Meeting of the Parliament 30 November 2022
I recognise the issue, and I agree that we should investigate it in a deeper way and think about how we can restrict such activity.
In the social media age, the use of Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok can cause serious harm in many ways, as we have seen. We must seek to understand exactly what is going on and the origin of the problem of male violence against girls, and we must support young men in our schools to change their behaviour—if not, nothing will change.
In a report last year, academics from several universities highlighted that the sending and receiving of unsolicited—I emphasise “unsolicited”—sexual images is becoming “dangerously normalised”. The team found that more than half the boys and girls who received unwanted sexual content online or had their image shared without their consent did nothing about it.
Girls are pressured to trade intimate images with boys who send unsolicited pictures. Inevitably, they are mocked or bullied when their photographs are shared among classmates.
We know that children and young people are more susceptible to peer pressure, cyberbullying and sexting, all of which are activities that involve digital communication. That makes navigating the online social world treacherous at times.
Teachers have warned of a self-styled wealth guru who is accused of spreading misogyny on social media. I will not name the person, but members who have been following the issue will know who I am talking about. He is promoting seriously harmful content online. In one video, he describes how he would punish a woman who accused him of being unfaithful:
“bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck.”
I apologise for the shocking language, but that is out there on social media.
The man is followed by literally millions of, I presume, boys and girls—certainly males. He is not a fringe personality lurking in an obscure corner of the dark web; the videos that he has put out have had 11.6 billion views.
As Christina McKelvie rightly said, most men do not hold violent, misogynistic views about women. We need more men to speak up. If they do not do so, we will not reverse the problem.
We commend Police Scotland’s “Don’t be that guy” campaign, which encourages men to call out the sexist and misogynistic behaviour of their male peers, friends, family members and work colleagues. That is the only way to change things.
We want to build on that important work by tackling sexism and misogyny in schools. As I have said many times, I support the equally safe programme—I would like to know a wee bit more about it—and I would like it to be rolled out in more schools.
We need to realise that boys and men who need to change their behaviour might not seek out that kind of information. We might need to seek them out, if we are to get them to change their views.
Women and girls in Scotland cannot face the problem alone. Scottish Labour says that it is down to men to change their behaviour and down to policy makers to lead the way in changing our society, online and offline.
Now is the time to put in place long-overdue protections for women and girls from cyberviolence. Now is the time to educate boys and men on the seriousness of perpetuating violence against women and girls online. Everyday sexism is part of the problem and we need to tackle it at every level. It is about not just tackling domestic abuse, rape, street harassment and all crimes against women and girls across the world but developing a radical strategy to tackle sexism and misogynistic attitudes. I look forward to reform of the justice system that makes a difference by creating new crimes to do with misogyny, as part of this Parliament’s work on the matter.
I move amendment S6M-07002.1, to insert, after “such violence”:
“understands that concerted efforts are required to enhance the criminal justice response to cybercrimes that specifically target women and girls, and to ensure that women can access justice when they do become victims of cyberviolence, such as ‘cyberflashing’, revenge porn and threats of rape, as well as encourage the collection of data on cyberviolence;”.
15:34Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.