Internet fantastic resource - but can be place of cruelty
SARAH DINES MP this week looks at the Online Safety Bill presently being considered by Parliament
SOCIAL media and the internet are fantastic resources.
The internet can be a wonderful place of learning and awareness, and kept so many of us connected to the outside world during the dark days of the pandemic.
Unfortunately, it can also be a place of unkindness, cruelty and danger.
The Online Safety Bill presently being considered by Parliament introduces groundbreaking laws to regulate certain internet services, especially user-generated content.
These platforms will have to unambiguously address issues such as online abuse, harassment, exposure to content encouraging self-harm or eating disorders and child protection; spelling out what is and is not acceptable on their sites, and enforce this.
These measures will prioritise online safety while enshrining free speech and ensuring that necessary online protections do not lead to unnecessary censorship.
Online harassment, over a sustained period of time, can include cyber stalking, offensive name-calling, purposeful embarrassment, physical threats and sexual harassment.
When thinking about online safety, it might be useful to outline my own situation.
By becoming a Member of Parliament, I have put my head above the parapet and with that, unfortunately, I have sometimes become a target for online abuse.
Any review of comments made on my Facebook page or about me on Twitter will show the often unacceptable degree of abuse focused on parliamentarians.
I am not referring to the normal cut and thrust of political discourse with those who hold views different to my own.
I welcome these views; they are an important part of democracy.
What is unacceptable are the small minority of social media (ab)users, often hiding behind anonymous screen-names, who post unacceptable (and unprintable) expletive-laden diatribes often also calling me “vile”, “cruel”, “corrupt”, “heartless”, “soulless”, “evil”, “scum”, “bigoted”, “racist” or a Nazi.
Some have been unambiguously misogynistic, referring to me simply as a “stupid, stupid woman”.
Several of these individuals have broken the law, and for my own safety and that of my parliamentary and constituency staff, have had to be dealt with by the police.
In one example, an Ashbourne resident, responsible for a sustained campaign of grotesquely despicable online harassment that extended to my children and even my dead mother, accepted a police caution, admitting the crime of harassment and that he had deliberately posted untruths.
I thank Derbyshire Police for acting swiftly in this and other cases. There is a false belief that things that are said on social media, that people would never dream of saying to another in person, are somehow different to real life harassment and abuse – it isn’t.
Harassment on social media and in real life are the same, they are awful, in some cases unlawful, and have no place in our society. I, for one, have a very clear policy of blocking anyone who is abusive on my Facebook page.
A related issue are those people who obsessively email me abuse, often multiple times a day. A very small number of vexatious people have generated hundreds and hundreds of emails which have to be read and processed as a matter of course by my staff and I.
Whilst I have colleagues who only respond to written letters, I answer all the communications I receive.
The time spent in dealing with obsessive and often botgenerated “campaigning” emails is time lost in dealing with genuine and often very serious issues raised by constituents, especially during the lockdown from which we have now emerged.
As much as I wish I didn’t have to deal with online harassment, I am resilient enough to do so.
Instead, I think about our young people, teenagers or younger, and others who have enough to deal with without receiving abuse online from anonymous people behind keyboards.
In entering the digital world, people who are vulnerable, or at a low point in their lives, may open themselves up to danger.
These are the people I am concerned about and whom my parliamentary colleagues and I will legislate to protect.