Article by Arvind Hickman for PR Week UK - published 2 July 2020 The former chair of a parliamentary committee charged with investigating social-media platforms has called for the deliberate spreading of harmful content on social media to be criminalised, with users and social-media companies both legally liable. Damian Collins, MP for Folkestone and Hythe, […]
Article by James Cook for the Daily Telegraph - published 30 June 2020 Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and other members of Facebook's oversight board are under growing pressure to speak out as the social network battles claims of hate speech. The Supreme Court-style board-set up to rule on controversial ethical issues-has so far remained silent […]
Article by James Titcombe for the Daily Telegraph - published 14 June 2020 History's most famous laws are often its shortest. The US constitution clocked in at just four pages; the 10 commandments on two stone tablets. And the internet, while it put an infinity of content at its users' fingertips, owes its current form […]
Article by David Wooding and published 12 April 2020 An MP is backing a new way to counter coronavirus conspiracy theories sweeping the internet during lockdown. Tory Damian Collins is helping to launch a free fact-checking service to nail dangerous lies about the disease. One false rumour blamed mobile phone masts for spreading the virus and […]
Article by David Molloy & Leo Kelion for BBC News - published 9 April 2020 Social networks need a dedicated button to flag up bogus coronavirus-related posts, an advocacy group has said. The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said the apps had "missed a trick" in combating the problem. The call coincides with a […]
Article by Alain Tolhurst for PoliticsHome - published 9 April 2020 Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has called on the broadcast watchdog to take action against a TV station for allowing David Icke to promote “lunatic conspiracy theories” about the coronavirus pandemic. London Live has come under fire for giving the former BBC presenter - who has […]
Article written for Campaign - published 8 April 2020 There is no corner of the world that has been left untouched by the coronavirus. It is taking lives and may yet be the cause of the greatest economic crash since the great depression of the 1930s. Alongside this, we have seen another virulent and damaging […]
Written for The House Magazine - published 4 April 2020 In response to this problem, I have launched a new service called Infotagion, enabling people to check information they see that doesn’t look right. The coronavirus is the first major public health crisis of the social media age. That is significant because whilst there has […]
Published in WIRED UK on 30 March 2020 The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared that there’s an “infodemic” of disinformation about coronavirus spreading rapidly around the world. We have all seen examples of this kind of content being shared in our friends and family networks on social media and through messaging apps. Examples include […]
Published 30 March 2020 Tory MP Damian Collins has warned against sharing coronavirus-related "fake news" as he launched an online service to combat falsehoods during the pandemic. The former chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media And Sport (DCMS) Select Committee called for knowingly peddling misinformation related to the Covid-19 outbreak to be made an offence. He has […]