JOANNA Cherry has opened up on the "terrible" online abuse she has received during a Commons debate as she called on Twitter to “apply its moderation policy evenly across society”.
The SNP MP and QC was involved in debate on the Online Safety Bill when she empathised with one of her Labour Westminster colleagues.
Cherry has been vocal about the abuse she has received online for her "gender-critical" views. She is an opponent of the SNP's GRA policy, which seeks to make legally changing sex easier for transgender people.
In 2019 Cherry revealed she had sought police protection following abuse received when she showed social media bosses examples of abuse against women not covered by their policies. She received a police escort to her constituency surgery, following advice from officers.
Intervening during a speech by Labour’s Anna McMorrin on Tuesday, Cherry said: “I’m really sorry to hear about the abuse that she and her family have received.
“Many women inside [and without] this chamber such as myself have received terrible abuse on Twitter, including repeated threats to shoot us if we don’t shut the f*** up.
“Twitter refuses to take down memes of a hand, a real human hand pointing a gun at me and other feminists and lesbians telling us to shut the f*** up,” she continued, spelling out the swear word.
She added: “Does she see the force of my amendment to make sure that Twitter apply its moderation policy evenly across society with regard to all protected characteristics including sex?”
Cherry went on to say that Twitter often discriminates against women, taking down expressions of feminist belief while refusing to take down examples of the “utmost violent intent against women”.
The MP for Edinburgh South West also raised concerns over the prospect of leaving organisations such as Twitter “to their own devices on their moderation content policy”.
Cherry told MPs that under the Equality Act, it is unlawful to discriminate against those with a protected characteristic such as sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, but Twitter continues to do so.
She said: “It’s against the law to discriminate against anyone with any of these protected characteristics, or to victimise them or harass them. But Twitter does discriminate against some of the protected characteristics. It often discriminates against women in the way I described in an intervention earlier, where it takes down expressions of feminist belief, but refuses to take down expressions of the utmost violent intent against women.
“It also discriminates against women who hold gender-critical beliefs, now I remind honourable members that in terms of the Employment Appeal Tribunal decision in the case of Maya Forstater, the belief that sex matters is worthy of respect in a democratic society and under the Equality Act, people cannot lawfully discriminate against women or indeed men who hold those views.”
Cherry said at present Twitter claims “not to be covered by the Equality Act” despite “clearly providing a service in the United Kingdom”.
She added: “It would be really good if we took the opportunity of this Bill, to clarify that the Equality Act applies to Twitter, so that when it applies moderation of content under this Bill, it will not discriminate against any of the protected characteristics.”
The Online Safety Bill, which the Tory government claims is set to make the "UK the safest place in the world to be online", is making its way through Parliament with MPs to vote on amendments on Tuesday.
The bill's journey is set to outlast Boris Johnson's premiership.
While it has garnered some cross-party consensus in the Commons, it has provoked some anger - including from Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch who suggests it will have "serious implications for free speech".
Meanwhile, Hacked Off are among 16 campaign groups who have sent a letter to the Culture Secretary warning that the Online Safety Bill is “on the verge of being unworkable”.
It said the legislation in its current form “focuses too heavily on trying to regulate what individual people can say online, rather than getting to the heart of the problem and addressing tech companies’ systems and algorithms that promote and amplify harmful content”.
Their letter added: “As a result, it risks being the worst of both worlds: failing to keep us safe while also threatening free speech.”
