Intimidation in Public Life: A Review by the Committee on Standards in Public Life

Government should bring forward legislation to shift the liability of illegal content online towards social media companies.

Social media companies must develop and implement automated techniques to identify intimidatory content posted on their platforms. They should use this technology to ensure intimidatory content is taken down as soon as possible.

Social media companies must do more to prevent users being inundated with hostile messages on their platforms, and to support users who become victims of this behaviour.

Social media companies must implement tools to enhance the ability of users to tackle online intimidation through user options.

All social media companies must ensure they are able to make decisions quickly and consistently on the takedown of intimidatory content online.

Twitter, Facebook and Google must publish UK-level performance data on the number of reports they receive, the percentage of reported content that is taken down, and the time it takes to take down that content, on at least a quarterly basis.

Social media companies must urgently revise their tools for users to escalate any reports of potential illegal online activity to the police.

The social media companies should work with the government to establish a ‘pop-up’ social media reporting team for election campaigns.

Social media companies should actively provide advice, guidance and support to Parliamentary candidates on steps they can take to remain safe and secure while using their sites.

Those in positions of leadership within political parties must set an appropriate tone during election campaigns, and make clear that any intimidatory behaviour is unacceptable. They should challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.

Political parties must proactively work together to tackle the issue of intimidation in public life.

Political parties should set clear expectations about the behaviour expected of their members, both offline and online through a code of conduct for members which specifically prohibits any intimidatory behaviour. Parties should ensure that members are familiar with the code. The consequences of any breach of the code should be clear and unambiguous.

Political parties must ensure that party members who breach the party’s code of conduct by engaging intimidation are consistently and appropriately disciplined in a timely manner.

Political parties must collect data on the number of complaints against members for engaging in intimidatory behaviour, and the outcome of any disciplinary processes which result from these complaints.

Leaders of political parties should always call out intimidatory behaviour, even when it is perpetrated by those in the party’s fringes. Fringe group leaders and spokespeople should immediately denounce any intimidatory behaviour on the part of their members or supporters.

The political parties must work together to develop a joint code of conduct on intimidatory behaviour during election campaigns by December 2018. The code should be jointly enforced by the political parties.

Political parties must take steps to provide support for all candidates, including through networks, training, and support and resources. In particular, the parties should develop these support mechanisms for female, BAME, and LGBT candidates who are more likely to be targeted as subjects of intimidation.

Political parties must offer more support and training to candidates on their use of social media. This training should include: managing social media profiles, block and mute features, reporting content, and recognising when behaviour should be reported directly to the police.

The government should consult on the introduction of a new offence in electoral law of intimidating Parliamentary candidates and party campaigners.

The government should bring forward legislation to remove the requirement for candidates standing as local councillors to have their home addresses published on the ballot paper. Returning Officers should not disclose the home addresses of those attending an election count.

Local Authority Monitoring Officers should ensure that members required to declare pecuniary interests are aware of the sensitive interests provisions in the Localism Act 2011.

MPs should actively co-operate with the police and other security services working to address the security threats facing Parliamentarians and Parliamentary candidates.

The National Police Chiefs Council should ensure that local police forces have sufficient training to enable them to effectively investigate offences committed through social media. Local police forces should be able to access advice and guidance on the context in which MPs and Parliamentary candidates work.

The College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice for elections should be updated to include offences relating to intimidation, including offences committed through social media.

The Home Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport should develop a strategy for engaging with international partners to promote international consensus on what constitutes hate crime and intimidation online.

The National Police Chiefs Council, working with the Crown Prosecution Service and the College of Policing, should produce accessible guidance for Parliamentary candidates giving clear advice on behaviour they may experience during a campaign which is likely to constitute a criminal offence.

Nobody in public life should engage in intimidatory behaviour, nor condone or tolerate it. All those in public life have a responsibility to challenge and report it wherever it occurs.

Those in public life should seek to uphold high standards of conduct, adhering to the Seven Principles of Public Life, and help prevent a decline in public trust in political institutions through their own conduct.

Those in public life must set and protect a tone in public discourse which is not dehumanising or derogatory, and which recognises the rights of others to participate in public life.

Those in public life have a responsibility not to use language which engenders hatred or hostility towards individuals because of their personal characteristics.

Press regulation bodies should extend their codes of conduct to prohibit unacceptable language that incites intimidation.

News organisations should only consider stories from freelance journalists that meet the standards of IPSO’s Editors Code, or the Editorial Guidelines of Impress, as appropriate, and ensure that freelance journalists are aware of this policy.

Those in public life should not engage in highly personalised attacks, nor portray policy disagreements or questions of professional competence as breaches of ethical standards.