Online abuse and the experience of disabled people Contents

1Being disabled online

The importance of social media to disabled people

20.The internet has changed how people communicate, work and socialise. It should not be surprising that this is as true for disabled people as it is for other internet users. It is apparent that many disabled people are digitally excluded and that levels of internet use are lower among disabled people than non-disabled people. According to the Office for National Statistics, 49% of disabled people had used social media in the three months prior to August 2017 compared with 71% of people without disabilities.7 However, those who are online use the internet for work, friendship and dating, communication, gaming, shopping and so on. It is often central to the way they live their lives.

21.We heard that social media has encouraged disabled people’s activism and enabled them to organise in a way that was impossible before social media. Disability activism was in the past dependent on those who could travel and physically meet. People from across the country can now join forces and be heard when transport companies let them down, when businesses fail to provide accessible services or when they are abused on the street or online.

22.At our events, we were told about online campaigning by people fighting for treatment, recognition and basic access to services. Twitter was particularly useful as an advocacy tool for “naming and shaming” companies over inaccessible buildings and services. One man who attended our event in Belfast told us of a petrol station in his local area that added a bollard to its access ramp. It took a Twitter campaign by disabled people before it was removed.8

23.National campaigns for disabled access such as #dontwantourcash add to the pressure that disabled people collectively put on businesses to ensure that they are considered.9 The campaign highlights “accessible” toilets that are anything but, restaurants with fixed seating that are inaccessible to people with mobility problems and payment points that can’t be reached by people in wheelchairs. #notacupboard highlights accessible toilets used as storage facilities.10 The popularity of the #spartacusreport hashtag before a House of Lords debate on welfare reform in 2012 is credited with contributing to a Government defeat over changes to Disability Living Allowance.11 Social media is helping disabled people to be heard.

24.Social media has become a powerful tool in helping disabled people to challenge stereotypes, campaign for accessible services and access appropriate treatment for long-term conditions. Facebook online support groups came up again and again as valuable places where people could discuss their experiences, share information about medical conditions and treatment, and organise to campaign for their rights.12

25.The difficulties that disabled people can face in accessing experiences, services and employment mean that they use the internet to ensure that they can work and use services and spaces. For example, we heard from disabled people who use Google Street View to check whether a route is accessible to them and those who search review sites and post questions to find out whether they can genuinely access an advertised service.13 Many of the disabled people we spoke to were self-employed and found the internet essential for their income and careers.

Box 1: Poster on web thread hosted by Scope

[The internet’s] very important to me. It’s where most of my support is, as real-world support is lacking and I have zero help with mobility [ … ].

26.We heard that for many disabled people, online communication is their main contact with others. Many people we spoke to told us that Facebook was their primary form of communication, even more important to them for maintaining a social life than face-to-face or mobile phone contact. Those who had mobility issues were particularly reliant on social media to maintain a social life. Research by Manchester Metropolitan University also shows that disabled people with intellectual impairment are at greater risk of social isolation and loneliness and often have smaller social networks than those without disabilities.14 Some of those who attended our event in Belfast had travelled from rural parts of Northern Ireland. They were very clear that staying online was essential in rural communities.15

Box 2: Attendee at London informal evidence event

I’ve never met anyone in the UK who has my genetic disability. Without social media I wouldn’t have made any links.

27.For people with rare conditions, contact on social media can be the only time they communicate with people who understand or have experience of their condition. Linking with people who have similar conditions online means that people can hear about the latest treatments, understand appropriate medical interventions or simply connect with people who understand.16

Box 3: Attendee at London informal evidence event

Connecting with people with rare conditions is really useful. It also helps to build communities. At the moment I’m helping some parents with a young boy who want to speak to an adult with the same conditions. It’s really good for them to hear it from an adult’s point of view. Helps them stop worrying because they know that their child will become an adult.

28.One event attendee told us that only 108 people in the UK and Ireland had his condition. Social media has meant that they can stay in touch, work together to campaign for better treatment and share invaluable knowledge about what works. He told us that, despite medical advances, doctors still tell parents of children newly diagnosed with his condition that their child will probably die before adulthood. Social media has meant that those parents can get more accurate information from adults living with the condition and know that this is not necessarily the case.17

29.Social media and the internet is central to how most of us live our lives—whether we consider ourselves disabled or not. The time when it was reasonable to tell people experiencing difficulties online to stop using social media has long gone. Being able to use the internet without fear is no more a luxury than being able to go to the shops, the workplace or meet friends in a park.

30.Facilitating people with rare conditions to speak with one voice, enabling people to campaign for their rights and providing a method to reduce the isolation of a marginalised group are some of the many positive impacts of social media on the lives of disabled people that we heard about. In fact, it was clear after speaking to groups of disabled people that they could be some of the best advocates for social media if only their needs were considered.

Abuse of disabled people online

31.The internet and social media can be a powerful tool for disabled people to use to make their voices heard and engage with services. However, disabled people are subjected to a high-level of abusive behaviour online and offline. This is under-reported and under-prosecuted. The Home Office publication Hate Crime, England and Wales 2017/18 shows that there were 7,226 recorded disability hate crimes in 2017–18 while the Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that there were 52,000 disability motivated hate crimes per year.18 The online space has increased the venues where such abuse can be felt. It means that disabled people can’t escape it, even in their own homes.

Box 4: Respondent to online survey

I have a severe disability and suffer verbal and online attacks daily, however, the benefits of computers outside social media are something which gives me a purpose.

Box 5: Katie Price, Oral Evidence

kept reporting people and then others were telling me about reporting them; these people would get closed down, but then would reopen and start again. It kept going on and on, to the point that it got so bad that … people were doing videos on Harvey; at one point a guy did a video on Harvey making out that he was having sex with him, basically. … You name it, Harvey gets it. People mock his picture on sweet packets. They put his head on—what is it, ISIS? They put his head on that. You name it, they do it to Harvey all the time. I have tried my own way of naming and shaming people online to let everyone say, “Do you know these people? How can we get hold of them?” I have done everything I can, but nothing gets done.

32.The Government, in its Hate Crime Action Plan 2016 to 2020,19 and the police, in evidence to us, accepted that disability hate crimes are widely under-reported. As Detective Inspector John Donovan, Online Hate Crime Hub, Metropolitan Police Service, told us:

Hate crime is badly reported, and disability hate crime is very badly reported. [ … ] Only 4% of our work is identifiably disability hate crime; 49% is racial. Disability hate crime is heavily under-reported, and that is a disappointment to me. When we started this a year or 18 months ago, I thought disability hate crime on the internet would be easier to identify, because you would have to be overt. It has not quite panned out that way.20

Box 6: Attendee at the London informal evidence event

I can retweet or screenshot abuse on Twitter and the community will support me. On Facebook, my mum is my friend, and I don’t want Mum to see things like that.

The nature of abuse

33.As the work of our parliamentary colleagues has shown, and the petition stated, online abuse is a widespread problem that can affect anyone. Unsurprisingly, disabled people are subject to the same type of abuse as other internet users, but there is another layer and character to the abuse directed at disabled people. Stop Online Abuse, which provides advice to people affected by offensive or damaging online content, lists examples of online harassment or abuse:

Box 7: Penny Pepper, writer and poet.

I’ve been called an “it” many times–“What is IT doing?” … I’ve had remarks about how I look in my wheelchair, and a few times the statements, “You should have been aborted”, and, “You don’t deserve to live.”

34.For disabled people, online abuse also includes slurs, such as “retard”, “mong” and “spastic”. These terms are, for many disabled people, as offensive as the worst terms of racist abuse. We have included them here only because we repeatedly heard them at our events, as people repeated the things that they had seen online so we could understand what was directed at them. Other forms of online abuse, which we heard are particularly common for disabled people, include:

35.We were also told that places where disabled people gather for support, such as Facebook groups, are targeted by those looking for images of children with visible disabilities to create “jokes”.

Box 8: Simon Green, Disability Rights Campaigner.

There’s also been a Facebook trend recently where people click on a link and you get shown a photo of what you may look like as the opposite sex. Sounds like harmless fun but underneath the post many are using photos of people with obvious disabilities and facial disfigurements and commenting “more like this.” I have spoken with people whose photos have been used under such posts and it causes a lot of distress.

Box 9: Respondent to online survey

There are loads of groups and posts on Facebook that claim to hate dwarfs and laugh at photos of people with dwarfism. These photos are often taken of dwarfs in public. For example, several times I have had people stop and directly take a photo of me.

36.In written evidence, Dr Loretta Trickett and Karen Aspley of the Royal Mencap Society told the Committee that disabled people may be disproportionally affected by online abuse because they are often viewed as an “easy target” and are more likely to be socially isolated.22 We heard again and again that disabled people are seen as “easy” or “deserving” targets. It was particularly difficult to hear the number of disabled people who felt that frequent abuse was an inevitable part of being disabled in the UK. We were told in Newcastle, “People will never stop taking the [ … ] out of us. It will never stop.”23 This abuse has significant effects on people’s lives and health. We discuss this in more detail later in this chapter.

Box 10: Respondent to online survey

I have autism myself and have faced such abuse online before—I just accepted it as some kind of norm even though it was making me really anxious, nervous and paranoid.

37.We were told repeatedly that, for disabled people, online abuse and harassment is a result of a wider culture that is hostile to disabled people. In written evidence, the Anti-Bullying Alliance told us that, for disabled young people, cyber bullying was often an extension of the face-to-face bullying they experienced.24 The experience of online abuse as an extension of their offline experience was echoed by the disabled adults we heard from. In particular, many of those we spoke to linked the abuse they had experienced to publicity over disability benefit fraud.

Box 11: Katie Price oral evidence

Over the past few years it has got worse. I have had it before, but at least I have a voice to speak. Harvey hasn’t. It is very clear that people who mock Harvey know that he has not got a voice back, and they mock him more. It has even got to the point where there has been a couple of people in the public eye [ … ] He basically said that Harvey was going to rape me. I complained to Channel 4—this is why I am doing all this—because they were advertising the Paralympics, and then after the ad break would have [him] on talking about Harvey raping me. I went to Channel 4 and [him] for an apology. Neither of them would give one, so I did a show on it to see why people do this stuff on Harvey and why it is acceptable for people to mock people with disabilities. Nothing was done then. Like I said, the police couldn’t do anything. I tried online to get people closed down, but it still continues and it is just getting worse all the time.

Box 12: Poster on web thread hosted by Scope

I do not reveal my disabled status unless I feel the place is safe to do so.

Visibility and changing attitudes

38.We heard time and time again that online abuse reflects wider attitudes towards disabled people and their lack of visible representation. Sense, in written evidence, told us that 49% of non-disabled people do not believe that they have anything in common with disabled people and 26% admit that they have avoided engaging in conversation with a disabled person.25 Scope research shows that 43% of the British public say that they don’t know anyone who is disabled and a majority (67%) feel awkward around disability. It also found that 21% of 18 to 34-year-olds admit that they have avoided talking to a disabled person because they weren’t sure how to communicate with them.26 Many of those we engaged with spoke of the need to improve attitudes towards disability and told us that they didn’t believe that online abuse of disabled people could be tackled without changing attitudes.

Box 13: Attendee at Belfast consultation event

We’re either benefit scroungers or Paralympians.

Box 14: Poster on web thread hosted by Scope

I think there is very little understanding for disabled people. This is partially understandable because there are a lot of disabilities [ … ] but I definitely find many people are ignorant towards disabled people’s issues and are more intended to be unsupportive of them than care for their welfare.

I think the media also has done damage to disabled people with their constant stories about disabled people being fakes and claiming benefits for that, but I noticed that stopped once others started to make comments about how not all claimants are frauds and how some disabilities are invisible and reasonable debate replaced stigmatisation of the disabled, but the damage has been done all the same.

Visibility

39.In evidence to the Committee, Ms Price referenced the positive messages that she has had from other parents of disabled children for increasing the visibility of disabled children:

I get letters and messages all the time from people who have got children or family members with disabilities and they don’t know how to cope with it. Some people don’t want to go out in public, because they don’t know how to cope with people staring. I am proud of Harvey.27

40.Those we spoke to were clear that there won’t be change without tackling the attitudes that lead to online abuse and encouraging a more positive portrayal of disability and disabled people in the media. One in five people in the UK are disabled and 19% of the working-age population are disabled,28 but disabled people do not feature prominently in the media. Advertising campaigns, such as River Island’s “Labels are for clothes” campaign, were brought up as positive examples.29 The Government has also committed to improving public awareness of disability in some ways. The Department for Transport’s Inclusive Transport Strategy includes a public campaign to increase disability awareness among passengers.30 However, we did hear concerns that disability awareness campaigns focused on disabled people as problems, rather than presenting them as three-dimensional human beings.

Box 15: Respondent to online survey

[It’s] the ignorance of an ableist society and government that disables us far more than any crime. Raise our profile, make our lives, our homes and our surroundings fully accessible wherever possible .

“Scroungers” and “fraudsters”

41.Multiple participants in our events spoke about a culture of “demonising” disabled people. The hostile language associated with benefits and using blue badges came up at all the events we ran. In evidence, Inclusion London told us that:

Disabled people have reported increasing levels of both online and offline abuse since 2010 targeted around an idea of Disabled people as ‘benefit scroungers’ and ‘fraudsters’. This is a direct result of public attitudes being affected by statements made by politicians about fraud in the disability benefits system relentlessly amplified in the media.31

Box 16: Penny Pepper, writer and poet

At present, the zeitgeist of disabled people as scroungers and benefit cheats is almost permission to further this abuse.

42.People we met described a “culture of fear” for disabled people who post about their daily life and activities, due to being accused of faking their disability for benefits and threatened with being reported to the Department for Work and Pensions for fraud.32 We were told that disabled people who posted about political activism and campaigning for their rights under the law were particularly at risk of being reported, or threatened with being reported, to the DWP.33 Given what we heard about how disabled people need to fight to be heard, such harassment is particularly worrying.

43.We were told that a fixation on disabled people as “benefit scroungers” has led to some disabled people being targeted online by people trying to obtain medical information to “prove” that the disabled person in question is committing benefit fraud. Not providing medical evidence was taken as proof of fraud and therefore the person was seen as deserving of abuse and harassment. People with invisible disabilities are particularly likely to be targeted as “scroungers”, but even people with visible disabilities, such as wheelchair users, are subject to accusations of malingering for benefits or other “privileges”. Those who may need to use a wheelchair intermittently told us that they were afraid to put photos of themselves standing or sitting on chairs on social media due to fears of abuse and accusations of fraud. We were told that some people see everyone with visible disabilities as possibly fraudulently claiming benefits, while everyone with invisible disabilities is probably fraudulently claiming benefits.34 Inclusion London provided multiple examples of links to Facebook pages dedicated to exposing benefit fraud that target disabled people.35

Box 17: Respondent to online survey

A woman who has epilepsy I am friends with was verbally abused on a bus after using her bus pass to travel with a companion into town: the woman shouted at her. “You’ve got both legs! WHY have you got a pass? [ … ] scroungers!”

Indifference

44.Even when organisations are made aware of serious problems with abuse of disabled people, they are unwilling to act. As part of the inquiry, we identified examples of abuse against disabled people, including Harvey Price. A high proportion of the abusive content we found related to football. We became increasingly concerned about the role that football fans seem to play in the online abuse of disabled people. We found people using ableist slurs, terms connected to disability as “insults” and perhaps most shockingly using the name of Ms Price’s son as an “insult” for someone’s ability as a footballer. Harvey Price is a child and a football fan. We were so concerned by the apparent links between football and the abuse of disabled people that we wrote to Kick it Out, the Professional Footballers’ Association, the Football Association, the Premier League and the English Football League to bring their attention to what we found and to ask what steps they were taking to tackle abuse of disabled people. Only one of the five organisations we wrote to with our concerns bothered to respond.36

45.It is deeply disappointing that the footballing organisations with whom we raised concerns about abusive behaviour expressed no interest in addressing the problem. Their lack of response is shameful.

46.Disabled people have told us loudly and clearly that online abuse and harassment is a result of a wider culture that is hostile to disabled people. Those we spoke to were clear that there won’t be change without tackling the attitudes that lead to online abuse and encouraging a more positive portrayal of disability and disabled people in the media. The Government must challenge beliefs and attitudes around disability and recognise that offline attitudes influence online behaviour. More than half the UK population feel awkward around disabled people and more than a quarter say they have avoided talking to someone because they were disabled. Unless these things change, disabled people will continue to feel marginalised.

47.The people we met described a “culture of fear” among disabled people who post about their daily lives and activities, due to a real risk of being falsely accused of faking their disability to gain social security benefits and threatened with being reported to the Department for Work and Pensions for fraud. We were told that disabled people who posted about political activism and campaigning for their rights under the law were particularly at risk of being reported, or threatened with being reported, to the DWP.

48.We recommend that the Government increase the representation of disabled people in its own events, publications and advertising. In particular, we recommend that the Government introduce targets to ensure that its own advertising campaigns reflect the disabled population of the UK. Disabled people are parents, partners, neighbours, friends, work colleagues, sons and daughters. We recommend that at least 19% of all images of working-age people in all Government advertising campaigns are images of disabled people. Such representation needs to reflect the diversity of disabled people and their life experiences. We recommend that the Government ask other public bodies to do the same.

49.The Government needs to act to remove the barriers that leave disabled people so marginalised that 21% of young adults would avoid talking to someone due to their disability. Young people should be coming into contact with disabled people regularly. The Government can make a difference by increasing disability awareness in schools. We recommend that the Government create a disability awareness programme co-produced with disabled people themselves to ensure that it reflects disabled people’s lives, frames them as three-dimensional human beings and does not focus on disabled people as “problems”. We recommend that building children’s understanding of disability and disabled people—and, separately, of the effects of online bullying and abuse of disabled people in particular—becomes mandatory, not optional, in schools.

Effects of online abuse

50.Despite the value that many disabled people find in social media, disabled people are less likely to use the internet than people without disabilities. Whilst not all of this is due to online abuse, an Equality and Human Rights Commission inquiry, Hidden in plain sight. Inquiry into disability-related harassment, found that when disabled people reported online abuse and harassment, the response from the police, their families and, where applicable, care and support workers is often to tell them to stay offline.37 This was reinforced during our conversations with disabled people and in written evidence.38 We have even heard of technology being removed to prevent disabled people from using the internet.39

Box 18: Dimensions, written evidence

John spent much of his spare time in the evenings on Facebook, commenting and liking photos of trucks and asking members of the group to be his friend. John loves children and would ‘like’ photos of people’s children that they posted as well as some sexually suggestive photos of young women being posted. One of the Facebook group members that he had met started making sarcastic comments about John that he did not understand and would respond innocently to questions about whether he liked young girls etc. This ‘friend’ then starting making accusations that John was a ‘weirdo’ and a ‘paedo’ and many others joined in, deliberately taunting John and enjoying the fact that he had a learning disability and didn’t fully understand what they were doing and saying to him.

John readily gave out his home address and was sent a letter telling him that they would tell police that he was a paedophile. The nightly abuse then got worse and John began to understand what was happening. He became more and more anxious about what people were saying to him and felt that all of his ‘friends’ had turned against him. His support worker and family tried to find ways for John to continue to use the internet but block the people abusing him but John was constantly drawn into having conversations with them–eventually this led to an emotional breakdown and his family took the decision that they would remove the internet so that John could not go online.

51.We were told that abuse can drive people offline. It prevents people from taking up opportunities that could improve their heath, such as work or volunteering.40 We heard that this was a particular problem for people who had suffered abuse or unnecessary investigations due to accusations of benefit fraud. It was common to hear from disabled people who had repeatedly abandoned online profiles due to abuse. One participant at our Newcastle event told us that she was on her 17th Facebook account. In written evidence, Dr Alhaboby, Institute for Health, University of Bedfordshire, told us that most people experiencing abuse had to change their email addresses and change or close social media accounts.41 In oral evidence, Anne Novis, Disability Rights Campaigner and Chair of Inclusion London, told us:

I came off LinkedIn, because on LinkedIn people get your contact details. You assume it is a professional network—I have an MBE and journalists want to contact me—but I came off it because of the nasty stuff that came my way as well. There is a way that we adjust our behaviour, because of the hostility we experience online and every day, to make ourselves safer, but that responsibility should not be just down to us; it should be down to the Government and the law.42

52.For many, repeatedly having to change contact details leads to damaged career prospects, depleted social support and greater social isolation. We heard from others, in person and online, who felt that it was too risky to reveal that they were disabled due to worries about their employment prospects and the abuse they might attract.43

53.The matter of fact way in which disabled people described being told to harm or kill themselves was notable. People who were being told to kill themselves were dismissed as not understanding “banter” or taking it too seriously. In fact, most people experiencing online abuse and harassment underestimate its seriousness. We heard from Dr Alhaboby that online abuse has a serious impact on the health of people with disabilities and long-term health conditions. People not only experienced worsening health and increased difficulties managing their conditions, but developed new conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. The stress many felt is exacerbated by “doxing”—revealing identifying information, such as full name, home address and employer’s address. Some ended up too afraid to leave their home. Participants in Dr Alhaboby’s study were clear that online harassment had “ruined their lives”.44 Participants in our consultation were keen to stress that abuse can be a life or death issue for some disabled people.45

54.Online abuse can be a life or death issue for some disabled people. Its effects are felt not only in damaged physical and mental health, but in lost career opportunities and a restricted social life. It is not acceptable to suggest that disabled people should forgo using the internet or social media when it is an integral part of their lives. It is not acceptable for the Government to pass its responsibility to others, such as social media companies. The Government’s aim to continue to push for and expand “digital by default” makes it the Government’s responsibility to ensure that disabled people can get online and stay online.46

Supporting people to stay online

55.We met many disabled people with a full and detailed understanding of the online space. However, many people—disabled or non-disabled—are not so fortunate and need assistance to stay safe online. Disabled people, and those working with or supporting disabled people, may lack the knowledge to understand how to use the internet safely. We heard that staff tasked with helping people to stay safe online often lack the understanding of disabilities necessary to communicate appropriately with disabled people and understand their needs.

Box 19: Respondent to online survey

As a disabled person who works online in moderation and community management, I would like a way to protect both myself and my communities from online abusers. There is a clear but extremely nuanced difference between a garden-variety troll and someone with malicious intent and this is something people aren’t trained to spot. It makes reporting and monitoring of genuinely dangerous people extremely difficult. It is so difficult that I make my living explaining it to people.

The government and criminal justice system needs to have trained community managers or moderators available to officers and social workers investigating this. We can’t just put the onus on the police to ALSO learn how online communities/communication work(s), nor can we expect social workers to add that to their load with no additional support. A comprehensive database and reporting procedure led by trained individuals should be available for use by these professionals, and it should be easier for online moderators/community managers to check whether or not an individual on their services is a dangerous person. This is especially true when attempting to protect our most vulnerable users.

Box 20: Respondent to online survey

For me all about security in internet is important, but some social workers [ … ] did not understand what kind of problems we have when we access [the] internet, particularly dating sites.

56.We recommend that the Government acknowledge the importance of the internet to disabled people and how disabled people are affected by abuse. We heard the enormous value that social media in particular has for disabled people. It enables them to campaign, work, learn and socialise in a way that is otherwise impossible due to the inaccessibility of the offline world and is essential because they need to fight to be heard. The evidence makes clear that online abuse has a significant effect on the health of people with long-term conditions and disabilities. Abuse is not simply “offensive” or “bad manners”. It does lasting damage to people’s lives, health and careers.

57.We recommend that the Government commit to ensuring that the internet is no more dangerous for disabled people than non-disabled people. To do that, we recommend that the Government ensure that the voices of a diverse range of disabled people are included at the heart of its discussions on online safety. Disabled people must be explicitly consulted and their views taken into account.

58.We recommend that the Government acknowledge that training and support are necessary to encourage safe online activity and recognise when things might be going wrong. The social isolation that disability can lead to can be mitigated by getting and staying online. We recommend that the Government makes guidance on staying safe online, suitable for disabled people, available through the public services that disabled people regularly use and to those who might work in environments where people seek help to go online. We recommend that all such guidance must include how to identify and manage cases of hate crime and online abuse. People also need help to recognise befriending with the intent of exploitation online (so-called “mate crime”), which we discuss in chapter 3. We recommend the Government ensure that there is nationally available information, which clearly lays out how individuals, businesses and charities should deal with suspicions of exploitation and abuse.

7 ONS, Dataset: Internet access - households and individuals

8 Summary of consultation event

9 “It’s all well and good having disabled people in your adverts, but we still can’t access your shops”, The Metro, 16 October 2018

10 “The weirdest things found in accessible toilets”, Euan’s Guide, 16 November 2018

11 “How the Spartacus welfare cuts campaign went viral”, The Guardian, 17 January 2012
“What Is Campaigning?”, Mencap local Liverpool
Claire Preston, ““Hands off our benefits!”: how participation in the comment section of the 2009 Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Care Together, contributes to understandings of online collective action”, Appendix 2: Key developments in the online response to changes to disability benefits, May 2010 to March 2012

12 Summary of consultation event

13 Summary of consultation event

14 Sue Caton and Melanie Chapman, “The Use of Social Media and People with Intellectual Disability: A Systematic Review and Thematic Analysis”, Research Institute for Health and Social Change, Manchester Metropolitan University, p 4

15 Summary of consultation event

16 Summary of consultation event

17 Summary of consultation event

18 Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2017/18, Statistical Bulletin 20/18, October 2018, p 7, p 27

19 Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, Home Office, and Ministry of Justice, Hate crime action plan 2016 to 2020, 26 July 2016

20 Q68

21 “What is online abuse? How are people abusive online?”, Stop Online Abuse

22 Dr Loretta Trickett and Nottingham Civic Exchange (ONL0007)

23 Summary of engagement events

24 Anti-Bullying Alliance (ONL0004)

25 Sense (ONL0014)

26 Scope, “Current attitudes towards disabled people”, 8 May 2014

27 Q6

28 Department for Work and Pensions, “Family Resources Survey: financial year 2016/17”, 22 March 2018

29 Summary of consultation events
“River Island dials up diversity in fresh ‘Labels are for clothes’ push”, Campaign Live, 17 September 2018

30 Department for Transport, “Inclusive Transport Strategy”, 25 July 2018, updated 18 October 2018

31 Inclusion London (ONL0005)

32 Summary of consultation events and London informal evidence event

33 Summary of consultation events and London informal evidence event

34 Summary of consultation events and London informal evidence event

35 Inclusion London (ONL0005)

36 Correspondence with footballing organisations.

37 Equality and Human Rights Commission, “Hidden in plain sight Inquiry into disability-related harassment”, August 2011

38 Dimensions (ONL0001)
Dimensions (ONL0015)
Summary of consultation events

39 Summary of online engagement

40 Summary of consultation events and informal London event

41 Dr Zhraa A. Alhaboby (ONL0003)

42 Q37

43 Summary of online engagement and consultation events

44 Dr Zhraa A. Alhaboby (ONL0003)

45 Summary of consultation events

46 Written Ministerial Statement, HCWS469 [on The Government Transformation Strategy 2017–2020], 09 February 2017



Published: 22 January 2019