Online Harms

Siobhan Baillie Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd.

As many Members present know, I have been campaigning for verification options on social media to tackle anonymous abuse. I understand that new Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State like to put their own stamp on legislation, but I am appealing for no more delays in protecting children and adults from online abuse. In the time that I have been working on this issue I have had two children, dealt with a pandemic, a war and the deaths of two beloved monarchs, and worked on thousands of cases for people in Stroud; if little old me can fit in that much, I know that the massive Government machine and fantastic civil servants want to get on with this legislation, and we can do it.

I do not mind re-fighting the case for tackling anonymous abuse, because I love working with the Clean up the Internet gang, and anonymity is a really important part of this issue. The ability to operate anonymous accounts is abused on a huge scale and is fuelling racist, antisemitic and sexist abuse, pictures of people’s genitalia being sent around, name calling, bullying, online fraud, misinformation, scams, and the evasion of the law. It is much scarier to receive such abuse when people do not know who is sending it. That is why we have to tackle these issues.

It is not rocket science to understand how the online disinhibition effect makes anonymous users feel less accountable and less responsible for their actions. Recent research by the charity Reset found that those in the much-fêted red wall seats see tackling abuse from anonymous accounts as a top priority for improving the experience of online life. The University of Sheffield and the children’s charity 5Rights, which has played such an important role, have found that the ability to create anonymous accounts is a risky design feature. I urge the Minister to look again at the work of the Antisemitism Policy Trust, which is a doughty champion on this issue. We know that our Jewish communities have suffered dreadfully, with increased abuse and threats in recent years. Issues surrounding the categorisation of platforms and risk factors are well known, but we need to use this opportunity to bring about change.

Our proposals would require social media platforms to give users the choice to verify their own accounts. They would make it very obvious if someone is verified and there would be the option to follow or be followed by only verified accounts. That would not stop the ability to be unverified. People could remain unverified, and that would assist whistleblowers, journalists and anyone in a marginalised group who wants to remain anonymous. In our plans, users could still be Princess or President So-and-so with a funny Twitter handle, but they would know that there is information behind the scenes.

Let me be clear: social media as it stands is damaging free speech. If someone is going to get a rape threat for saying what they think, they will not speak freely. We have to make these changes. The Minister is so brilliant in this policy area, and I urge him to make changes as soon as possible.