The Government has been told to clamp down on social media companies that display hateful posts towards MPs, in the wake of Ann Widdecombe’s death.
A series of MPs, including Conservative Party former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, told Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood that action needed to be taken on messages which whip up hate against parliamentarians.
Sir Iain said: “We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary needs to specify, to all those social media companies they must do something to close down on the visceral, violent language that some people use, attacking personally – as they did over her murder – which has shocked me, to make sure we get on top of that because that is the root of violence and death.”
His party colleague, Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) said: “The social media companies have a responsibility in this too. You always needed a thick skin to come into politics; you now need the hide of a rhino, and they could do something to calm down the level of hate to which honourable members and their families are exposed online.”
Conservative MP for The Wrekin Mark Pritchard contrasted press regulation with those for social media. He said: “For too long, the mainstream media of this country have been blamed… and in fact it is the tech companies that have more resources that should be doing more.”
Ms Mahmood replied: “Many members have made this point today about the unaccountability of social media platforms for their algorithms and for the type of content that they host on their platforms, the Government has already done some work in this area, but I’m sure we will have to go further.”
