Online Anonymity and Anonymous Abuse

Simon Fell Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con) [V]]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) for securing this important debate. Over the past year, we have all spent more time online, for good and for ill. The pressure of the pandemic has shown us some of the very best parts of our society and some of the very worst. Online abuse, made much easier through anonymity, has consistently been one of the very worst elements. Let me be clear: I am not attacking anonymity online itself. It is not always harmful; in fact, it can often be a force for good. However, it is currently being abused by trolls and bullies and used to spread misinformation. That harms other users and undermines democratic debate. From the stories we have heard today to the ones I hear in the Tea Room on a daily basis and tragic cases such as that of Caroline Flack, this abuse is real. It has a real impact and lasting, sometimes lethal, consequences.

When social media users are anonymous, they feel much more able to behave poorly and bully and abuse other users. It is not just me saying that; repeated studies show that anonymity makes user behaviour increasingly aggressive and violent. Anonymity also makes it much harder to enforce rules against such behaviour. If a troll is eventually banned, they simply create a new anonymous account under a new name and their behaviour continues unabated. Online anonymity is a key factor in the spread of disinformation, conspiracy theories and extremism. Organised disinformation networks exploit the ability to create fake accounts and false identities at scale, using these networks to create false and misleading content and to spread and amplify it.

Tackling this effectively will take a really fine balance. I have absolutely no appetite to see free speech curtailed, but if we hope to challenge disinformation and extreme content, we need to address this issue head-on. If we look at platforms such as BitChute and some of the people who use them, they have weaponised free speech and are acting as if there are no boundaries at all. People use these platforms to propagate images and text that directly undermine the rights of other people and minority communities with hateful content. We need to have a proper discussion and understanding of this. Anonymity wrapped in the flag of free speech is being used right now to justify the sharing of extremely hateful content and to directly assault our democratic values.

How do we tackle this? I do not believe that we should just ban anonymity, but my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud makes exactly the right points on this issue. We should mandate that social media platforms give people the option to verify their identity. Users should have the option to block interaction with others who choose not to verify themselves, and it should be clear to everyone who is verified. Doing that would put the power back into the hands of users who want to enjoy the amazing benefits of social media but not see hate speech or fake news. Frankly, if someone is not prepared to stand up and put their name to their words, why should anyone listen to them?