Online abuse

Léonie Cooper AM moved, and Unmesh Desai AM seconded the following motion:

“This Assembly notes with great sadness the suicide of another Londoner, Caroline Flack, who lived and died in the public eye. No-one, whether a politician, a reality TV host, or an ordinary member of the public, deserves to receive multiple, anonymous hate-filled or angry social media posts and comments, yet the current system of allowing anonymous accounts to be set up, that are hard or impossible to trace, allows many to act online in a totally unacceptable fashion.

This Assembly is aware that central government plans to act against the tech firms that provide the online platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, which are so often the place for abusive public commentary. In addition to the Mayor’s work on Thrive LDN, which aims to improve mental health and well-being across the capital, this Assembly calls on the Mayor to lobby the Government to:

1. Act as swiftly as possible, brooking no delay in setting up high-level meetings with the social media giants;
2. Persuade the social media giants to ban all anonymous accounts, as these fuel people’s feeling of impunity, freeing them to be abusive online;
3. Persuade the social media giants to close down all pages and accounts that promote hate or suicide;
4. In the absence of persuasion making any difference, pass legislation to prevent anonymous, UK-based users from setting up social media accounts.”

Following debate, and upon being put to the vote, the motion was agreed (10 votes cast in favour, 8 votes against).