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We can’t put internet anonymity in the box marked ‘too hard to solve’
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Twitter turned 15 last week.

In a parliamentary debate on online abuse last Wednesday, Labour MP Stella Creasy, an early adopter of Twitter, remembered her first online death threat, in 2013. “Back then,” she said, “it felt shocking... now it is all too commonplace.”

The debate was triggered by an online petition started by celebrity Katie Price, which called for mandatory ID verification when opening a social media account – to allow authorities to ‘track a troll’. The petition passed 100,000 signatures within hours.

Labour MP Catherine McKinnell, the chair of the House of Commons Petition Committee, noted there have been many such petitions, pointing to “a growing public concern that anonymity enables people to get away with, and worse encourages, horrendous abuse”.

Price gets a barrage of social media abuse, much of it directed at her son, and much of it mocking his disability.

And hardly a week goes by without a Black footballer being targeted online. When Manchester United midfielder Fred made an error that led to a goal for Leicester City on 21 March, there was a grim inevitability to the racist abuse on his social media feeds shortly afterwards.

Three days later, Rangers’ captain James Tavernier told the Daily Record that every single Black player at the Glasgow club has suffered online racist abuse this season.

Many of the MPs speaking in the parliamentary debate on 24 March – particularly the women – had their own stories of racist or misogynist abuse.

Conservative MP Siobhan Baillie, who led the debate, described her experience of being targeted on social media after taking maternity leave. Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP for Barking, read out some of the anti-semitic abuse that has been directed at her.

Many MPs acknowledged that the problem wasn’t just for those in public life. As Labour’s Naz Shah observed, “We have the privilege of sharing our experiences in places such as Parliament, yet we still face this abuse, which is without any consequences. What hope do my constituents have?”.

This isn’t the first time MPs have debated online anonymity, but such backbench debates aren’t formally part of a legislative process.

But the sheer number and variety of MPs wanting to speak was unusual – as was the emerging cross-party consensus. Every MP who spoke talked about the ways that anonymity fuels and enables toxic online behaviour, but almost no one said they wanted to ban it.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Damian Hinds summed up the challenge: “while in one context anonymity can give voice to the voiceless and empower the oppressed, in another it can coarsen public discourse and facilitate abuse. Surely it is possible for us to have the one without having to have the other?”

Labour’s Charlotte Nichols echoed the “need to finely balance the many, varied and legitimate needs for anonymity with the need to address harms perpetrated by anonymous accounts. But the fact that it is difficult and complicated is not a reason not to tackle it”.

As Welsh Tory MP Rob Roberts observed, the issue had the unusual effect of “seemingly unifying the entire House” around a nuanced position.

This was a welcome change from the long and sterile debate over either ‘banning’ or ‘saving’ anonymity.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/we-cant-put-internet-anonymity-in-the-box-marked-too-hard-to-solve/