Love Island presenter Laura Whitmore has urged her Instagram followers to sign Katie Price ’s Track A Troll petition.
The ITV host’s social media plea comes after England players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka received racial abuse online after missing penalties during the Euro 2020 final on Sunday.
Promoting Katie’s petition, the Irish presenter, 35, told her 1.4 million Instagram followers: “The fact that anyone can say anything online without any accountability has never been right.
“We all have platforms no matter how many followers or who you are, use it to make the world that little bit better.”
The petition has so far attracted nearly 629,000 signatures.
Former glamour model, Katie first set up the petition in March after her son Harvey, who was born with a number of conditions including septo-optic dysplasia, Prader-Willi syndrome, and autism, faced abuse online.
The petition asks for a new law to require anyone opening a new social media account to provide a verified form of identification - with under 18s requiring the ID of their parent or guardian before signing up.
In the petition details, Katie claims the Government’s Online Safety Bill "doesn’t go far enough in making online abuse a specific criminal offence".
The Bill will put a new legal duty of care on online companies to protect their UK users from harm, including people receiving abusive comments, threats and harassment online.
A Government response to the petition on May 5 said legislation would “address anonymous harmful activity”.
“User ID verification for social media could disproportionately impact vulnerable users and interfere with freedom of expression.”
Speaking about the campaign earlier this year, Katie said that she hoped that by lifting the opportunity for people to hide anonymously online it will make it easier to track those posting abusive messages and bring them justice.
In light of the abuse the England players faced, Katie reshared her petition to her Instagram Story on Monday, tagging Rio Ferdinand and the England football team’s official Instagram account.
Now less than 24 hours after sharing the link, the former Loose Women panelist revealed that the petition has over half a million signatures.
Earlier today, Katie shared a grab of the petition, which showed that 526, 668 people had signed it, and wrote: “Wow!! This is incredible! Over half a million of you have now signed my petition! Thank you! Thank you! #trackatroll”.
The renewed support in Katie’s petition comes after a flood of famous faces took to social media on Monday to share their support for England players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, who were targeted by vile racist abuse.
The trio have been subjected to sickening messages from some football fans due to missing their penalties during Sunday's Euro 2020 final against Italy.
Other black and mixed-race sportsmen in the team have also been targeted online following the tournament loss - which has not gone unnoticed by famous faces.
Proving that the nasty trolls - who have been flooding the players' timelines with disgusting racial slurs - will not be tolerated, big names have encouraged others to stand up to the racists and to report the abuse on social media platforms in order to protect the sporting heroes.
In the wake of the result, the Metropolitan Police confirmed they are investigating "totally unacceptable" social media activity targeting England players.
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