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Internet and Video Games

I completely share the hon. Gentleman’s views. Sometimes, one gets too old for the changing values of society, and I am afraid to say that I think I am at that point. Many of these videos have been made by reusing the photographs lifted from the social networking sites, interspersed with pictures of people hanging themselves and executions in Iran. Oddly enough, they have also been interspersed with pleasant pictures. The most alarming aspect is what that tells us about the use of people’s images and the lack of a family’s capacity to control the use of photographs of their dead family members. The Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale), referred to cyberbullying. I consider this to be cyberbullying. I consider those comments to constitute cyberbullying and I also consider the refusal to take down images that cause huge distress to families and their friends to be cyberbullying. This week, I was sent an online game to look at. The online game is called Billy Suicide. Players of the game are encouraged to stop Billy shooting himself in the head. They are encouraged to keep Billy active—to move him around the room or get him to play his guitar—and to monitor his depression, get him a cup of coffee and do things to stop him taking his life. When people playing the game do not do that, he shoots himself in the head. Someone has said to me, ““Well, it’s just the same as the tamagotchi games.”” In those games, if someone does not look after their pet, it gets fleas and dies. What sort of society do we want? What sort of society are we promulgating? I would welcome the censorship of that online game. We must set limits and boundaries when we bring up our children. As a society, we set limits and boundaries on individual behaviour. We must start setting limits and boundaries in the online world and in cyberspace. If we do not, we will give our youngsters access to information and standards that, in fact, destroy the limits and values we set in the real world. As we know, sometimes our young people spend more time interacting in the online, unreal world than they do in the real world. I am worried about the role that these sites play in relation to social contagion, which is where access to information about suicide—the normalisation of suicide and its social acceptability—makes it more likely that others will seek to take their own lives. We must take responsibility for the distress to the families and friends I have mentioned. We must also take responsibility for prolonging the grief of those families and friends, because that adds to the risk that a member of that family will take their own life. The Press Complaints Commission is making progress on the matter, but I agree that an industry body is needed. It is imperative that we have an 0800 number that someone can ring to get a site taken down quickly. That is something I hope will come out of Lord Carter’s review. My constituent had been trying to get a site taken down for two months before she came to me—two months with no action. We cannot allow such behaviour to continue. It is too complex to track down the person in these agencies who will allow change to happen. The public need to be able to send through their comments quickly. I have highlighted the impact of the industry on just one small community in one small area. That impact has been devastating and has blighted the lives of many people. I am so grateful that the Committee has taken the opportunity to make these recommendations, and I hope that steps will be taken across Government to improve a totally unacceptable unregulated state of affairs.