January 2020 should see two significant steps towards the UK improving regulation of social media companies. The government confirmed in the December Queen’s Speech that it would legislate to tackle “online harms”, and is now expected to provide some more details of how it will take this forward. Meanwhile, in the House of Lords, an Online Harm Reduction Bill will be tabled next week.
It’s a good way to start 2020. A decade ago it was easy to feel optimistic, complacent even, about social media improving political debate. How could technology which enabled more people to participate, and more information to be shared, not lead to a more inclusive, better informed debate? Yet by the end of the 2010s social media was a big part of the public sphere but online political discourse was plagued by trolling, abuse, and disinformation. And whilst most of us have experienced some level of online abuse, or felt frustrated as political conversations get derailed by insults or inaccuracy, those who are already vulnerable or marginalised have been hit the worst.
This has grave implications for diversity in politics and for freedom of expression. A 2019 House of Commons report noted that amongst MPs, the most vicious abuse is directed “particularly towards women and minority groups”. Amnesty International, in a damning report into “toxic” levels of misogynistic abuse on Twitter, found that almost a third of all female users (32%) who experienced online abuse subsequently stopped posting content that expressed their opinion on certain issues.
