A report from the cross-party Petitions Committee calls for the government to bolster the Online Safety Bill with extra duties for social media companies.
The committee also wants the bill to challenge the attitudes that fuel such behaviour and ensure abusive users face legal sanctions where appropriate.
“Social media platforms should be required to give users the option to link their account to a form of verified ID on a voluntary basis and block interactions with unverified users, as a way of tackling abuse posted from anonymous or ‘throwaway’ accounts,” the report said.
It suggested that firms should demonstrate they have taken proportionate steps to protect adult users from the risk of facing legal but harmful abuse on their platforms.
The long-delayed Online Safety Bill was finally published in draft form in May last year, and it includes the potential for significant fines for companies that fail to deal with online abuse.
Under the legislation...