Tim Loughton
Main Page: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)Department Debates - View all Tim Loughton's debates with the Home Office
(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Victoria Atkins
The Home Secretary is absolutely focused on the conduct of technology companies and the assistance they can give to the police both nationally and locally in taking down this abhorrent material. Sadly, this goes across the line with not just hate crime but online child sexual exploitation, terrorism and so on. A great piece of work is going on at the moment between the Home Secretary and those companies to ensure that their reactions are as speedy as the public expect.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
What these letters show more than anything is the gross ignorance, instability, bile and prejudice of the perpetrators, who hide behind the cloak of anonymity. As the Home Affairs Committee report has shown, that anonymity is even more damaging online. Is it not time not just to do more to take this material down once it has been posted but to stop it being posted in the first place and make sure that the identity of the people doing the posting has to be revealed before they have these accounts?
Victoria Atkins
The Home Secretary was in California recently to discuss these matters with the online technology companies. We are looking at the issue of anonymity in terms of the internet safety strategy, because we are very clear that we want the United Kingdom to be the safest place in the world online.