Steps star Ian ‘H’ Watkins slams social media websites for not taking enough action to eliminate trolls

Posted By: Fubar Radio On:


Steps star Ian ‘H’ Watkins slammed social media websites for not doing enough to stop “the trolls and the bigots”, arguing for the introduction of ID verification when creating an account.

Speaking to Bobby Norris (TOWIE) on Access All Areas, the singer explained that his time on ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ “was a very different beast” to reality TV shows now: “there were no social media, there was no Twitter, there was no Instagram, you weren’t as accessible as a person. So, what you saw was what you get”.

Watkins appeared on the twelfth series of ‘Dancing On Ice’ in 2020, making history as the first celebrity to compete within a same sex couple, with professional partner Matt Evers. While on the show, OFCOM received several complaints about the pairing: “The positive completely outweighed the negative but some people took time out of their day to actually complain to OFCOM that they had seen two men holding hands [on] ‘Dancing on Ice’”He joked, “we were hardly snogging, I mean, we were holding hands. If I wanted to snog him, I would have!”.

Comparing his experience on the two reality competitions, the 45-year-old pushed for social media websites to do more to tackle online hate: “These days a massive part of it is the trolls and the bigots, that can just say anything they want to without being verified, just by opening an account”.

He continued, “I think you actually should have ID verification to open a social media account because it’s just absolutely not on. There should be filters on websites; a filter if you’re saying anything derogatory, if you’re a bigot in any way, if you’re giving false information. There are so many filters that they can put on these websites, but they don’t”.

Watkins support for ID verification follows Bobby Norris’ campaigns to make online homophobia a criminal offence with ‘Bobby’s Bill’, with The Only Way Is Essex star appearing in Parliament to encourage MPs to take action.

Having split up with his boyfriend Tom Hope over ‘commitment issues’ earlier this year, saying that he was struggling to juggle the relationship with his work and family life, ‘H’ also admitted that hhasn’t been dating during the pandemic: “I haven’t had a Zoom date, no. Because I’m a single parent, that’s the last thing on my list – when I put my kids to bed my date is a gin and tonic”. Watkins welcomed twin sons, born via a surrogate, with his ex-partner Craig Ryder in 2016.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by FUBAR Radio (@fubarradio)

Listen to the full episode of Access All Areas, also featuring Robert Van Tromp and Kelsey Parker here 


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

ABOUT US
X