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Former culture secretary calls for police powers to tackle online abuse Tory MP says social media firms should stop abuse or pay for policing
(about 4 hours later)
Police must be given specific powers to tackle online abuse and the government should consider a levy on social media companies if they do not act more effectively on the problem, a Tory former minister has said. A senior Tory MP is calling for a levy on social media companies to pay for the policing of online abuse if they fail to do more to tackle the crimes taking place on their platforms.
The former culture secretary Maria Miller will use a Commons debate on Thursday to urge tougher measures in tackling abuse, which she says is occurring on an “unmanageable” scale. Maria Miller, who was at the forefront of creating the new revenge porn law, believes a dialogue needs to start now with social media companies where online abuse is generated and spread.
Miller wants the government to set out specific new laws and to offer better training to police officers to show users that the internet is no longer “the wild west”. “We need to start the dialogue, to say to them: ‘What more can you be doing to tackle the scale of the problem?’ because there is a desperate need for action. If necessary after that we need to put a levy on those organisations to pay for the policing of this.
The MP also intends to bring forward amendments to the government’s digital economy bill to help police more easily bring prosecutions.
Related: Senior Tory calls on government to overhaul internet abuse lawsRelated: Senior Tory calls on government to overhaul internet abuse laws
She said: “Online abuse is already not only ruining lives, it is creating mayhem for the police. “The police are telling me they cannot cope with the scale of the crime that is being carried out online, in particular online abuse, whether that is image-based sexual abuse, or whether that is homophobic or transphobic hate crime online. They cannot deal with the scale of it and in other similar situations it has become necessary to talk to the organisations where the crime is being generated to establish how they can start to foot the bill.”
“The scale of the criminal activity that is going on is completely unmanageable, so we can’t turn a blind eye to it any longer. Football clubs and sporting venues are some of the private organisations that pay a fee to the police to provide security at their events – an example Miller believes could be used in discussions with social media companies. “We have to look at the law to strengthen the sanctions that are available and we also have to turn a very sharp spotlight on to the platforms to show up those that are not taking this seriously,” she said.
“We have to look at the law to strengthen the sanctions that are available and we also have to turn a very sharp spotlight on to the platforms to show up those that are not taking this seriously.” Miller will use a Commons debate on Thursday to call for the government to set out specific laws to tackle online abuse – which she believes is now spilling over into the offline world. She is calling for better training for police officers and zero tolerance for hate crime online and offline.
She warned that social media platforms could face a levy to help cover the cost of policing online hate crime. The MP also intends to bring forward amendments to the government’s digital economy bill, which was published on Wednesday, to help police more easily bring prosecutions.
Miller, who chairs the women and equalities committee, said the government should consider forcing organisations such as Twitter and Instagram to pay a fee to police in the same way football clubs and sporting venues do. She is calling for the government to create a proper strategy to tackle online abuse – something which it has failed to do despite the increasing scale of the problem.
However, she said the move should only be a last resort if online platforms fail to help tackle the widespread abuse that police forces are dealing with. “We have got a very real problem with online abuse in this country,” she said. “What we need is a strategy to deal with it and the government has so far taken a piecemeal approach. The scale of criminal activity that is going on is completely unmanageable. We can’t turn a blind eye to it any longer. And I think it is starting to spill over into the face-to-face world.”
She said: “If that isn’t enough, the government should also be considering whether they should be adding a levy to those organisations to pay for the cost of policing, in the same way they add a levy to sporting venues who may disproportionately require the support of the police. Miller cited the rise in hate crime in the last week as potentially being linked to the levels of online abuse being perpetrated unchecked. “It would be interesting to know how much work is being done to understand whether there is a relationship between the increases in hate crime that we are seeing on our streets and the amount of hate crime that is perpetrated online. We cannot separate the two worlds,” she said.
Miller’s call for action comes after a senior police officer told the Guardian the law needed to change to enable police forces to better tackle the scale of online abuse, which was threatening to overwhelm law enforcement.
Related: When women can be misogynist trolls, we need a feminist internet | Polly ToynbeeRelated: When women can be misogynist trolls, we need a feminist internet | Polly Toynbee
“I would hope that would be a last resort because I think there is much more that could be done before that, but at the moment there appears to be a lack of clear determination in the industry to clean up its act.” Her motion, which will be debated in the Commons on Thursday, reads: “This house notes the increasing number of cases where the internet, social media and mobile phone technology are used to bully, harass, intimidate and humiliate individuals including children and vulnerable adults; calls on the government to ensure that clear legislation is in place that recognises the true impact and nature of online abuse, as distinct to offline abuse; and further calls on the government to put in place appropriate legal and criminal sanctions, police training, guidance to the CPS and education for young people relating to such abuse.”
She added: “We cannot allow people to act in a criminal way simply because organisations have set their businesses up in a way that can appear to encourage criminal activity.”
She also fears that MPs are effectively being censored by the level of abuse they receive online, with some quitting social media platforms altogether.
She said: “Abuse can have a chilling effect on MPs using social media, but also on their willingness to talk about certain subjects as well, and that is worrying for democracy.
“My fear is it will deter some people from even wanting to become an MP in the first place.”
She hoped the debate would focus on online abuse among adults, including homophobic, sexist and racist abuse.
But following the launch of a new inquiry into harassment in schools by her committee, she said it became clear that there is still a “great deal more to do” to tackle online child abuse.
She said recent investigations had found child abuse perpetrators were using Instagram, encouraging children and teenagers to send in pornographic photos of themselves and other people which were then used on hidden websites.
The so-called “baiting” proved that perpetrators were finding “new and devious” ways to operate undetected, she said.