Social media users who use the platform to spread hatred and racism should be banned from those platforms, MPs have said.
The All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into anti-Semitism says lawmakers should consider prevention orders – orders such as those to restrict sex offenders’ access to the net.
A number of official figures have commented following the report’s suggestions.
Speaking to the BBC, Rabbi Mark Goldsmith said: “People do need that sense that wherever you spread hate, it’s not going to be legal.”
The Prime Minister David Cameron also stood behind the report; he said tackling the issues it raised went “right to the heart of what we stand for as a country”.
What is the inquiry about?
The inquiry was set up after a rise in incidents in July and August last year.
That period covers a highly publicised time during which there was a notable increase of fighting between Israel and Gaza.
The hashtag “Hitler was right” trended worldwide in July 2014.
The focus of the inquiry was the anti-Semitism surrounding the Gaza and Israel conflict. However it also looked at hate speech in general, and made recommendations based on its findings.
One recommendation was that anyone who spreads hate speech should be banned from using social media.
Anti-social media
The report has been published shortly after Twitter’s CEO Dick Costello said publicly that his company doesn’t deal very effectively with abusive and hateful speech.
Costello said: “We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years.”
He took responsibility for the incidents, all of which he sees as a problem the channel needs to address in the future.
He said: “We’re going to fix it, and I’m going to take full responsibility for making sure that the people working night and day on this have the resources they need to address the issue”.
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