Boris Johnson summoned tech giants to Downing Street last night and ordered them to 'up their game' over the racist trolling of England football stars.
The Prime Minister gave the bosses of leading social media firms a dressing down, telling them they must take urgent action before the introduction of laws that could land them with huge fines.
The foul abuse is often sent by cyber bullies hiding behind anonymous accounts.
Mr Johnson was expected to tell the companies – which included Twitter, Facebook and TikTok – they must hand over the details of those found to have posted racist comments so the authorities can make an example of them.
It comes as police continue to seek the trolls responsible for vile insults aimed at Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, the three England players who missed penalties in Sunday night's Euro 2020 final defeat.
Boris Johnson summoned tech giants to Downing Street last night and gave the bosses of leading social media firms a dressing down
The No 10 summit had been scheduled before the football tournament began, with the tech giants invited to Downing Street for a garden reception for the Diana Award anti-bullying charity,
But the talks were given fresh impetus after the targeting of the black England footballers that led to condemnation from politicians, players and Prince William, who is president of the FA .
The firms were told yesterday morning that the PM would speak to them directly about the issue.
Ahead of the meeting, Mr Johnson's spokesman said: 'We think through the scale and prevalence of racist abuse that social media companies need to up their game to prevent online abuse now.
'We expect social media companies to do everything they can to identify these people. The police already have a range of powers to identify and pursue those who use anonymity to spread hatred, but we've committed to strengthening the criminal law in this area.'
Last night sources said the PM and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden had had a positive and constructive discussion with the tech firms, who set out what they were doing to tackle the problem.
Earlier Mr Johnson had opened the weekly Cabinet meeting by repeating his condemnation of the racist abuse. His government's Online Harms Bill proposes tougher laws to tackle it.
MPs will get a chance to debate the topic today after Labour's shadow home secretary Nick
