Online Homophobia

Debate between Ged Killen and Daniel Zeichner

Monday 1st July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 239444 relating to online homophobia.

I will begin by outlining the case put by Bobby Norris, who started this petition and is in the Public Gallery. It was an honour and a joy to meet him earlier this afternoon, and to get a real sense of his excitement that Parliament has responded by scheduling this debate to discuss Bobby’s Bill. Strictly speaking, we are some way off a Bill, but I am sure the Minister will be listening closely. The main thing I took from our conversation—apart from being slightly star-struck on meeting him—was how real, hurtful and profoundly unpleasant is the abuse that he and others receive. We should all be determined to stamp it out wherever it occurs.

Bobby’s petition, entitled “Make online homophobia a specific criminal offence”, reads:

“As a gay man I find it devastating how members of the LGBT community are still subjected to homophobic abuse online. Just because I am on TV I don’t think that makes it acceptable to be sent homophobic messages/comments on social media platforms. Nobody should have to receive these comments. I won’t go into detail as to the various names I have been called, but this should not be acceptable and can have an impact on people’s mental health and has certainly helped in making my anxiety and low self-esteem worse by receiving them.”

It has been signed by more than 152,000 people, so it has immense public support, arising from the fantastic publicity campaign by Bobby, “The Only Way is Essex” and my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), who has worked with Bobby and spoke passionately, eloquently and powerfully on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights last week in a debate in the Chamber. We were all moved by her speech, and as a long-term admirer and friend, I am proud that she is here to contribute to our debate.

There is an extraordinary division between how we treat homophobic abuse online and in what we still call the real world. I am thankful that homophobic verbal or physical attacks that happen on the streets still make headlines, awful though they are. Online abuse does not attract the same outrage, but it contributes to an atmosphere of fear and has a divisive, hateful effect. There are too many examples of that. I will leave it to others to talk more about the injustices of homophobic abuse. There are people in the Chamber today with powerful personal experiences to share. We all agree that it has no place in our society and must be stamped out.

Online anti-LGBT+ hate crime is defined as any crime taking place online that is targeted at a person because of hostility or prejudice based on their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. That could include abuse or even outing someone without their consent. That injustice is not going away. Stonewall statistics tell us that the number of lesbian, gay and bisexual people who have experienced a hate crime or incident in the past year because of their sexual orientation has risen by 78%, from 9% in 2013 to 16% in 2017. One in 10 LGBT people—10%—have experienced homophobic, biphobic or transphobic abuse online directed towards them personally in the last month. People are understandably shocked by that appalling figure and by the fact that no specific offence is being committed, outside the very fragmented and complicated laws that are used in the offline world.

[Ged Killen (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I warmly congratulate those who set up this petition and everyone who signed it. I do not know how I would have coped as a young man coming out and dealing with my sexuality in a world in which social media existed. It is much worse for people going through that now. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the main issues is that people can send online abuse anonymously? If we are to make this an offence—I think we should—do we not have to deal with that first? People using social media platforms must be identifiable if we are to take action.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will come on to that point, but I absolutely agree with him.

When I was researching this speech, I thought it would be useful to seek some local advice. I spoke to Anglia Ruskin University’s LGBT+ society, which said:

“As a society, and an LGBT+ community at ARU, we were shocked to learn online homophobia isn’t considered a specific offence. British society often praises itself for its support of LGBT+ people which, while often fair, comes with the assumption that the fight for LGBT+ rights has been won. However, those congratulations are hollow if we aren’t being protected properly by the laws of this society. The LGBT+ society at ARU works hard to offer safe spaces for LGBT+ students across campus, but we feel powerless to help students when we know they can be subject to online homophobia, something we can’t necessarily help with. We need legislation to ensure LGBT+ people are protected in all walks of life, in all activities of life.”

The society put it very well.

Online homophobia and other kinds of online abuse are a relatively new phenomenon, with the rise of omnipresent tech and the fact that most of us communicate digitally—in some cases almost constantly. Social media allows us to speak to people we know and people we have never met at the click of a button. Regulation of the online space is a contentious issue, and we have not got to grips with it. Some tech giants are struggling to find ways of monitoring their users’ behaviour. The number of moderators working for some is both impressive and alarming. Can we ever really check everything that is said? Frankly, do we want to? That is the conundrum that we face.

The laws governing hate speech and online abuse are drawn from various pieces of legislation, much of which was written before the widespread internet use and online communications that we enjoy today. Hate speech, including homophobia, is outlawed under five or more Acts. The Malicious Communications Act 1988 dictates that it is an offence to send an electronic communication in any form that is indecent or grossly offensive, conveys a threat, or is false, with intent to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient. The Communications Act 2003 updates that slightly, confirming that it is an offence to use any public electronic communications network, such as Twitter or Facebook, to send messages that are grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 contains a number of other offences such as harassment, and harassment when someone fears violence. However, the quantity of legislation means that it is sometimes unclear to victims where they stand. It is based on a communications environment that no longer exists, as some of it dates back some 30 years. Although it references online communication, it does not anticipate the all-encompassing nature of the digital world that we live in today, and thus the impact that online abuse can have as part of an online environment in which many people spend much of their lives, rather than simply the email inboxes of the 1990s.

Galop, the LGBT+ anti-violence charity, explained:

“Online life is so enmeshed in our day-to-day lives that increasingly the online and offline world are not separate. Sometimes online hate speech is a part of wider pattern of harassment and abuse that is happening in other areas of our life, for example a neighbour that is targeting you in your home and online”.

That is particularly damaging, because for some people—school students for example—it can all too easily feel that there is no escape from abuse if it is happening on the streets or in the playground, and online too.

The Government’s response to the petition highlighted their request to the Law Commission to review the current law on abusive and offensive online communications. The Law Commission produced its scoping report in November 2018, which concluded that abusive online communications are theoretically criminalised to the same or even a greater extent than equivalent offline offending. However, there is considerable scope for reform. It said that many of the applicable offences do not adequately reflect the nature of some of the offending behaviour in the online environment, and the degree of harm it can cause.