Guest post: "This is why we need to Reclaim the Internet"

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

'The internet was never yours to begin with. Do me favour and jump off the nearest roof you can find. #reclaimtheinternet'

'You don't have to worry about rape threats because you're not hot enough to be raped let alone get laid of free will.'

I didn't scour for these tweets, I didn't have to search through pages and pages of pictures of cats - these two things were said to me in the five minutes before I sat down to write this.

Welcome to 2016, the era where blithe death and rape threats are an hourly occurrence for some. What a time to be alive. My online life today is a washout. I will not be able to communicate with anyone for perhaps a day or two on Twitter because I will be drowning in abuse. All because I spoke at the Reclaim the Internet event.

Reclaim the Internet is a movement started by a cross-party group of MPs to try to stop online abuse including threats, misogyny, racism, homophobia and intimidation. It is definitely not about protecting MPs from well-deserved scrutiny.

This campaign is calling on everyone to make a stand against abuse. Forty years ago the 'Reclaim the Night' campaign was launched to build a movement against harassment, abuse and violence against women on the streets. Now the internet is our new streets and everyone should be able to feel safe and speak out online.

Susanna McGuinness, a Girlguiding UK advocate, came to today's conference and spoke about using the hashtag #feminism online. What followed was a barrage of explicit photos, misogynistic comments and threatening messages. She said it made her more wary of speaking out about issues she cares about online. "Women and girls have a right to be seen and heard online just as they have a right to in the real world," she said.

Luciana Berger MP offered a sample of anti-semitic tweets that had been sent to her overnight, including explicit images of women overlaid with racial slurs like 'Kike Bitches' and the hashtag #FilthyJewBitch. ITV news anchor Charlene White spoke about how she received endless abuse simply because she is "black and has boobs."

This has got to stop. Today's conference was the beginning of the process of coming together: politicians, police forces, the Crown Prosecution Service, social media providers and the brilliant online community.

There are many spaces on the internet that are testament to the fact that abuse and trolling needn't be the default setting. Online communities can be a genuine lifeline; for my friend Jess, a forum specifically for parents who had had stillborn babies provided outlet and counsel. It was her space to heal. The Mumsnet community should be proud of how it has have created an online space where heated debates don't necessarily end in death threats. Yet at the same time, it is strange that not anonymously threatening to kill each other has become the benchmark of good practice.

I know online forums can be a force for good. I've seen it, but the world of open debate social media has a long way to come before it provides a platform we can feel safe on.

At the end of the Reclaim the Internet event, commitments were made. Social network platforms expressed their passion for cleaning it up: their bottom line as well as their principles are at stake. The Police and CPS agreed they need to do more and new tech investment in safety and 'trigger' tools is promised. Ultimately though, it is only us, the online community, who can really combat this - so let's all try to be the very best versions of ourselves online and stand together in the space where we all now live.

Incidentally, when on Question Time, Philips dismissed the 800 reported sex attaches on NYE in Cologne with the following....

‘There is violence against women and girls that you are describing, a very similar situation to what happened in Cologne could be described on Broad Street in Birmingham every week, where women are baited and heckled.’

Frankly, somebody in a position of power who is so crass and so thoughtless actually deserves to be pilloried, ridiculed and satirised.

Babycham: comparing the censoring of rape threats on Twitter with Erdogan locking up journalists is insane. People are perfectly entitled to respectfully express their objections to Jess Philips's politics on here, on Facebook, on a blog, in Hyde Park and pretty much bloody anywhere all over the internet. The one thing they can't do is threaten to rape her. And you're comparing this to Erdogan imprisoning people who expose his financial links to Daesh or his brutal suppression of Kurdish political party? That's loony tunes.

Love the way people get all 1776 about being told they can't behave like sociopathic bullies.

Kurdish political parties

Conflating Churchill's relatively clever jibes and endless death and rape threats makes you look utterly stupid Babycham.

However, given your posting history, that's not exactly unexpected.

Phillips isn't asking for anything more to be made illegal than already is. What she is asking is for people to do something about it. That isn't even comparable to Erdogan. You really aren't doing your argument any favours. And you are being disingenuous about what she meant by abuse. Phillips gave clear examples.

I am really astonished by these people who can't tell the difference between satire and rape threats. They must not appreciate that polite disagreement really IS a thing.

Tbh we can also have rude disagreement without resorting to threats and misogyny/homophobia/racism/disablism, harassing or stalking. Telling someone to fuck off for example - rude and to the point but not essentially abusive or illegal. There is quite a lot of leeway before we enter the realms of the illegal.

Mind you telling someone to fuck off or directly throwing insults at them on MN it is generally considered a personal attack - one of the things I like about MN - even if I do have the desire sometimes to tell the stupid to fuck off. So polite discourse can actually take place.

I also find the whiners of free speech in these circumstances are the ones who can dish out the abuse but not so happy to take it themselves.

Babycham: Philips did not dismiss those attacks but suggested that migrants should not be scapegoated for sexual violence at the expense of a wider discussion of a problem that is clearly cross-cultural. It was injudiciously phrased but she was hardly dismissing the victims.

The issue with censorship is who decides what is worth censoring and what isn't? Given the hate poured on Piers Morgan you will need to be careful. Certain issues fine they are easy to decide on.

However in all probability Ms Philips is likely to be leaving the Labour Party when Corbyn wins again so it won't be her.

I think, collectively, we can decide it is utterly vile to send rape threats to female politicians and journalists. If not, the whole concept of free speech has become so imbecilically elastic as to be meaningless.