TOWIE’s Bobby Norris campaigns to make online homophobia a criminal offence with Bobby’s Bill

The reality TV star will appear in Parliament today to discuss 'Bobby's Bill,' which targets homophobic trolls online
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Georgia Chambers1 July 2019
The Weekender

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The Only Way is Essex star Bobby Norris will appear in Parliament today urging MPs to make online homophobia a criminal offence.

The petition, dubbed ‘Bobby’s Bill,’ has surpassed 100,000 signatures since it was posted earlier this year, making it eligible for parliamentary debate.

The reality TV star opened up about his own personal battle with homophobic trolls online in a column for the Metro, writing: “I’ve been told to ‘burn in a fire,’ have been threatened with an eight-inch machete, told my sexuality is a disgrace to humanity and they will ‘come to my place and sort me out with an 11-inch blade.’

“After reporting various homophobic messages to social media providers only to hear back that the user had not, in fact, broken any of their community rules or guidelines, I decided to make a stand and try to do something about it myself.”

Whilst homophobia falls under the category of hate crime, which is a criminal offence in the UK, the same laws do not pertain to online activity.

According to the results of a survey published in 2017 by LGBTQ+ anti-violence charity Galop, 84 per cent of respondents said they had experienced more than one occurrence of online abuse and 59 per cent said they had experienced six or more occurrences of online abuse.

Bobby Norris with his The Only Way is Essex co-stars. (Getty )
Getty

Whilst the aim of the bill is to make online homophobia illegal, Norris admitted on Loose Women that he was not sure what kind of consequences trolls would face if the bill is passed.

“This is a hard thing,” he said. “Prisons are stretched as they are and I am not saying we should throw people inside.

“People need to be held accountable, whether their accounts are suspended, whether they are fined, whether their email address is flagged up. It is so easy to delete an account and open another one.

“You see it time and time again, they just have an egg as a picture, no followers and they are just getting off on abusing people. It’s a can of worms.

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“I don’t know what your punishment would be, but there should be consequences. If you went down Oxford Street and said something to someone, there is a law in place for that. But online…it has grown too big, too soon.”

The government officially responded to the petition on March 28, writing in a statement: “The government recognises the harm that homophobic online messages can cause. We are working cross-Government to challenge inequality and make the UK’s online environment a safer place for everyone.”

The debate will be available to watch in full on Monday 1 July via the UK Parliament YouTube channel.

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