Diane Abbott says tech companies should store people’s names and addresses

The Labour MP and former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott has today called for tight restrictions on social media anonymity.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme this morning, Ms Abbott, who was elected the UK’s first black and female MP in 1987, said: “They [tech companies] could do a lot more to take down some of these accounts. And it is also a question of anonymity. The reason that people can be so abusive, and make these violent threats, is that they have end to end anonymity”.

She went on: “Of course people ought to be able to post anonymously in the first instance. But the tech companies should hold their name and address, and if the police need to investigate, they can do it. At present many of the threats against me, the police can’t investigate them because of anonymity”.

Such a move would currently breach UK data protection law.

Her remarks come amidst a spike in calls for heightened security for MPs following the tragic death of Conservative MP Sir David Amess, who died on Friday afternoon after he was stabbed multiple times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea.

In 2017 a study by Amnesty International found that Ms Abbott received 45% of all abusive tweets sent to female MPs in the six weeks leading up to the general election. In the previous six months, she received just under a third of all abuse sent to the same group.