‘Internet firms must rid content which fuels violence among youths’
INTERNET COMPANIES must do more to rid their platforms of content that fuels youth violence, the Government has said.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd will press social media firms to step up their response following a spate of murders in London. The Home Office said gangs often post videos online that “seek to incite violence or glamorise criminality to influence young people”.
A spokesman said: “The instant nature of social media also means that plans develop rapidly and disputes can escalate very quickly. “The Government, voluntary sector and other partners are working with social media companies to ensure measures deliver real results and raise the level of online safety for users.
“We are clear that internet companies must go further and faster to tackle illegal content online. It is already an offence to incite, assist or encourage violence online and we will continue to support proactive operational police action to tackle offences perpetrated online.” The Government is finalising plans for a new strategy to tackle serious violence, which is expected to be published next week.
Former home secretary Lord Blunkett said the biggest difference between violent crime today and when he was in Government is the “dangerous influence of social media”.
GANG POSTCODE wars have spread across the capital particularly in deprived areas, a charity boss has said.
Patrick Green, head of the Ben Kinsella Trust, said the deadly rivalries can be seen across swathes of south, east and north London including in Tottenham where 17-year-old Tanesha Melbourne was killed on Monday.
Around 30 minutes later, Amaan Shakoor, 16, was gunned down in Walthamstow in another apparently gang-related killing.
Mr Green said: “It’s just endemic across most of London, particularly inner London. For some reason this isn’t just confined to one or two little corners it just seems to have spread and the mindset has crept in across London.
“It’s around social deprivation. If you were to pull out a map which showed the most deprived boroughs I would guarantee there is a postcode war there.”
He said some young people get stuck in such “a bubble” that he has met men in their mid-20s who have never left Tottenham, even to travel as far as Oxford Circus.
There are particular rivalries in Wood Green and Tottenham; Croydon and South Norwood, Newham and Stratford.
Social media has also been highlighted as fuelling a cycle of tit-for-tat violence.
Beth Murray from youth charity Catch 22 said violent videos can end up being shared with thousands of people, normalising horrific incidents like stabbings and heaping “shame” on the victim, pressuring them to retaliate.
Only a fraction of the violence the organisation deals with is gang-related, she said, with the majority being “kids with knives getting out of control with each other”.
Police estimate that in London half of gun crime is linked to gangs and around a fifth of knife crime.
Ms Murray said: “Most of the shootings and stabbings that we see often aren’t linked to organised crime or gangs, they are kids with knives getting out of control with each other.
“What we’re seeing is that somebody might get stabbed, that might get filmed, that might go on Snapchat, that might be shown to hundreds of people who might then see that as normal, they might share that, that might then go out to thousands of people.
“That does two things. That desensitises young people to what’s going on around them and secondly it creates a momentum behind it.
“Somebody who has been stabbed will then have to retaliate because they’ve been shamed, or their friends will feel as though they have to retaliate because they feel they’ve been publicly shamed.
“It creates a cycle of violence which previously didn’t exist, we’d see a lot more isolated incidents.
“Now we see a lot more people who are using social media to act as a catalyst for youth violence.”
Acting Detective Chief Inspector Glenn Butler from Trident, Scotland Yard’s gang crime unit, said forensic investigators are testing ballistics and recovering CCTV evidence to help in the hunt for the Walthamstow killers.
He said: “I fully appreciate the alarm, shock and revulsion caused by this murder and other fatal shootings we have seen across London over the last few months.
“We are doing everything we can to identify the culprits and bring them to justice.
“We can’t do this alone. We need those within the community who have information about those involved to search their own conscience and call us with information.”
endemic It’s just across most of London. Patrick Green, head of the Ben Kinsella Trust.