The fundamental problem with the regulatory environment in the UK, as far as I can tell, is that both the big parties have been authoritarian on security and technology issues when in power, but neither appears to have a deep understanding of how modern technology works and the moral issues it raises. Consequently, in this field more than most, policies are set almost entirely for political expediency and appearances, rather than because they will achieve any other form of positive result.
This is how we get conflicting positions, such as "we value security and want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online", but also "we want our police and security services to be able to access any online communications".
The handling of social media has often been similar. Apparently we are a democracy that values free speech, yet we also want the social media companies to use unspecified technology that they are assumed to have available to identify and block harmful content, for whatever definition of "harmful" is politically convenient at the time.
A recurring theme is being seen to object to negative consequences of modern technology but without ever taking a clear stance or positive action for which they could be held responsible if it has other negative consequences of its own. It's the epitome of trying to have a cake and eat it, instead dumping the hard questions on the big tech firms. Those firms make good targets politically because obviously they do have some real problems, so a lot of people will be fine with blaming them for the evils of the tech world and won't have much sympathy for anything bad that happens to them.