Nick Fletcher: 'Just because you're behind a screen, it doesn't mean online abuse is okay'

Nick Fletcher, the Conservative MP for Don Valley, said the extent to which we now live our lives online would mean future world leaders or even those simply in high responsibility roles would have to account for their past posts.

He said: “You’re going to have a Prime Minister who has sent a silly photo of himself to his boyfriend or girlfriend and they will be sat down with a President of the United States who has done the same thing.”

But he warned that more must be done to tackle those who use social media platforms to abuse others, often behind the mask of anonymity.

It comes after Mr Fletcher heard, as part of his role on the Commons Petitions Committee, from The Only Way is Essex star Bobby Norris about the death threats he received online.

Mr Norris told the committee abuse had increased since lockdown, and wanted trolling to be made a hate crime.

Mr Fletcher said: “I think the one thing that really does concern me was he said while he was doing an interview someone stweeted him and said ‘why don’t you go and hang yourself?’. That’s just beyond belief.

“What he was saying was they are hiding behind an anonymous account, you should be able to tie an IP address to a person.”

Mr Fletcher said as a father, he had seen the impact that attacks online against him had on his family, but he was also concerned about bullying young people faced themselves which in contrast to years gone by now followed them into their bedrooms through the internet.

He accepted as an MP he was a target for some of these accounts, but he said he was more concerned about the impact it had on his family.

He said the consideration was one of the reasons he did not enter politics until his children were older.

He said: “It’s when someone says something about me, it’s my daughter who feels it.”

And he said because his son was protective of his sister, it impacted him too.

“It would be great to get this IP address and focus down on it, just because you’re behind a screen doesn’t make it okay.”

He said that the increase in the use of the internet for things such as homeschooling had pushed even more people to spend longer online, and he add: “It can’t be just our country’s problem, something has got to come together to sort that and every country must contribute, we’re all going to have the same problem.”

Mr Fletcher said he was particularly concerned that the internet meant bullying followed children into their bedrooms.

He pointed to the tragic death of 14-year-old Molly Russell last year which thrust the issue of bullying online into the spotlight.

“Can you imagine being a parent in that? It’s their life ruined forever, the child is gone but your life is ruined forever,” he said.

“You can’t switch off the wifi or even if you do, everyone has 4G, it’s going to stop some young people flourishing.”

Mr Fletcher said he aimed to do some work on the issue over the summer.

Last year the Government published its long awaited Online Harms White Paper on the issue but progress has stalled.

Mr Fletcher added: “You’ve got to communicate to people that they’re putting things out there now, that they think are funny.

“But what I thought was funny when I was 16 I do not find funny now.

“Nothing can ever be fully deleted.”