Ben Kerrigan-
Opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer has called on tech giants to do more to tackle online racism in response to a landmark report on race in the UK.
The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report said social media “enormously amplifies racist views” and the abuse of minorities was “one of the most concerning side effects” of such technology.
The report acknowledged progress among the professional success of black academics in professional jobs like law and medicine, also pointing out that its research revealed better performance in ethnic minorities attending compulsory education than their white counterparts.
However, it said more needed to be done and said some communities had been stagnant in progressing away from racist attitudes.
Reacting to the report, the Labour leader accused the Government of so far failing to act on concerns around online abuse, despite worries having been raised “a decade ago”.
Sir Keir also called on social media platforms to work with the Government on enforcement around online racism.
We need to understand it better, we need to have enforcement in place, we need to work with platform providers
“When I was director of public prosecutions, we were tackling this a decade ago,” he said.
“We’ve had a Conservative Government for a decade and we’re still having the same debate about what needs to happen about racism online.
“I’ll tell you what needs to happen, the Conservative Government needs to actually do something, instead of talking about it.”
“We need to understand it better, we need to have enforcement in place, we need to work with platform providers.”
Online Safety Bill
The Government has published proposals for an Online Safety Bill that would introduce a statutory duty of care for online platforms to adhere to and oversee by Ofcom as the new internet regulator, with large fines for those found to breach the rules.
However, that draft legislation has been delayed several times and is now expected before Parliament before the end of the year.
The commission’s report said that despite attitudes towards racism offline generally changing for the better in the past 30 years, the rise of social media had “partly undermined this apparent march of progress”.
It said the spread of mobile phone use and social media had allowed for the “proliferation of most negative messages and attitudes” and that “toxic messages” previously only spread between small numbers of people were now being amplified online.
High Profile Figures
High-profile figures, including a number of professional footballers, have highlighted racist abuse they have received online. Former Arsenal and France striker Thierry Henry recently announced he was quitting social media over abuse, saying it is not a “safe place”.
Social media giants have remained silent in the wake of the report, however; Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, said it would not be commenting on the review. Twitter, which has been a safe haven for hate filled speech have made no comments in response to the report.
These social media giants have a huge mountain to climb in addressing racism online. They need to device technological advances to be able to regulate their platforms and make abusive users pay a high price for their behaviour.
In the past two years, black MP, Diane Abbott and Meghan Markle have been subjected to unthinkable levels of racial abuse online by faceless misfits.
Online abuse based on race makes racism more acceptable to those with a tendency to project hateful attitudes, and also influences children to see racism as an attractive way of putting people down based on their skin colour.
We all bleed the same, and must respect one another. Treatment of others must be based purely on content of character, not the colour of their skin.