Weekly News 23

Big web firms may face persecution over online abuse

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/12/big-web-firms-may-face-prosecution-over-online-abuse

Key Data/ Statistical Info

• The UK government should fine or even prosecute big web companies if they fail to tackle racist, extremist or child sex abuse content, an influential committee will recommend
• A BBC survey found that 87% of MPs experienced abuse during the 2017 general election campaign, with half of the 113 MPs who responded telling the Radio 5 Live survey it was the worst campaign they had experienced in terms of abuse.
• “Tackling intimidation, far from threatening genuine democratic debate and scrutiny, will actually serve to enhance and protect it.”
• One Labour MP said someone had threatened to bomb her office and another MP claimed to have had a “bottle smashed on me”.
• “Many contributors to our review accept that you need a thick skin in public life; it goes with the territory. But our evidence also shows that some of what has been happening in recent years is something very different,” he wrote.