Tackling online abuse: banning anonymous accounts isn’t the solution

The death of Sir David Amess has highlighted once again the vulnerability of our elected representatives. Attention is focusing, rightly, on the atmosphere in which they’re expected to operate. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has correctly identified anonymous online abuse as responsible for whipping up that hostility, for fuelling vicious hatred leading to violence and death. Patel is proposing ending the right to anonymity on social media. 

All to the good. The level of poison directed against MPs is hideous. And not just MPs – anyone in the public eye, footballers, celebrities, can expect to be trolled. And not just those in the public eye – anyone on social media, anybody, is exposed to online attack. 

Asked whether she would legislate to remove the right to online anonymity, Patel said: “I want us to look at everything and there is work taking place already.

“I spend too much time with communities who have been under attack, who’ve had all sorts of postings put online and it’s a struggle to get those postings taken down. We want to make some big changes on that.”

Currently, the big tech, social media operators are fiercely opposing measures in the government’s draft Online Safety bill requiring them to provide police and security services access to encrypted messages. Patel is mooting going a step further by requiring sites such as Facebook and Twitter to retain details of the identities of people posting material which could then be handed to police investigating crimes.

Patel is receiving widespread support. Following Amess’s killing, Shadow Justice Secretary, David Lammy, released police records showing that abuse and death threats against him had led to 13 crime reports and four intelligence reports since the beginning of last year. And the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, revealed that he had received a car-bomb threat from a social media account based abroad. Hoyle insisted that the social media companies “need to get their act together”. He said: “We should know who is putting things up on social media, we should know the person behind these fake accounts – offshore accounts being used for threats and intimidation.”

Hoyle added: “Companies have got one chance. If it was up to me, and I was in charge of legislation, I would have done something.”

Diane Abbott, who receives many times more online vitriol than any other MP, has given her support to forcing the tech giants to reveal the identity of those who peddle hate on their platforms. She said that police investigations into racial abuse and threats against her had repeatedly foundered because of social media companies’ insistence on protecting anonymity. She added: “Persons inciting violence and racial hatred online should know that they will no longer have this cover.”

The problem is that the solution being floated by Patel and backed by others, is easier to propose than to implement. Patel is already showing signs of rowing back, now saying restrictions on anonymity would be “proportionate and balanced”. This comes after Shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy, warned that such proposals risked catching pro-democracy activists opposing autocratic regimes and whistle-blowers who have legitimate reasons for hiding their identities online. 

“We’ve got to get the balance right, because social media can be an enormous force,” said Nandy. “You’ve got some incredible campaigners – the women of Belarus, the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, the young people of Afghanistan – they’ve managed to use social media in order to make themselves heard.

“And if you speak to Childline, they’ll say that social media has been a major problem for a lot of young people, but it’s also been a way in which young people can now reach out and get help in a way that they couldn’t when I was a child.”

Nandy does agree, though, there should be “limits” on the use of anonymous accounts and “repercussions for people engaging in what would be criminal behaviour if it happened in person”.

There is another answer, which is easily applied, does not put the onus on the tech companies and still affords protection to those who legitimately must remain anonymous. It is this: that social media users should have a right to verify their identity if they choose to do so, coupled with a right to filter messages they receive so they only get them from verified accounts. It’s simple: there should be a box that social media users can tick saying they will only accept comments from users who have been verified.

Declaration of interest: I am on the advisory board of Clean Up The Internet, which is campaigning for the adoption of this initiative. It’s already been endorsed by the Communications Select Committee in the House of Lords and a growing number of backbench MPs. It’s time for more MPs to throw their weight behind the plan. 

Whistle-blowers and those who have good cause to remain anonymous can still send their messages. Their channels on the internet can stay open: people or news platforms or organisations such as Childline can choose to receive anonymous messages or follow them directly. The short history of the internet so far indicates that if the tech giants are asked to do something, they will kick-up. Their vast lobbying machines will leap into action, arguing it’s not fair, it’s a restriction on their freedom to operate. They will also use – and they are using – the importance of allowing whistle-blowers and other legitimate users anonymity as a reason for not acting. 

It’s not their job, the social media companies maintain, to act as an arbitrator, deciding who should have the right to keep their details secret. They cling to this notion of promoting absolute openness as if it’s an equivalent to upholding a sacred amendment of the US constitution. They do so while neglecting to declare their own conflict of interest – that anonymous accounts, and anonymous abuse, inflate their user numbers and boost their advertising revenues.

Clean Up The Internet’s proposal takes the argument, and the power, away from them. It’s nothing to do with Facebook or Twitter; it’s about the freedom of the individual social media user to decide for themselves who can reply to them. 

It makes perfect sense. MPs can make change happen. Sadly, the death of David Amess should act as a wake-up call. They must act.