Online Anonymity and Anonymous Abuse

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab) [V]]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) on securing this debate and on all the work that she is doing to raise this issue. Yet again, it is a pleasure to take part in a debate where Members across the House are working together to find solutions.

There may be genuine and valid reasons why some people need to protect their identity online—those at risk of being traced by former partners in an abusive situation, professionals such as teachers, or those whose views may put them in serious danger of harm or torture from their own Government regime. Those who do not need protection, however, are the individuals who choose to use online platforms to bully, intimidate, troll and abuse others. Of course, many people online behave like that without feeling the need to hide behind fake profiles.

Social media gives a great platform to public figures such as MPs, but the downside to having a blue tick on Twitter, especially for women, is that we experience a disproportionate amount of online abuse almost daily. My right hon. Friends the Members for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) spring to mind when I think of online abuse—and indeed, as the hon. Member for Stroud mentioned, she herself was trolled for daring to be pregnant.

I cannot speak in a debate such as this without raising the huge problem of racism on online platforms. We have all seen it in all its disgusting forms all over social media, from trolling, vile language to the use of insulting stereotypes and images. Sadly, though, some forms of racism have been overlooked and even deemed acceptable by many. Racism is not only about the colour of our skin; Islamophobia and antisemitism have shamed political parties in recent years, and the Labour party has been in the spotlight over the recent findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. That is, of course, deeply shameful, as is the treatment of the former MPs who felt that they had no choice but to leave this party.

While I welcome the measures put in place by the leader of my party and the general secretary and his team, many of us have been reporting online abuse by members of our party for several years—personal abuse, sometimes by those with blue ticks themselves, and abuse by party members using anonymous, fake accounts. I know who they are, and it takes only a few seconds to find the posts that they write and share which blatantly clash with the values of this political party.

One of the worst examples for me was the member who mocked up photos and memes of me dressed in the striped clothes worn by Jews in concentration camps. Other members reported his behaviour, yet nothing at all was done until he posted support for a different political party, when he was swiftly expelled. I look forward to the changes that my party and social media platforms will bring in on online abuse, and to the end of these anonymous accounts that are not verified.