Online Homophobia

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Walker, and to follow so many eloquent speeches. I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for introducing the debate and for the way in which they placed it. I hope Bobby will understand—he is no longer in the Public Gallery, I think—that, as an honorary Essex boy, having studied at the University of Essex for three years, I commend him for all the work he has done.

As has been mentioned, the intrinsic nature of homophobia—whether in the real world or the unreal world—is bullying. It is a bully that does not show its face, and is often ignorant of the reality and the impact of that type of discourse. Plenty of people engage in this type of discourse, which is based on a falsehood, evidenced by hate, which allows them a veneer of respectability; there are those of us who believe we see it even in this place on a regular basis.

Therefore, why should the digital age be less full of hate than the previous age? Since the dawn of time, the LGBT community has faced unfounded and pernicious discrimination. As an openly gay man, I am very much aware of it; I was born into a world in which homosexuality was illegal. I hope the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) will forgive me if I mention that the legal systems of the United Kingdom meant that, in Scotland, homosexuality was not decriminalised until 1980—when I was nine years old—and that in Northern Ireland, it was not decriminalised until 1982.

Notions of who we should be, and the dictation of what we are meant to conform to, are so often what underlines hate. The transfer of hate from the real world to the unreal world should come as no surprise. This debate is taking place on 1 July, so we have come to the end of Pride celebrations in June specifically—I know a Pride march is coming up in London at the end of the week. That should remind us, especially those of us in the LGBT community, about the real nature of Pride, which is activism and solidarity. We must now seek to transfer that traditional method of activism and solidarity to the unreal world, where we really need to challenge these things.

This is a situation in which neither politics, religion nor society is free. As I mentioned during a debate on the Floor of the House last week, I am especially grateful that the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland has signed up to the Time for Inclusive Education campaign. It has stated that no child in state-funded Catholic schools in Scotland should leave school having been bullied because they are gay, whether in the real world or—as I have said—the unreal world. I use the terminology “unreal world” because online is not real; the words are real, and the hate is real, but it is a world that is controlled in a very different way.

We need to be clear that online homophobia crosses over to the political sphere—a place in which it has always found fertile ground, whether on the far right or the extreme far left. Earlier, we heard mention of the LGBTQ community in Russia, which suffers more from the onslaught of online hate transferring into physical hate. We also heard about Chechnya, and we can only imagine the trauma caused to the LGBT community there. However, let us not assume that social or liberal democracy is free from homophobia; how many political debates in this place have been infused by it, across both the right and the left? No political party, including my own, can claim a clear conscience about the history of homophobia. As of today, I am sure I will start to get a hell of a lot more of it; I actually do not get that much, but I believe that is about to change. I have actually told my team who deal with online communications for my office to expect it, because it is something they have never really had to deal with.

I am especially grateful to my 256 constituents in West Dunbartonshire who signed the petition. I also note the actions—I have to say this, because a lot of the elements mentioned today are devolved—of the Scottish Government and Members of the Scottish Parliament in light of the Lord Bracadale review of hate crime legislation in Scotland, which reported in May 2018. It has been noted that crimes against LGBTQ people in Scotland have risen, and, in an ever-changing world, there is no place for complacency. The Scottish Government’s consultation on hate crime aims to ensure that the legislation is fit for the 21st century and that Scotland, like the rest of the UK, has laws that remain focused on protecting its citizens from all hate crime, in either the real or the unreal world and across myriad platforms.

We have heard mention of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on, but what we have not heard about is mass data storage. Large conglomerates own the physical data, strewn across the globe; some would think of Google and so on, but, more importantly, there are organisations such as Amazon, which owns that data through Amazon Web Services, commonly known as AWS. It is hate data, and there can be no doubt that such private companies are aware of the online hate that they physically own. They must be challenged about their custodianship of such hate-filled data. To exclude them from this debate is to ignore the word “online” in the title of the petition, and to ignore how hate-filled data dominates our lives today.

Before I conclude, I will pay tribute to some of my colleagues who cannot join us today, who come from what is proportionately the largest LGBT group of parliamentarians in the House of Commons. In this very room, my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) has articulated, boldly and publicly, the vile and pernicious abuse that she receives on a regular basis, both for being lesbian and for being a woman. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) receives pernicious, continuous online abuse because he happens to be a gay man. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) receives abuse because she is a lesbian, a woman and of Irish Catholic background.

In conclusion, we must continue to challenge at every opportunity the normalisation of hate, whether in the real world or the non-real world. We must ensure that there is a call to arms for my constituents and for anyone who may be watching in Scotland to participate in the Scottish Government’s consultation, which is now in Holyrood. We must combat the monopoly of data ownership—I hope the Minister can say something about this—by stating that the conglomerates must come to the table, talk to Governments and be held to account for the data they physically own. Finally, I congratulate those who have campaigned for this petition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I absolutely understand the hon. Lady’s impatience with the timetable. I think I am correct in saying that she was in government herself when some of the legislation we are looking at came into force. I remember the 1997 Act coming into force when I was a practitioner trying to make sure that that law was applied in the criminal courts. I appreciate that my answer will not satisfy the people who have contributed to the petition, but we have to get this matter right. We have asked the Law Commission to look at the issue because it is a very complicated area of law. The hon. Lady will know—this draws me on to the second review—about the debate on whether misogyny should be listed as a hate crime. In this Chamber almost a year ago I was open to the concept or the idea that that form of hatred, particularly, as has been said, the intersectionality with homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, should be looked at carefully to ensure there are no unintended consequences of any legislation that we bring to this House in future. We must get it right. As has been noted in the debate, the ways in which people of ill intent target the people to whom they wish to be hateful shows that we need to be considered, thoughtful and careful in the way in which we approach it.

The second review that we are conducting is a full review of hate crime legislation. As I have said, we are looking at the coverage and approach of the current hate crime laws, including whether misogyny should form part of it, to ensure that the legislation continues to protect the existing characteristics covered, but also whether we need to update the law in this really important area, given all the factors that have been raised in the debate, to ensure that the law reflects the lived experience of our fellow residents.

The petition raises questions not only about our criminal laws, but about how we stay safe and are kept safe online, which is one of the biggest debates of our time. The challenges presented by the internet—the wild west, as it has been described—along with the freedoms that it brings about have to be carefully balanced.

We are clear that we want the United Kingdom to be the safest place in the world for everybody to be online. That is why the Government published the “Online Harms” White Paper in April. Through it, we plan to make technology companies more responsible for their users’ safety, including through a new statutory duty of care, which will be overseen by an independent regulator. The White Paper sets out plans to hold companies to account for tackling a comprehensive set of online harms, from which we will expect technology companies to take reasonable steps to protect their users.

[Geraint Davies in the Chair]

We have said that technology companies must do more, and they need not wait for the legislation following the White Paper to do so. The platforms must have clear and accessible terms and conditions about what is and is not acceptable behaviour, and they need to enforce them in a fair and consistent manner.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Other than the platforms, what about those who own the data and own the servers?