Social media’s poisonous anonymity

From: Brian Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.

I HOPE Home Secretary Amber Rudd intends to carry out the veiled threat to introduce laws to force the social media giants to clean up their act (The Yorkshire Post, March 27). It is an outrage that WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, prevents even its own technicians, let alone detectives, from reading messages such as those sent by Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood just minutes before the carnage he created.

It beats me why social media are not subject to the same regulatory regimes as the mainstream media, including newspaper publishers and broadcasters. The Yorkshire Post, like the only other newspapers worth reading, does not even publish letters submitted by “name and address supplied” or “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” let alone the sort of anonymous poison endemic in social media.

I would like to see a total ban on anonymous correspondence in any shape or form.

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

IN reply to Jayne Dowle’s question (The Yorkshire Post, March 27) as to why the armed officer she saw in Meadowhall was not on duty in Westminster, the answer is quite simple. He is a member of South Yorkshire Police and not the Metropolitan Police.

His presence in Sheffield is for the protection of the local public and not Londoners. Yes, questions should be asked as to why those officers on actual protection duties are not routinely armed and the answers must be provided by those who lead them.

I am eternally grateful that I served my 30 years at a time, and in a place, where radicalised Muslims were not a problem. I greatly admire those who serve today who, sadly, do not appear to have the backing of the Government of the day.