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Diane Abbott calls on Twitter to clamp down on hate speech Diane Abbott: Twitter has 'put racists into overdrive'
(about 9 hours later)
The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, has urged Twitter to take action over “highly offensive racist and misogynist” abuse on the platform after a study found thousands of tweets disproportionately targeting black female politicians and journalists. Diane Abbott has said she experiences more racism now than at any time in her 35 years in politics, as research has found black female politicians and journalists are almost twice as likely as their white peers to be abused on Twitter.
The Amnesty International study found black women were 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive tweets, with one in 10 posts mentioning black women containing “abusive or problematic” language. The shadow home secretary urged Twitter to end anonymity for its users, and said the culture of abuse was being reflected in mainstream media and political discourse, with an increase in “dogwhistle” politics.
A separate Amnesty study published in September 2017 showed that Abbott, the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, received almost half (45.1%) of all the abusive tweets sent to female MPs in the run-up to that year’s general election. Her comments came as Amnesty International released the results of crowdsourced research that found black women in journalism and politics were 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive tweets.
In response to the latest findings, Abbott said: “My staff still spend a considerable amount of time removing and blocking abusive or threatening posts from social media. Overwhelmingly the abuse is of a highly offensive racist and misogynist character. The report warned that such abuse had a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression by women online and “undermines women’s mobilisation for equality and justice – particularly groups of women who already face discrimination and marginalisation”.
“I have always felt that this type of hate speech can lead to violence, and Twitter has a responsibility to shut these accounts down a lot quicker then it currently does.” Abbott said: “I never had this scale of abuse when I first came into politics and racism was an issue then as now, but it’s the anonymity and the ease of Twitter which has put racists into overdrive.
She added: “Twitter also does not have the option to delete offensive comments once an account has been blocked. This would make a difference to conversations that are taking place.” “The first thing my staff have to do in the morning is go online and delete and block all the stuff … And it feeds on itself: people see other people peddling racist abuse, so they think they can as well and they feel almost strengthened in their wish to do so.”
For its latest study, volunteers for Amnesty’s “Troll Patrol” crowd-sourcing project analysed 228,000 tweets sent to 778 female politicians and journalists across the political spectrum in the UK and US. Previous research by Amnesty found that Abbott received almost half (45.1%) of all the abusive tweets sent to female MPs ahead of last year’s general election. As well as general derogatory and racist abuse, she regularly received death threats and rape threats, she said.
The report found that 7.1% of tweets to women in the study contained abusive or problematic language. And she warned that racism online was being reflected in media and politics, “not in the same visceral way, but I think that it finds an echo in mainstream coverage and that’s very troubling”.
According to the report: “Abusive content violates Twitter’s own rules and includes tweets that promote violence against or threaten people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease.” She pointed to Conservative attack adverts posted on billboards in the north of England during the last election that targeted her and Jeremy Corbyn. “Not Jeremy and John McDonnell, which would have been the obvious thing to do, but me and Jeremy,” she said. “It’s dogwhistle politics.”
“Problematic content” was defined as that which is “hurtful or hostile, especially if repeated to an individual on multiple or cumulative occasions”, but do not necessarily meet the threshold of abuse. Volunteers for Amnesty’s “Troll Patrol” project analysed 228,000 tweets sent during 2017 to 778 female politicians and journalists from across the political spectrum in the UK and US. They found that about one in every 14 of them contained abusive or problematic language – content that either promoted violence against specific groups or was hurtful or hostile.
Previously, the Labour MP Jess Phillips has spoken out about harassment on Twitter after she was subjected to a wave of violent abuse in May 2016. Disaggregating the data showed that “left-leaning” politicians – such Democrats in the US and Labour – were 23% more likely to be targeted for abuse than those from the right. That trend was reversed for journalists, with those working for rightwing publications – such as the Daily Mail, the Sun or Breitbart – receiving 64% more abusive tweets.
At the time, she tweeted: “To see the attack of a pack on here check out my mentions 600 odd notifications talking about my rape in one night. I think Twitter is dead.” The research was carried out after Twitter refused to share data on reports of abuse against women and other groups. Kate Allen, Amnesty UK’s director, said: “Twitter is failing to be transparent about the extent of the problem … The company must take concrete steps to properly protect women’s rights on the platform.”
A month later, her parliamentary colleague Jo Cox was murdered by the far-right fanatic Thomas Mair. The findings come ahead of a government white paper – planned for early next year – that is expected to propose statutory regulation for social media. Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, which campaigns for rights online, said all social network platforms had difficulties in distinguishing between bullying and robust comment.
This week, the Labour MP Luciana Berger tweeted screengrabs of numerous antisemitic messages she received after voicing her position on a vote of no confidence in Theresa May. “Twitter does need to make sure the extremes of abusive behaviour are tackled,” he said. “If these are allowed to continue, it undermines the arguments for protecting free expression and keeping state regulation away from speech.”
The issue does not only affect politicians on the left: a University of Sheffield study of tweets between 2015 and 2017 published last year found that male Conservative MPs experienced the most abuse during the period, while female Tory MPs saw the largest increase in abuse. Vijaya Gadde, legal, policy, and trust and safety global lead at Twitter, said the company was committed to “improving the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation” on the platform.
The Conservative MP Nadine Dorries said earlier this year that colleagues had been advised by parliament’s health and wellbeing service to close down their Twitter accounts due to the angry messages they were receiving from members of the public. “Our abusive behaviour policy strictly prohibits behaviour that harasses, intimidates or silences another user’s voice,” she said. “We are also transparently investing in better technology and tools to enable us to more proactively identify abusive, violative material, to limit its spread and reach on the platform and to encourage healthier conversations.”
Amnesty said: “Politicians and journalists faced similar levels of online abuse and we observed both liberals and conservatives alike, as well as left- and right-leaning media organisations, were affected.”
Kate Allen, Amnesty UK’s director, said: “It’s clear that a staggering level of violence and abuse against women exists on Twitter. These results back up what women have long been saying – that Twitter is endemic with racism, misogyny and homophobia.”
She added: “Twitter is failing to be transparent about the extent of the problem, but if our volunteers can gather meaningful data about online violence and abuse, so can Twitter. The company must take concrete steps to properly protect women’s rights on the platform.”
Vijaya Gadde – legal, policy, and trust and safety global lead at Twitter – said: “Twitter has publicly committed to improving the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation on our service. Twitter’s health is measured by how we help encourage more healthy debate, conversations and critical thinking.
“Conversely, abuse, malicious automation and manipulation detract from the health of Twitter. Twitter uses a combination of machine learning and human review to adjudicate abuse reports and whether they violate our rules. Our abusive behaviour policy strictly prohibits behaviour that harasses, intimidates or silences another user’s voice.
“We are also transparently investing in better technology and tools to enable us to more proactively identify abusive, violative material, to limit its spread and reach on the platform and to encourage healthier conversations.”
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