On the evening of 11 July 2021, tens of millions of people throughout England were momentarily united in pursuit of a common goal: victory for the national football team in the Uefa Euro 2020 final. In a country whose population has so often been deeply divided in recent years, that night and the days leading up to it felt increasingly hopeful.
This sense of optimistic fellowship turned out to be fleeting in the end. Italy beat England on penalties – and the mood quickly turned. The three English players who missed their penalties, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, also happened to be Black. They were subjected to such intense racist invective on social media that the prime minister felt obliged to publicly condemn their mistreatment.
This highlighted a problem that Boris Johnson and his cabinet are under increasing pressure to address: online abuse and how to protect people from it. The government has made significant commitments to tackling the issue, particularly with the Online Harms white paper, published in April 2019, and the draft online safety bill (OSB) that emerged from it in May 2021.