Yvette Cooper warned that the social media giant is ‘too slow to act’ on removing racist and misogynistic tweets that violate its own rules
Twitter must do more to stamp out abuse by taking down offensive posts within 24 hours, a senior MP demanded last night.
Yvette Cooper warned that the social media giant is ‘too slow to act’ on removing racist and misogynistic tweets that violate its own rules.
The Labour MP, who is chair of the home affairs select committee, accused the ‘disgraceful and irresponsible’ site of ‘giving a platform to hatred and extremism.
In a letter to Twitter, co-written with the Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality, Miss Cooper urged it to finally take action.
Her intervention comes as new Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) guidelines published yesterday (Mon) said hate crime committed in cyberspace should be taken as seriously as offences carried out face to face.
Miss Cooper, who set up the cross-party ‘Reclaim The Internet’ campaign to challenge online abuse, said: ‘Twitter claims to stop hate speech, but they just don’t do it in practice.
‘Vile racist, misogynist and threatening abuse gets reported to them, but they are too slow to act so they just keep giving a platform to hatred and extremism.
‘It’s disgraceful and irresponsible. Twitter need to get their act together.
‘Abusive content needs to be removed far more quickly and the company should be doing more to respond immediately to complaints and to proactively identify content that contravenes their community standards.’
She called for Twitter to outline its plans to tackle abuse more quickly as research by the campaign found abusive posts remained online for days after being reported.
Sam Smethers, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: ‘Twitter is failing women because they are failing to respond and act when content on their platform clearly contravenes their own terms of use.
‘Women are being routinely and regularly abused online with impunity for the abusers and that has to change.’
The row comes after Theresa May ordered an investigation into the abuse of parliamentary candidates following a wave of intimidation against male and female politicians, both on social media and offline during the election campaign.
At a debate in the Commons last month, the Tory former minister Andrew Percy, a convert to Judaism, said he had been called ‘Zionist scum’ and Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said she had faced repeated death threats, rape threats and racist abuse.
MPs also heard claims that Twitter had refused to investigate lies that may have led to a Tory losing his seat.
MPs also heard claims that Twitter had refused to investigate lies that may have led to a Tory losing his seat
A campaign of smears was mounted on the social media site against Byron Davies, whose Gower constituency was the most marginal in the country, with a 27 majority.
Anonymous far-left activists spread false claims Mr Davies was under criminal investigation for election fraud, but the tech giant told him they would not remove the posts.
Miss Cooper also became the target of vile abuse herself after she condemned online abuse of journalists and politicians in a speech last month.
A group of far-left online trolls published a picture taken surreptitiously of the former Labour leadership contender sitting in the first-class carriage of a train.
After users criticised the picture as creepy, they menacingly boasted: ‘Face it, Yvette’s a bell*** and a busted flush, you’re a **** and we’re in charge forever.’
Twitter suspended the account for ‘abusive behaviour’, but the trio were able to immediately set up a replacement account.
A Twitter spokesman last night said: ‘Abuse and harassment have no place on Twitter.
‘We’ve introduced a range of new tools and features to improve our platform for everyone, and we’re now taking action on 10 times the number of abusive accounts every day than the same time in 2016.
‘We will continue to build on these efforts and meet the challenge head-on.’