam footage used for road-safety education, or ordinary car-enthusiast content that has nothing to do with this crash. They also question whether removing videos meaningfully changes offline behaviour, noting that dangerous driving is already comprehensively illegal, and worry that government pressure backed by regulatory threat sets a precedent for ministers shaping content moderation on emotive but loosely defined grounds, rather than leaving such judgements to due legal process or clearly codified rules.
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