Kayleigh Graveson has set up two petitions to prevent recent events from repeating themselves.
Kayleigh Graveson said: “I set up these petitions in response following the fallout from the Ellie Williams case. These aim to support the government to challenging social media sites to better protect other people from the type of life changing online abuse and false claims that Mo Rammy, Jordan Trengrove and others experienced.”
The first petition asks the government to clamp down on fake social media accounts which are used to troll, abuse and harm individuals.
The Online Safety Bill focuses primarily on protecting children from harm, it does not tackle issues faced by adults online, nor tackle fake accounts which are used to cause harm.
The bill simply proposes that social media sites should provide ‘optional’ verification for all users, without the requirement of any form of ID.
Fake accounts can have major ramifications on people’s lives, despite accounts getting blocked, banned or deactivated due to their behaviour, people can easily set up additional accounts to taunt, abuse and harass their victims.
This causes inescapable trauma for their victims, and impacts their lives offline.
Kayleigh Graveson said: “We are already experiencing a mental health crisis, the Online Safety Bill was set up to protect children from harm, but the proposal in its current form does not protect individuals from fake accounts and anonymised trolling.
“People are taking, or attempting to take their own lives due to online abuse from fake accounts. Why should anyone else lose their life? Why should those that abuse people online get away with it scot-free and be given a free pass to go on and do it to someone else?”
http://https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/630738/sponsors/new?token=g13XTo19t4ZgsCVTrwef
The second petition asks to extend legal aid to cases of defamation, so that justice isn’t just afforded to those who have the financial backing to do so.
More action needs to be taken to protect individuals from defamation.
Lies can destroy people’s mental health and lives, yet defamation law fails to protect everyone.
This petition aims to protect individuals from defamation by expanding legal aid to these types of cases.
Currently there is no legal aid to support individuals in cases of defamation, so justice is only there for those that can afford it.
Making defamation cases more financially viable may act as a deterrent to individuals that publish false information about individuals.
Therefore, these kinds of actions, which ruin lives may reduce while victims get the justice they deserve, without being blocked by financial constraints.
