A host of celebs have been urging their fans to sign a petition to prevent online trolling.
Football stars Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka have been subjected to racist abuse on social media following England’s loss against Italy in the Euros 2020 final on Sunday night.
Well-known faces have been sharing and encouraging their followers to sign a petition, started by Katie Price, to make verified ID a requirement when opening a social media account.
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Irish presenter Laura Whitmore wrote: “The fact that anyone can say anything online without any accountability has never been right. We all have platforms no matter how many followers or who you are, use it to make the world that little bit better.”
Katie Price, who created the petition, penned: “THE VILE RACIST ABUSE ENGLAND PLAYERS ARE NOW FACING, PROVES WHY THIS PETITION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER!!”
Love Island star Siânnise Fudge added: “I’ve just signed this petition! We need to make this happen, should of been done a very long time ago.”
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The petition, which has received over 603k signatures, wants to “make it a legal requirement when opening a new social media account, to provide a verified form of ID”.
“Where the account belongs to a person under the age of 18 verify the account with the ID of a parent/guardian, to prevent anonymised harmful activity, providing traceability if an offence occurs.”
Katie set up the petition to stop online trolling against her eldest son Harvey, who suffers from a number of health conditions – including septo-optic dysplasia, autism and Prader-Willi syndrome.
Katie explained: “My son Harvey is disabled. He is also the kind and gentle son of a person regularly in the public eye. The Online Harms Bill doesn’t go far enough in making online abuse a specific criminal offence and doing what ‘Harvey’s Law’ intended.”
“To make the law work needs the removal of anonymity to ensure that users cannot cause harm by using online platforms to abuse others. Where an offence has taken place they ought to be easily identified and reported to the police and punished.”
“We have experienced the worst kind of abuse towards my disabled son and want to make sure that no one can hide behind their crime.”
Sign the petition here.
— FA Spokesperson (@FAspokesperson) July 12, 2021
