There have been a couple of cases in the past few weeks here in the UK that have raised my ire slightly. The first, as you probably have all read about, is the opt-in porn "ban", and making pornographic videos depicting rape illegal.
The second, was the recent Twitter outcry, where prominent feminists and journalists have been campaigning for a "report abuse" feature after a number of death threats and threats of violence.
The third comes today, after a teen took her life after receiving abuse on ask.fm. Her father is now asking the government to "do something" about these sites, claiming that "the fact that these people can be anonymous is wrong".
As sad as the latter cases are, it seems that people are seriously out of touch when it comes to the internet and how it works. Demanding that Twitter "do more" (what exactly?) to stop trolls is ridiculous. We already have laws in place against making threats, indeed the UK has some very draconian laws about causing any kind of offence. A number of people who made these threats have already been arrested. So what exactly should Twitter do? It's like asking the post office to do more to stop people sending mean letters. In the latter case, a petition has been set up, saying:Again, what are people expecting here? Apparently ask.fm doesn't have a block or ignore feature, but that hasn't stopped this happening on Facebook. And, if the parents don't want their children joining these sites when they are 13 then why don't they stop them? This abuse had been going on for a significant period of time, yet the father only just saw it. How is that good parenting? It's akin to letting your child go unsupervised with people she doesn't know into a part of town you don't know, and it smacks of another poor parent using the internet as a babysitter. As for posting anonymously, would the father have preferred his daughter to be posting alongside her real name? Her address? Her school? Of course not. Perhaps she did, but I strongly doubt he has any fucking clue what she put on there.Please sign if you would like the Government to step in and insist that Ask.fm and similar sites help us protect our young people. They are able to join from the age of 13 and can post anonymously.
So, can this sort of thing be regulated, or is it down to the parents? Should governments try to restrict the internet when simple safety measures could start at home?