Debate over online anonymity as MPs call for social media firms to tackle abuse

Social media firms could be forced to crack down on anonymous trolls after MPs called for Twitter and Facebook to take more responsibility for toxic abuse.

The call for a "David's Law" came as MPs gathered in the Commons to pay tribute to Conservative MP Sir David Amess, who was stabbed multiple times and killed while meeting constituents on Friday. Ali Harbi Ali was arrested at the scene and continues to be detained under terrorism laws. 

Meanwhile, other politicians warned they could soon be forced to only meet constituents online in a bid to guarantee their own safety. 

The SNP's Kirsty Blackman revealed that three people have been prosecuted for abusing her.

She said that she had also reported others to the police who have not been prosecuted.

Writing on Twitter,  the MP for Aberdeen North said: “During my time as an MP, three different men have been in court as a result of their separate threatening behaviour toward me.

“All three were convicted. These are the ones that have made it to court - I have also made a number of police reports that have not met the threshold.”

Blackman said she has not previously spoken about the incidents as she did not want her children to be alarmed.

She said one of the men sent her a threatening letter, another was “verbally abusive” and the third “travelled from the south of England to Aberdeen where he was intercepted by police.”

She continued: “ Being an MP attracts hatred, anger and threats. This should not be the case. It’s not safe to be an MP, but it is important that people are represented, and that they can speak to their representatives. It’s a tough balance to strike.

“I don’t know how to fix this, other than continued legal action against the perpetrators. I imagine all MPs continually review their security arrangements. I certainly do.

“I don’t talk about this. I’ve said previously that the very last thing I want is for my children to go to school and catch sight of a newspaper reporting on threats to their mum, or to have other parents or teachers mention it.”

Writing in yesterday’s Daily Record, the SNP MP Joanna Cherry, said there may now be a need to “consider whether MPs can continue to meet total strangers at vulnerable locations such as libraries and church halls”.

Cherry told the paper of the abuse she’d received: “On one occasion I required a police escort at my constituency surgery because of a death threat considered credible. On another occasion, a constituent behaved in such a menacing and threatening manner I and my office manager were in fear for our lives.

“We were so terrified that after he left we pushed all the furniture against the door in the suburban library where my surgery was being held while we waited for the police to arrive.”

The MP for Edinburgh South West said that the “unrelenting attacks do take their toll”, adding: “Recently I contemplated leaving elected politics due to the level of abuse and threats, but I’ve decided to stay and fight my corner.”

 

 

Speaking earlier, her colleague Carol Monaghan, the SNP MP for Glasgow North West, said social media had intensified the anger people felt towards politicians. 

Earlier this year, a 35-year-old man pleaded guilty to a charge of engaging in a course of conduct that caused Monaghan fear or alarm.

Jonathan Bell harassed the SNP politician to the point she and her family were taken to a police safe house as a result.

At one point Bell, of Broomhill, contacted Crimestoppers to say Monaghan's "life was in danger".

He also smeared tomato sauce on the door and window of the MP's constituency office in Partick.

Monaghan said MPs were told that abuse and threats "goes with the territory and they should grow a thick skin".

"I have to say, why should I have to? Why should my family or any other MP's family be put in danger?"

She added: "When you have threats made against you it takes you to a very dark place and you start questioning the reasons why you are doing this particular job."

She said the remote working that was a necessity of Covid could remain in place.

"I'm not saying there isn't a place for face-to-face surgeries but I think we have to be careful about being utterly accessible at all times," she said.

Monaghan said people were often “emboldened by others on social media." 

She said. "When someone makes a comment, others pile-on on the back of it.

"So people feel as though they are incited to do something. I think social media very definitely makes the situation worse."

The MP called on social media firms to take more action.

"I have raised threats that have been made against me on social media and I have been told it is not a threat.

"I have had hideous language used against me and I have been told that does not fall foul of the guidelines.

"Social media providers very definitely have a duty to act. It is not just politicians who bear the brunt of this. It is anybody on the public eye becomes a target of threats and abuse on social media and we need to clean it up."

The Conservative MP, Mark Francois told the Commons he was “minded to drag Mark Zuckerberg [CEO of Facebook] and Jack Dorsey [CEO of Twitter] to the bar of the house … if necessary kicking and screaming so they can look us all in the eye and account for their actions or rather their inactions that make them even richer than they already are”.

He said MPs should radically toughen up the pending online harms bill to prevent trolls and other abusers hiding behind pseudonyms. “In the last few years David had become increasingly concerned about what he called the toxic environment in which MPs, particularly female MPs, were having to operate in,” Francois said.

“He was appalled by what he called the vile misogynistic abuse which female MPs had to endure online and he told me very recently that he wanted something done about it.”

Francois, added: “I suggest that if we want to ensure that our colleague didn’t die in vain, we collectively all of us pick up the baton, regardless of our party and take the forthcoming online harms bill and toughen it up markedly.

“Let’s put, if I may be so presumptuous, David’s law on to the statute book, the essence of which would be that while people in public life must remain open to legitimate criticism, they can no longer be vilified or their families subject to the most horrendous abuse, especially from people who hide behind a cloak of anonymity with the connivance of the social media companies for profit.”

Johnson led the tributes to “one of the nicest, kindest and most gentle individuals ever to grace these benches”,

He told MPs. “That Sir David spent almost 40 years in this house but not one day in ministerial office tells everything about where his priorities lay,” he said.

“He was not a man in awe of this chamber, nor a man who sought patronage or advancement. He simply wanted to serve the people of Essex, first in Basildon, then in Southend. And it was in the act of serving his constituents that he was so cruelly killed.”

Labour leader Keir Starmer said: “Even as a political opponent he was a man and a politician we could all learn much from. I use that phrase – ‘political opponent’ – very deliberately. Because David held his beliefs passionately but gently. I believe that not only can we learn from that but that we have a duty to do so. Civility in politics matters."

The SNP leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, said all politicians have a responsibility to put an end to the "toxic culture of hate and intolerance" which "has become all too common".

"Every one of us have a responsibility to put an end to it," he said.

"It was the truest tribute to Sir David that he personified exactly what we need to get to."

"David’s lesson and legacy is to show kindness and love to all," he added. "May his gentle soul now rest in peace, God bless you David."