UN UK: Digital IDs needed to end 'mob rule' online, says security minister

Digital IDs should be brought in to end online anonymity that permits ”mob rule” and lawlessness online, the security minister has said.

Ben Wallace said authentication used by banks could also by employed by internet firms to crack down on bullying and grooming, as he warned that people had to make a choice between “the wild west or a civilised society” online.


He also took aim at the “phoniness” of Silicon Valley billionaires, and called for companies such as WhatsApp to contribute to society over the negative costs of their technology, such as end-to-end encryption.

It comes after Theresa May took another step against tech giants, saying they would be ordered to clamp down on vile attacks against women on their platforms.


The prime minister will target firms such as Facebook and Twitter as she makes the pitch at the G7 summit this weekend, where she will urge social media firms to treat violent misogyny with the same urgency as they do terror threats.

Mr Wallace told The Times: “A lot of the bullying on social media and the grooming is because those people know you cannot identify them.

“It is mob rule on the internet. You shouldn’t be able to hide behind anonymity.”

The former soldier described being part of an uncover investigation into child sex exploitation where they found a children’s chatroom with a 45-year-old man pretending to be a 12-year-old.

He said: “It was like blood in the water with a shark – he was trying to chat up a girl to get her to come and meet him.


“If we’re going to make the internet safer, we’re going to have to do something more about digital identification.”

Suspected incidents on online child sex abuse referred to the Metropolitan Police have soared by 700 per cent since 2014, according to evidence given to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse earlier this year.

Meanwhile, one in five UK women has suffered online abuse or harassment, of which 27 per cent was threats of sexual or physical assault, according to an Amnesty International survey in March.


Mr Wallace called on social media giants to take responsibility for their own technology, as he said the UK was spending hundreds of millions of pounds on coping with the challenges of end-to-end encryption, which makes it harder for the security services to foil terror plots.

He said: “There should be an element of the ‘polluter pays’. You contribute to the cost your technology is engendering.”

Describing Silicon Valley billionaires, he said: “The phoniness irritates me - it’s, ‘I’m a hippy with a beanbag and, oh yes, there is my superyacht’.


“They accuse the state of surveillance and yet they sell my details to make money. We are the lunch, they are the ruthless ones.”

The prime minister has campaigned to rein in tech giants by urging investors to pull funding from irresponsible firms, if they refuse to act on hate-filled content on their platforms.

Speaking ahead of her arrival at the G7 summit, Ms May said: “What is illegal offline is illegal online, and I am calling on world leaders to take serious action to deal with this, just like we are doing in the UK with our commitment to legislate on online harms such as cyberstalking and harassment.

“Online violence against women and girls should not be separated from offline violence, and the technology companies who are making welcome progress in banning and removing extremist content must use the same methods to prioritise tackling this unacceptable and deeply worrying rising trend.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...e-security-minister-ben-wallace-a8390841.html

 

[UselessRubberKeyboard]

"Digital IDs should be brought in to end online anonymity that permits ”mob rule” and lawlessness online, the security minister has said."

Great! So when do we start banning the sjws and troon brigades from Twitter?

What d'you mean, 'only mobs we don't agree with'?

 

[Chaos Theorist]

I call street samurai.

Seriously though, what's up with the UK being extra exceptional with laws lately?

The Tory Government is its death throes and knows it going to get cucked by Labour in 2020 when Brexit causes a recession so its throwing all kinds of stupid shit as a smokescreen to appease its members

 

[Ruin]

"Digital IDs should be brought in to end online anonymity that permits ”mob rule” and lawlessness online, the security minister has said."

Great! So when do we start banning the sjws and troon brigades from Twitter?

What d'you mean, 'only mobs we don't agree with'?

In the article itself they complain that "violent misogyny" whatever that is isn't treated with the same agency as Islamic terrorism so it's pretty clear what the motivation behind this is.

 

[sperginity]

Digital IDs would only punish people too stupid to circumvent them, who are mostly the type of people who don't do anything noteworthy online anyway.

 

[thx1138]

So basically like China, except not as communist. Oh wait... the left is full of those nevermind.
Hell, you have to put in your cell number to sign up for chinese apps online and show them your real life ID to sell stuff on the internet there. What's stopping the UK from going full China on its citizens?

At this point the UK is trans-Chinese in terms of how appallingly suffocating its government control of it's citizenry is, might as well go ahead and get bottom surgery to complete the effect! Unfortunately, it'll end up passing pretty well.

 

[RadicalCentrist]

Tory government.

Things were so much better under labor, right?

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

The Tory Government is its death throes and knows it going to get cucked by Labour in 2020 when Brexit causes a recession so its throwing all kinds of stupid shit as a smokescreen to appease its members

If the Government fails any votes tonight expect there to be far more fun than talking about pointless bollocks like digital ID's.

 

[Inquisitor_BadAss]

Good luck with that Tory cucks I’m hiding behind 7 proxies.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-44438468

Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, got 600 rape threats.

Six hundred.

That's as many as sixty tens.

And that's terrible.

As a result, she wants to force people to use their real names to get onto social media. Short of requiring a passport number to be entered as part of the login process (which will cause reeeeeing because it excludes undocumented immigrants and is transphobic because it forces people to use their deadnames which is LITERALLY MURDER) the practicality of this is... remote, at best.

 

[DrunkJoe]

Honestly at this point fuck the U.K. i won't shed many tears when the country tears its self apart.

 

[AnOminous]

As most of the people we document here amply demonstrate, the people who act in the most sociopathic manner possible very often do so under their own name without the slightest trace of shame or understanding why they are universally loathed.

 

[Ravenor]

As my Good friend the Right Honorable Lord of Pillockshire @Ponderous Pillock has said this is bloviation and nothing else, they have been dreaming about this since the 90's and back then it was practical to do now it's not but there are lot's of people inside Westminster who would love it for various reasons, a lot of them have curious connections to Ofcom and BT / Cable and Wireless.

The thing is all governments are technologically impaired, as the people you find in government are users of technology and a lot of them are bad users of technology (seriously look up Lost Hard Drive UK Government you'll see what I mean) hell look at the standards they have like Cyber Essentials something they insist all service providers to any government agency may have even if it's the guy cleaning out the Public Toilets in Newcastle if he's self-employed, they often fail to live up to that poorly defined standard.

This is a result of a few things it's getting talked about now-

1) Loss of narrative control (a lot of old media would love the net to not be a thing), the Government really likes that idea too as they can't steer a disaster.

2) Labour is being loud again but for all the wrong reasons, this is mostly lead my Corbins 2nf left food in the form of momentum and people who don't want to be deselected by them.

3) The Dankula and Tommy Robbinson issues, they are not majorly concerning right now as honestly there is bigger political capital to be made right now but they are ones a lot of people seem to care about and are talking about in ways they can't quite understand using a language they find hard to interpritate into there own way of thinking. It's almost like it doesn't compute to them.

4) Again the Government is backwards at understanding technology and the way it's grown and been largely left alone until recently is a testament to that, the current political class hasn't developed that particular kind of knowledge in-house yet and they are distrustful of advisers on the subject that seems far too young or eager for what most of them still view as weird looking calculators that do weird things every now an then and Politicians work at a very base level with this sort of thing and that thinking can be summed up as "Well if I as smart as I am can't understand it what chance do the prolls have? We better look into slapping some legislation on this at some point before to many people get befuddled", totally ignoring the fact that if they left it alone and focused on Laws that effect people the tech will largely govern it's self.

 

[Fleshy Sanik]

Internet Licences
They are actually going to do it
THE ABSOLUTE MADMEN

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

The Tory Government is its death throes and knows it going to get cucked by Labour in 2020 when Brexit causes a recession so its throwing all kinds of stupid shit as a smokescreen to appease its members

I don't see how this "smokescreen" tactic can work out for them though. It will arguably just make them even more unpopular than they already are, and that's really saying something, since May's government already has record low approval ratings.

Probably the only defence the Tories have here is that Labour are possibly even more exceptional when it comes to this kind of stuff, but that doesn't mean that they'll be able to get away with not having it effect their already severely compromised popularity.

 

[Room312]

As a result, she wants to force people to use their real names to get onto social media.

Won't that cause more 'violent misogyny' as previously anonymous females out themselves?

 

[Sable]

Pretty much every UK government be it Tory or Labour has been trying to police the internet since the internet has come into existence. None of them even know what a windows is.

This sort of thing will be quietly shelved as it doesn't win votes, and then in a few years time the government, be it Tory or Labour will try again to the exact same effect.

Repeat literally forever (or like, 15-20 years when more tech-savvy people come into prominence, but probably forever)

 

[Ponderous Pillock]

I don't see how this "smokescreen" tactic can work out for them though. It will arguably just make them even more unpopular than they already are, and that's really saying something, since May's government already has record low approval ratings.

Probably the only defence the Tories have here is that Labour are possibly even more exceptional when it comes to this kind of stuff, but that doesn't mean that they'll be able to get away with not having it effect their already severely compromised popularity.

May's government does have low approval ratings. Tory Ratings however have fared surprisingly well, even seeing increases among the 18-29 crowd as of late.

Got to remember, we draw the executive from the legislature. The chances of May surviving another election are kind of low, though.

 

[Aristophanes]

Mass expansion of surveillance powers? It's the Tories, spying on people is their favourite thing to do.

 

[Sable]

Got to remember, we draw the executive from the legislature. The chances of May surviving another election are kind of low, though.

Generally speaking, the Conservatives are normally much better than this at 'convincing' people to step down, but honestly I don't think they want to leave any opportunities for seeming weak, which is understandable but they can't look much worse than they already are.

It's only the problems with the opposition that mean things have gotten as far as they have without crumbling like a soggy custard cream.

It'd be better for them in the long-term if they fall from power overall and use the oppurtunity to backsta- 'reshuffle' things.

 

[Aristophanes]

Things are really not looking good for the Tories at the moment, especially when they have bumbling fucks like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mog turning the public against them with their stupidity.

The only smart thing May has done in her entire term as PM was when she recently slapped down Rees-Mog (who kept pushing for a disastrous no-deal Brexit) in a private briefing.