04/04/17 - Katie Price launches petition to make online abuse a criminal offence (60)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/29/katie-price-launches-petition-to-make-online-abuse-a-criminal-offence

This article is about how Katie Price made a petition which will make online abuse a criminal offense. This was all started off when people on social media would start to make fun out of Katie Price's son who is blind, autistic, ADHD and Prader-Willi syndrome. Price has regularly condemned abusive posts targeting her son, who is 14. In February, a teenager was arrested after online abuse directed at Harvey. And in January a man apologised after the Sun revealed he had sent a string of offensive tweets to Price. Last week, after Price tweeted she had passed the location of the Westminster attack, her son became the target of further abuse. Last year, the police chief constable Stephen Kavanagh warned that existing laws were not sufficient to deal with an “unimagined scale of online abuse”. He told the Guardian: “No police chief would claim the way we deliver police services has sufficiently adapted to the new threat and harms that the internet brings.”

• The government is required to respond to all petitions which receive more than 10,000 signatures. At the time of publishing, Price’s petition had reached more than 83,000 signatures.
• The TV personality and former glamour model announced the petition on her Instagram account, after sharing screenshots of online abuse directed at her son Harvey, who is who is blind and has autism, ADHD and Prader-Willi syndrome, a genetic disorder affecting appetite and muscle development.

In my opinion, I believe that this is a good idea and approach as it will improve the behaviour of users online. If people are more aware of it, people wouldn't abuse others with disability etc because they would realise that there is a punishment to go with this act. This is good for the new and digital media as there will be less negative comments and a more positive atmosphere will take place on social media. In addition, I believe that a good way to stop this is also by having block the users that may post brutal messages etc which will allow others to get on with there social media lives and not have to bother with those negative people.