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There’s been some debate in the UK, following the killing of MP Sir David Amess last week, around whether Covid lockdown conditions have led to a rise in online extremism and social media abuse. We’ve got two pieces this morning looking at slightly different angles on this debate.
First up, our defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh, who writes:
Eighteen months of global lockdowns have led to growing engagement in a toxic online cocktail of extremist material ranging from terrorist content to conspiracy theories and disinformation, experts warn.
Jacob Davey from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD) said studies had already shown “there has been a proliferation of harmful and troubling activity online” during the pandemic, with an impact that is impossible to predict.
The Report Harmful Content platform, run by the UK Safer Internet Centre, reported a 225% increase in online hate speech incidents in the UK last year.
According to Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a US- and UK-based campaign group, the pandemic has given an edge to the existing culture of online abuse and hate associated with social media and video-sharing platforms. “It’s just a little bit nastier than ever before,” says Ahmed.
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