 I was going to say good afternoon but it feels like good evening with the darkness outside. My name is Christine Grahame, MSP and as deputy Presiding Officer I am delighted to welcome you to the Scottish Parliament and to the 12th annual St Andrew's Day debate. Today's chamber debate and the wider competition that preceded it have been organised by the English speaking union with support from the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. I would like to express my thanks to those involved from all those organisations for their hard-working efforts that culminate in this event. I see some very anxious people just settled down a little right, calm down, take it easy. Today you are in a debating chamber that usually serves as a place where devolved legislation is enacted and policy matters are debated. As you can imagine, our chamber sees great diversity when it comes to debates. Some good speeches, some bad speeches, some speeches. I know yours will all be good. As I've chaired many such debates, I'm always very impressed with the extremely high standard of debating demonstrated in this competition and who knows, maybe you heard some future MSPs and ministers amongst you today but not yet, I'm not retiring. This year we're also celebrating the year of young people and this event certainly showcases a wide breadth of talent amongst our young debaters. I know first hand the skills and the knowledge that can be derived from debating. A wide range of subjects can be extremely rewarding and beneficial across many areas of life. As a former teacher and indeed as a former court solicitor, it's great for me to see so many schools and universities participate and gain debating skills. Barrack Obama once said, when students participate in debate, they learn to study issues in depth and from perspectives, a skill that I use every day in the senate. Today, as we look outside and I can see the cold and deep weather has started already, however in here it's a lot brighter as you can see on the chamber floor as it's been given over to you young debaters. St Andrew's day events marked the start of Scotland's winter festivals of course. The celebrations aren't just taking place here in Scotland but all over the world. People with Scottish heritage and people who are just Scots at heart celebrate St Andrew's day, which is on the 30th and the rest of this week, and it's all the best about this country. I do like the idea that on most cold and dark winter months we have things brightened up by these events, but the values of compassion and solidarity to the story of St Andrew are central. They are also a big part of Scotland's national identity. In that spirit, I wish our finalists the very best of luck and good luck to everyone else taking part in the open dates that we will come to later. Enjoy yourselves, and I look forward to enjoying this afternoon's debate and your visit to the Scottish Parliament. Before I introduce the four finalists, I would like to introduce the judges, chairing the judging panel will be Cameron Wiley. I want to stand up, Mr Wiley, so that they can name you and shame you. Cameron Wiley, former principal George Herrie at school. Cameron is now a freelance journalist and writer. He was a Scottish schools debating coach in the 1990s, and his extensive experience of judging school and university debating at international level is also a trustee of the English-speaking Union Scotland. I keep in with him. Give him a round of applause. Next, we have Victoria Groom. She is standing at Ms Groom, so people will see her there. She was a schools debater for Mern's Castle, where she achieved considerable success winning the ESU junior debating competition and later reaching the final of the base competition. Ms Groom. We also have Jordan Fortinhower. I hope that I said that correctly. The speech and debates officer at the English-speaking Union Scotland. Before taking up his post, Jordan was heavily involved in the South African debating circuit, speaking and judging for the University of Cape Town. He was broken as a judge at the world universities debating competition, reaching the final of the South African national university debating competition and coached the South Africans national schools team. That is Mr Fortinhower. Also on the judging panel, there is Naveena Centelkumar, who kindly ran the tab for this year's tournament. She is a student at the University of Edinburgh and has tab countless tournaments, including Edinburgh Women's, Edinburgh's juniors, the Strathclyde President's Cup and the Scottish Maze. The St Andrew's Day debate encourages pupils to join the judging panel for all the debates held throughout this event. I am delighted to welcome Adam Mellis, who is from George Watson's College, as the last member of our judging panel. I will come to the person on the end later, because she is a big secret. You are wondering why I have not introduced her. I would like to congratulate and introduce the four teams that I have made it to the final. The first team are Helena Cassell from St George's School for Girls and Cassenia Cappellu from High School of Dundee, which we know as Dundee St George's. Could you just make yourselves known, please? We are. Next, we have Freddie Dillapp from Merckysen Castle and Michael Dunn from Beersden Academy, who will be known as Merckysen Beersden. Where are you? Oh, there you go. We are. Well done. We also have Sophia Alvie from High School of Glasgow and Pragna Chalapallee from Hutchison's Grammar, and we will be known as Hutchison's—well, they are called Hisog, but I think that that will cause a call. That is easier for me. Please stand up. There we are. Well done. Finally, we have Alec Fish from High School of Dundee and Fraser MacDonald from Perth High School, who will be known as Dundee Perth. Before we begin, I would like to outline the format of the debate. I will call on the first proposition to speak. They have five minutes. I will then call on the first opposition speaker to speak. They also have five minutes. This is repeated for each speaker. Everybody got that? I am looking at about one hand. I am looking at that written down. During these eight speeches, I will verbally announce when your first minute is up. That will indicate that points of information are now permitted—that is from other people. I will also verbally indicate when you have entered your last minute in which no more points of information will be allowed. When your five minutes are up, I will ask you to wind up. If you continue further, I will ask again for you to wind up after 30 seconds. If you do not do that, I will press my ejector button and you shoot up through the roof. That is just to let you know. I have not used it yet and I am ready to practice. As you may know, I am tasked with keeping the members of the Scottish Parliament to time when speaking in the chamber, and I know that the debate will follow in a similar fashion. Please do use the clocks around the chamber for reference, as they will be timing you, and I would ask all speakers to present from your current position. After the final speech through the opposition, I will ask the judges to retire to make their decision. At this point, I will open the debate up before 30 minutes. I hope that everyone who is possible will participate in the floor debate—that is for others—and there will be an award for the best contribution from the floor. The motion to do today's final, which I chose, is that this house would ban anonymity on line. Tricky one. Tricky. Now on to the final, and I wish you all the best of luck. I would like to call the first speaker from Dundee, St George's, to open the debate as the first proposition speaker. First proposition speaker, please. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in today's world today, we have provided criminals with the perfect mask for all their crimes. Who are these criminals? Nobody knows. However, what we do know is what this mask is—the internet and online anonymity. That is why today, we on-site proposition have aimed to show you why we need to ban it and how we would do so. First, I would like to define what we see online anonymity as. We see it as the conduction of any online operation where you are assuming an identity on a public forum, including the dark web, and we are setting this in western countries as we see that in many illiberal countries it is hardly anonymous, because since Governments contract IP addresses, this is for either public identification. We would do this in the same way that banking is done and therefore using a fake name would be deemed identity fraud. Now on to my main case today, which is the online bullying and how this motion can help prevent it and make it weaker. Online bullying is a massive issue. That is true. We accept that as fact. That happens because using fake names online is used as a method of masking your guilt. You say things you would not say face-to-face as you do not necessarily know who the person is and even if you do, there is the divide of being online and the separation of your online life from your real life. This motion faces us by creating a human identity point every user and it makes it easier to identify both the user, bully and the victim. This help helps both the bully and the victim as it allows the victim to be more easily supported and it also makes it easier to figure out the kind of bully's issues and work through them with them and therefore make them happier and less likely to commit these crimes as well, which we see as beneficial. It also acts as a deterrent because when you bully someone, if you know you are going to be caught, you can be traced back to you and you are more likely to think twice and we believe in a society where people are more cautious of their actions and act for the benefit of society rather than themselves. The harms of online bullying is massive but one of the most important that we see is the impact that it can have on mental health, both of the victim and the bully. The bully's mental health will increase and they will feel worse about themselves because of the harm that they call to other people, even though they may be using it as a coping method to work through their own issues, but under this motion we see that it is easier to give them the help that they need. We also find that online bullying can worsen victim's mental health under the status quo as it allows them to not necessarily know exactly who is targeting them and instead it feels like a massive online presence who are not actually necessarily named or you can't give a face to are doing this to you and we believe that by giving a human identity point every user this stops this, but also in most extreme cases this anonymity and this worsening mental health can lead to horrible issues such as suicide in extreme cases and we believe that this is horrible and needs to be fixed, yes please. If people are still bullied in real-life face-to-face, why do you think making them not anonymous online would stop bullies? Then Decent George's. We believe that online bullying is the worst form of bullying as currently, it's anonymous and you don't know necessarily who's doing it, because of the real-life face-to-face bullying there's the kind of you see the person, you see how you're impacting them and there's also the fact that people around you can or are more likely to not once again involved or not more likely not want to put extra pressure on you as an individual and make this kind of bullying even worse and we believe that even in real-life bullying we believe which is bad, we believe that it's easier for people to intervene and help at both parties whereas online with anonymity we believe that that is harsh, hard enough to do it's possible. We believe that the people who are impacted by online bullying in the extreme case where it can lead to suicide could change the world and we cannot fail these young people and that is why we need to cut this at the root and stop this problem from occurring and we see that this only happens at our side of the house and therefore it is important that we ban anonymity online. Further, we see that the role of the Government is to protect its citizens from harms and to provide them security and even if they're public figures because online bullying can easily turn into online harassment of public figures and we believe that by banning online anonymity it makes it hard for people to create fake accounts and bot accounts to harass certain individuals and we believe that that kind of leads to them having less pressure on them put by society as they're already in horribly pressureful situations which are negatively, which are detrimental to them even though they're public figures and if we see on the side of the house that we can do something to help these people as the Government and if we can do something why shouldn't we? When people's lives are on the line, when people's happiness is on the line, we need to take action and regulating online use is both a we see is kind of like currently impossible is an impossible solution as you can't fully regulate anything online and it's not enough. You must conclude. Online we are always being watched and regulated by others and it has not done anything so far. We need to do something to stop this and that is why we need to ban online anonymity. Thank you very much. It's tough being the first speaker. Round of applause. When you're standing to do a point of information if it's obvious the speaker's not taking it please sit down that time indicating if the speaker does take it. We'll do what we do in Parliament which is the person making the point of invasions on their feet but the speaker sits down so we wouldn't have two people on their feet at the same time. I now call the first speaker to respond as the first opposition speaker. I stand for you today as a voice of neutrality in a debate that chooses to force people to pick their sides in today's political atmosphere. I will be analysing the overarching theme for this motion, focusing more on how it goes against our basic constitutional freedoms and how the failures of ban culture fail to address the current issues of the time while my partner will be drilling further down into the minutiae of this argument analysing smaller cases otherwise it smiles at the impact on the people who use the internet. But first I shall indulge in some much-needed rebuttal. Now the previous speaker has said many times that we need to address the people behind these attacks that these are the people who are using this anonymity and that they are the ones that are protected under it. But we on the opposition see this as a fatal misunderstanding. These are not the only people protected by online anonymity. There are plenty of perfectly innocent users who use this anonymity in order to feel more comfortable as we partner will drill into further. Not only this but journalism for example is largely based upon talking to people who will often wish to take their anonymity intact. These are people who this motion would choose to reveal and therefore lose their protections, exposing them to many harmful aspects of society. No thank you. Now to move on to my substantive case. The basic issue with this motion is very simple. It is not constitutionally correct to allow people to take away people's basic right to choose what they say online. Whether they choose to disclose their identity is entirely up to them. There are people who use this badly and we are of course recommending further address for these issues. What happens in today's culture is truly abysmal and we need to address these issues further. But an outright ban not only hurts these trolls, it also helps them. It helps them to target the people who they want to fight and it gives them no escape. It gives them no protection and it gives them no comfort. Not only this but that was an important thing to understand about today's internet and that's that you're not always talking to a real person. No thank you. Today's internet culture is largely based in its main issues are we see as political radicalisation. When people see their point of view suppressed and people will begin to see this, if this motion is brought into force because people feel they're not properly represented online, then those people will feel that their freedom is being limited and they will be further radicalised. They will be pushed towards groups which appear sympathetic and it is these groups which are the true detriment of our society. Not only this but day to day your own internet usage whether or not you know it is ultimately designed in order to further polarise politics. It has been proven and disclosed that current advertising algorithms for example will lead their users down a more political habit hole. If you watch a right wing video it will present you with some more extreme content. These are the issues we need to face today and they are not people that can be quickly unmasked. Those are things that have been placed out into the world and have no true identity. Those are things that you need to address at their own level, not on the level of people. It exists on both sides of the debate hence your point does not stand. We understand that the major issue that the proposition is tempting to state is in fact misinterpretage. We do not see the two things as mutually existing. We see the main issue with current politics being these bots and in fact the main people who are doing these side building ultimately have no identity that one can find. Therefore why introduce a ban that limits people's personal freedoms that will ultimately cause these people to suffer as my partner Michael will go into later when really you are not even addressing the fine points in the issue. This is a fatal misunderstanding of today's culture and it is one that could really lead to terrible things in politics. This brings me on to my final point, namely the theme of disillusionment. When you take away people's constitutional freedoms, when you tell them that, for example, comments that they make online will now be disclosed to people, they feel like they are being attacked for those comments. Let's face it, this motion ultimately will recommend those people. People may not understand the effect they have and it is these people whom we need to talk to, not outright ban or remove all anonymity from. These people will have fundamental misunderstandings of these things and if they feel that they are not being properly represented then it will only get worse. They will be pushed further down these extremist routes, further towards further extremist organisations and ultimately it will lead to the kind of political situation where it has led to so many of the issues in today's society. Thank you for listening and I urge you to oppose the motion. Thank you very much. Thank you. I now can now call on the second proposition, speaker from Dundee St George's, to give us their views please. Thank you. Imagine a world in which criminals have an impenetrable mask. You can't see them, you don't know who they are. They can organise crime, they can go out and hurt people, the police can't catch them because they can't see them, they don't know who they are. This world is called the internet under the status quo. What we need to do and what we do on our side is to unmask these criminals to help the victims and to also prevent crime from happening in the first place. My one main point today will be how this motion is going to be stopping the dark web and stopping organised crime, which is going to benefit victims, but before I go on to that I'm going to go on to some rebuttal. We heard from our opposition speaker about how we're not focusing on the right issues, but we should be focusing on extremist politics. We can do that on our side of the house. In fact, we do that better on our side of the house because we know the people who are spreading these rumours and who are posting these videos because we can act culturally harsh and we do that better on our side of the house anyway. We also heard about how this actually limits freedoms of speech. No, thank you. We feel like we can still express ourselves. You can still state your opinion. You're just heard and you can only state opinion that doesn't hurt people. We think that this is a good thing. Even at their best, even if we accept it, it does slightly infiltrate our point of freedom speech. We already do this same thing. We already limit your freedom speech so you don't get harmed by hate speech. This is just going to be a similar thing. No, thank you. Now on to my main case about how this motion is going to stop the dark web and it's going to be stopping more organised crime. Why is this true? Currently, criminals are able to mass their identity online. Nobody knows who they are. They have an incentive to start crime in the first place because they can very easily get away with it. No, thank you. This also leads to the dark web. What is the dark web? It's a place in the internet where there's lots of crimes, for example drugs and things like that. People are getting away with it because we don't know who they are. It's completely unacceptable, right? So how do we actually stop this under our side of the house? Police can find it easier to track these criminals. How? Because they know the name of them, they can find it easier. In your local area, if you know that person, you can talk to them. People can actually report these criminals. For example, if you know someone who's a criminal, you can report it easier because you know who they are. We get more crime reporting, we get more police dealing with these crimes. If these are criminals who are exploiting San Limity, who's to say that they will disclose their true identity? Surely they're not going to be afraid of identity going on. Dundee's and George's. We feel like it's going to be a lot less. As we progress, as my partner said, we're going to find it easier to track anonymous sources. We still get that under a far less extent on our side of the house because it's actually a legal lamb. Okay, so continuing on to my case. There's also like deterred criminals from starting in the first place. For example, if you're named, you're also shamed if you do a crime. You're scared to start in the first place because you know what you're going to get called easier, right? It's going to be solving the dark web and other things like, and no thank you for happening in the first place because people around you know who you are. You know people who know who you are and can identify you much, much easier. We actually get more tracking of online crime and we actually see a large decrease in the dark web. So what are the harms of the dark web? Why do we actually want to stop this in the first place? We feel like a major group in this debate is the victims of organised crime. For example, international terrorism or international drug sales and things like that. These are people who are impacted by the dark web and people who are impacted by criminals who are able to organise themselves online and who we give an anonymous account to. We also help future victims under our side of the house. People who haven't been victims of organised online crime yet, but who will be because we saw more crime from happening in the first place under our side of the house. Why is this important? It's ultimately the Government's job to protect people from harm. It's the Government's job to protect someone from harting someone else. As my partner said, we stop them from harting their feelings for online bullying and harting their mental health. We're also stopping people from protecting them from crime. We're protecting them from online and the dark web and organised crime, which can happen way easier under status quo and which we stop under this motion. Because we have less crime in our side of the house, we think this is an incredibly impactful point because it's a Government's job to help these victims. Let's just weigh up the debate so far. Let's just weigh up what we've heard from the opposition. The impacts are really hard from the opposition. It's limiting freedom of speech and not tackling political extremism. I've already just proved those points, but even if we take them at their best, we still get the impacts that we've brought to them. We think that they are far more important because we've brought to them the impact of less people being harmed by online crime. My partner told me why this is the most important point in the debate, because I've actually harting people's mental health and it's the Government's job to stop this from happening. We can't just regulate it. We need to ban it. And also, less people are harmed by crime, which is an incredible point as well. So it's because we unmask the criminals. We don't let them get away with it. I'm very proud to propose today. You must conclude now. I'm very proud to propose. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much. Can I now ask the second opposition speaker from Merckston Beersden to speak, please? Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. It's my pleasure to continue the debate for a side opposition. You heard my partner, Freddie, speak on freedom of speech, constitutional rights. I'm trying to bring things more personal to you this evening, but I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this by... I'm going to provide some anecdotal evidence as to why freedom of speech is so important to the public, but first I would like to engage in some rewattl. So it was first said by the opening proposition that online separation due to anonymity is what causes bullying. In fact, anonymous or not, cyberbullying still occurs. And don't get me wrong, we condemn you for your efforts, but this wouldn't actually tackle the issue of cyberbullying. Anonymity is only a very small part of a very large battle. You then went on to talk about how it's very hard to police this and what happens. Basically, I ask you this. What happens if you just know the name? The second proposition, you mentioned, and you said it yourself that policing the internet is a very, very hard thing to do. How can you properly police the internet? If the only information that you're suggesting that we have of them is their name, ladies and gentlemen, this evening, when we're in preparation for this, I searched my name up on Facebook. There's 42 Michael Duns on Facebook. You have the information that Michael Dunn committed a crime of cyberbullying. Fantastic. You've now got one of 42 to search down. I don't think that's very practical, ladies and gentlemen. Now on to my substantive case. Ladies and gentlemen, I've just started telling you that really, whilst the method behind this is correct, it doesn't achieve much at all. How are they to know that the person behind the screen is actually the name that they're using online at all? So are people really expected in today's society to hand over their passports, hand over ID cards to Facebook, to large corporations just so that we can ensure that we have all the correct data and order to correctly police the internet? Well, ladies and gentlemen, there's already all kinds of problems in today's society with sharing information and too much information with large corporations. I feel that people can hide behind these fake names and these aliases to hide their identity further. The lengths that we would have to go to follow side propositions motion, it's too far. It's not an effective use. I then carried on in my rebuttal. The anonymity doesn't appear to be the only factor that reduces online nastiness and that is the sole root cause of cyberbullying. Ladies and gentlemen, the cause of cyberbullying, in my opinion, is the separation. You are not face-to-face. There is no direct contact with the person. Yes, okay? Yes. Don't you agree that by removing this anonymity you were creating a human identity behind each user and therefore you were decreasing the separation between online life and real life? Excellent. I do understand the point that you are making, but, as I identified, you are suggesting that all we have is a name and names in relative terms when this 42 Michael Duns out there are relatively meaningless, so I don't feel that that actually does tackle the issue properly. What I was saying was that stripping people of their anonymity wouldn't solve the issue that bullying is arising on the internet. It perhaps would allow you the peace of mind that someone out there and you would have their name, but the police, without their address, without this location, they can't actually go and they can't arrest them in real life. Can they arrest them online? What would that look like, ladies and gentlemen? I ask you that. No, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to ask you this. What about, say, the gay person from a deeply religious background? They are using their anonymity as a lifeline. We can't strip this lifeline away from them. We don't understand the consequences that this could have on a person's life if they are using their anonymity as a force for good online in order to engage with others to get support, help that they need. You can't just have a blanket ban and remove all anonymity. The consequences that it could have on this person's life, this person's way of life and the way that they go about it, are huge. We are talking here. A religious community could lead to their families, ladies and gentlemen. That is also used to encourage people to express themselves. You can be you when you are online, ladies and gentlemen. It enhances creativity and it provides people an opportunity to share perhaps a self that they are not comfortable with, not comfortable sharing with an employer, with people that they work with, that people can find so easily perhaps in the real world. Anonymity is letting them be them and this is irreplaceable for their mental health. It's like people use a diary in order to express themselves and that this diary lets them release their feelings, release their emotions and this is essential. This venting of feelings is so vital for a person's wellbeing, ladies and gentlemen. I just like to conclude by saying this, ladies and gentlemen. Anonymity is a lifeline, a method of freedom of expression that protects not only those who are in need but those who are the most vulnerable in today's society through mental health issues. Ladies and gentlemen, we on the Opposition can't stress enough the benefits that this anonymity is providing to society today and I beg you please oppose this motion. Thank you. I want to thank both teams now. Can I ask the first speaker from Hutchison and High School Glasgow to open a case for the closing proposition team, please? Thank you very much. Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, esteemed chairs, fellow debaters. Today, we here on team proposition are truly fighting for those who are victims of the incredibly detrimental impact that online bullying and online crime and fraud can have on those who use it. The internet has become a major part of society and millions if not billions of people around the world use it. However, the ones who initially invented it, the pioneers of this incredible tool, this outlet for information, this outlet for incredible communication could not have possibly dreamed of the resulting negative, negativity that has essentially come from it. It has been exploited by those in society who use it for organised online crime, especially on the dark web. They use it to sell illegal things that infiltrate our communities and organise crime missions that end up being incredibly difficult for police to decipher at the moment. Those things are being essentially done through those who are committing those crimes and being anonymous online. Although team proposition has outlined the fact that there are 40 different options for those who might be committing those crimes, those who are anonymous, however, the person's name is not just something that you search up, it is something that the incredible technology that Google and Facebook and all those things have is the incredible technology that they have, algorithms beyond our comprehension that allow them to track down those people who are committing those crimes. They can even track down your location, your address from which you are committing those crimes. Because of the detrimental impacts that are having on our society, we cannot allow them to continue. For the years that Google and the internet have been so impactful and powerful in essentially aiding this crime to occur, it has not been regulated in any way, it has been essentially let to rain. These days, the law has been incredibly good at trying to combat crime. We do accept that law enforcement has begun to take a toll online, however, the incredibly rapid rate at which the internet and those ways of communication are developing are not being combated at the same rate that the law should be combating them in the same way. Yes, please. Why is a mafia boss who really wants money suddenly going to be deterred at the point at which he might have his name seen online? Hutchison's High School? Yes. Obviously, those huge mafia lords have other ways of protecting their identities, protecting their locations and they have so much power otherwise. However, the organised crime groups that the police are not able to get through and who are much more able to commit those crimes due to the anonymous aspect of online communication are the people who will remain essentially under wraps and totally undetectable as long as we have this ability to disguise ourselves and to essentially mask who one is. In today's day and age, people are actually able to face-to-face see who is committing crimes. There is a very much more of a personal kind of aspect of committing a crime one-to-one. This fact that these people have been dehumanised, they have been masked, they are totally undetectable and for the police to now have this ability to track them can prevent so much horrific crime that is occurring. As my previous speakers have already mentioned, bullying is an incredibly horrific thing. It is impacting so many millions of youths online around the globe. That is why it is a major influence of skyrocketing mental health issues in the UK. As I said, there is currently no regulation online for trying to track down these people. As we have mentioned, the aspect of a human being there—this is what they have missed throughout the whole of the bench on the other team opposition—is the idea that the reason people do not believe when there is a name there is because that screen, the barrier has been taken away of it becoming more human, becoming more personalised instead of this detached thing, this detached person that you are insulting just for the sake of it. Lastly, I would like to say this idea of human rights. Although we would like to clearly acknowledge that human rights are incredibly essential for our population, for our society, we do think that this debate is a matter of should we prioritise the rights of humans, the rights of freedom of speech, or should we prioritise the people who are actually being harmed by these disgusting things that are happening online. Those people are continuing to have this outlet for crime, for bullying, for fraud. In a sense, we have to sacrifice certain aspects of human rights if we want to stop these from happening. Someone on the other side mentioned the aspect of passports, and that means to conclude. For people to be able to benefit from the incredible things that the internet has to offer, we have to pay a price. That is sacrifice in that element of anonymity, and that is why I believe that we should propose this motion. I have been much more generous with you than I am with the MSPs, let me tell you. Well done. It is a shame that you take a point of information, you do not get extra time. I usually give extra time, but that is not the rules here. I would like to call the first speaker from Dundee Perth to open the case for the closing opposition team, please. Ladies and gentlemen, when I log on to 4chan as Fissionator 76 and vent about how people in full-time education cannot use free public transport, those radical views are contained. They are contained in a safe space. At the point at which my safe space has been invaded, I am going to get mad, I am going to push it to more extreme methods. Today, in my speech, I am going to be focusing on one main substantive point about how, at the point at which the alt-right safe spaces are invaded, they are going to move towards violent and extreme measures. Before I go into that, I want to take on some rebuttal of what we have just heard. We heard up and down the table about this bullying point and how online bullying is really a horrible thing. We agree with that analysis. However, the first thing that we say, the thing about bullying is that it is usually a power dynamic. People usually know, and the majority of bullying cases online are done from people like peers in school or people that you know. That is because they have such a power that the victims do not want to reveal their names in general. They already have their names out there. They do not want to report them because of the power dynamic behind them. Secondly, at the point at which the first speaker openly says that we cannot regulate the internet, we do not see how this motion is now going to suddenly regulate the internet, we think that there are still going to be people who find an honest way to do it. Also, on the criminality point, which has been the second speaker and the third speaker, no thank you, when the third speaker openly conceded that people will find ways to still be anonymous to my mafia POI, we think that that is an open concession as to people being able to hide their criminality activity even under this motion. No, thank you. Let's take them at their best and say that somehow mafia bosses and terrorists are not going to be able to do this. If I am a terrorist and I want sharia law in the west, I am not going to suddenly be deterred at the point at which my name might be seen by the police. I am going to look for more extreme methods. I am probably going to want to meet face-to-face with other people that agree with me, or I am going to find other ways to try and participate awful attacks on the west. After that, on to my main point. People who voice opinions online create a little safe space for them. There are two main articles of clarification here. The reason why they put it online is because there are relatively little real-world consequences, at the point at which I post on 4chan, but somebody is not going to write a massive headline about me and it is going to not get in the mainstream news. Secondly, we think that those views are put into a group of people that agree with me and that I am going to be seen and heard behind anamominty asks. People are anonymously masked. People are going to agree with my views and that is going to be something that I agree with. Under the status quo, we already see that the internet is very much divided. There is a lot of unpopular opinions. There is a lot of alt-right being stoked. What has this led to? We already see a minority of a right-wing extremists have already turned to violent protests like Charlottesville, as an example. We also see the BNP in north-west London, despite their membership decreasing. The internet is stoking this type of hate. At the point at which that individual's safe space is now invaded, they are going to feel very much attacked by Liberals and by the Government in general. Note, ladies and gentlemen, that that is the narrative that they feed into all the time, that they are constantly talking about the Government coming in and invading their safe space and taking away their voice. What am I going to do as an alt-right person at the point at which my narrative has now just come true? I feel like I cannot have my anonymity online. We are still going to have three main impacts on this. We are probably going to take to the streets. At best, it is going to be like protests about really unpopular opinions like misogyny, like casual racism. That is probably not going to be good, but we are also going to have a certain level of violence. We already see in the minority and under the status quo that we already have that amount of violence. It will only increase, as I will go on to say in my reasons as to why this happened. Secondly, I will take you in a moment. Secondly, we see that the violence is probably going to get into the mainstream more. That is going to legitimise the views. We are not stopping freedom of expression. You can still express yourself under our side of the house. We are just revealing your name, so you do not express views that are going to hurt others. I will get on to that speech. Finally, the third point that I am going to get is that the point at which someone has their safe space invaded is that they are going to want to get revenge on the people that they see as doing it. They are now going to use this new non-anonymous clause to find liberal campaigners and deliberately dox them or swot them in a way to try to delegitimize them and put them in a small space. Why is this going to happen? We think that there are three main reasons. First of all, at the point at which my only outlet—if I am someone with a neck beer who knows how to run a computer—is going into my basement and typing really unpopular opinions. When that final space is being invaded, I am going to want to get that back. I am going to be very furious at the point at which my only outlet for my unpopular opinions is now being taken away. Secondly, the narrative of the Government has constantly been that we do not like the alt-right, we need to find a way to stop them. At the point at which the Government is now finding a way to do that, they are not going to find it happy. They are going to say that that is their narrative legitimised. Thirdly, politicians will undoubtedly frame this in a very liberal manner in terms of saying that the reason why we are doing this is because we do not want alt-right bullying as we have already heard from side proposition. This shows that the alt-right are probably going to want to get back at that. The reason why this is an important point is because the scale is a lot larger than any other point given here. The alt-right are more organised, but violence is much more important than anything that has been given so far in the debate, and it is more intense. For all the reasons that I have told you today, I beg you to vote side opposition. Thank you very much. I now call the second speaker from Hutchison High School, Glasgow, to conclude the case for the proposition, please. I hope that that was not your memoirs. No, right, on you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am going to be saying some points of clash. The main points of clash that I have identified today is whether or not it is truly beneficial for victims and secondly about freedom of speech and whether political views are truly protected. Just about the bullying issue, bullying, we think, has been trivialised in this debate by side opposition. It is not just name calling, it is not just calling people silly, it is not just trivial playground bullying. It is death threats against people in the LGBT community. It is telling people in transgender that they have—people who are transgender that they have no place in society. It is tearing apart minority groups. It is telling people that they do not belong in society. It is soul destroying. It is crushing. We think that the opposition has trivialised this into something that is unimportant. More importantly, that kind of cyber bullying, which it is still classed as, can be anonymous. Anyone can go on who feels that LGBTQ people do not deserve rights. Anyone can go on and send a death threat to someone who is LGBT. It is those kinds of comments that are truly detrimental to mental health. It is those kinds of comments and those kinds of feelings that we want to prevent with this motion. No, thank you. On to my main points of clash, is anonymity truly beneficial for the victims? Because Op has mentioned that it may have some benefits. Op thinks that it is harmful to take away people's anonymity online and that it gives people a comfort. However, we would say that it is crucial to weigh up the pros and cons. While it is true that people might feel comfortable showing their personalities online saying things that they might not normally say, we have to compare with this with shutting down the dark web. A hub of highly illegal criminal activity, no thank you, that is allowed to thrive and flourish in places where people cannot access it when it is truly anonymous rights. It is almost inaccessible. It is not just going to be googling the name of a mafia criminal. There will be lines of codes attached. There will be algorithms. There will be coders that work for the Government. They will be able to trace those people in a way that—I do not know—typing their name on to Facebook. It is not going to reveal the same kind of things. We think that making that comparison is not really sufficient. People will be able to track those people in a way that is different to a Google search. Leaving an online trail that police are able then to track is different and it is better. The proposition previously stated that it would only be the names that we would be getting. I raised in my own speech that I do not understand how, with just the name, the police will then be able to track the proposition and therefore be able to clarify how the police are going to do that with just a name. I am not a computer engineer. I am not a coding expert. I do not have a degree in computer science, but it is not going to be the same as typing in your name on to a Facebook search. It might be the name that gets shown online to the display, but to the people behind the scenes, to the Government, to the police department, it is going to be so much more than that. It is going to be highly advanced. It is going to be something that a group of school children cannot pick apart in a five-minute debate. The internet is an extension of society. There is little to no regulation on the status quo, whereas in real life we are expected to give our passports. There are CCTVs everywhere. There is regulation, to an extent. We do not feel that it infringes on our privacy, because we know that it is for the better good, and the same argument applies with online anonymity. We feel that it is not dangerous. We see the benefits in not being anonymous online, because although we may have to give up our privacy, like my partner has stated, we know that it is for the better cause. I will address the issue of freedom of speech and alt-right. What we want to say is that we do not really think that freedom of speech will be harmed under this motion. In the UK, we have freedom of speech to an extent. We can share our opinions, we are allowed to have views, we have a political spectrum that is from the left to the right to the centre. We are allowed to differ in political views, and we think that freedom of speech will not be violated. We are allowed to share our opinions, because people know who you are. We do not really think that that should take away, because we do not think that it is necessarily shameful, as the Opposition says, to have alt-right views and that they are being attacked. We think that, instead, if more people turn to show their names and project their alt-right views, they will find more people who believe the same things, they will find a comfort, they will find a group of people who can share the same views as them, and they will not have to turn to those hateful methods that are suggested to share their political views. Unless, of course, it is something that is against human rights, if it is illegal, that is the kind of activity that we want to target. However, we think that the more people who express alt-right views online without a non-anonymity, the more beneficial it gives people more spaces. It allows people to find people who are similar to them and ensures that their political freedoms are not violated. Freedom of speech is held intact, because anything you can say face to face you can say online, unless, of course, it is illegal. It is exactly that kind of a legal speech that infringes on people's rights, detriments their being, contributes to the dark web, and is a hub of legal activity that we want to end. For all these reasons, we wish to propose Thank you very much. I now call on the final speaker from Dundee Perth to conclude the case for the opposition, please. Thank you. Today, I have identified three main points of clash. The first being bullying and what this motion will do for it. The second being online crime, which is broken down into dark web and organised crime like some maffias. The third being extreme views and what this motion will occur. Will bullying help trolls or will it help everyone else? We have heard from the Government that it will help bullying. A lot of bullying does not just happen from random fake accounts hurling abuse at another random account online, but it is bullies who are known to the victims, possibly from school or other real-life occasions, and they are using Facebook as a vessel for the bullying. This motion will do nothing for this, and this was mentioned but not addressed. On the opposition side, we see trolls being able to find their victim's house, being able to find their victim's personal information online due to the increasing prevalence of linked medias. What is the impact of that? There is not only increased bullying in real terms, but there is more fraud at higher levels of bullying, and we see blackmail. The motion was designed to stop all that, but it is making this worse. An important information closing government actually conceded this, saying that yes, they are negative to both sides trying to negate that argument, but that does not stand up, because the negative effect that the motion will have is grossly outwead—sorry. The positive effect that the motion will have is grossly outwead by the negative effect, and even if we take you at your best, then the positive effect is minute. That brings me on to my second point of clash to do with what will occur with online crime. First, the dark web. You have completely misconstrued the dark web. The dark web is about 70 per cent of the internet. It is not a grand bazaar of drugs and guns. It is just the internet that search engines, for example, Google, cannot search to do with the meta tags that they have. The whole point of the dark web is that there are no accounts. You cannot be not anonymous because there are no accounts. In fact, what the motion will do is not only reduce the dark web, but people will, in flux, move to the dark web because they realise that it is the only way that they can be anonymous online, which people like. I would just like to put a little bit of rebuttal in there about people not liking this motion. The closing government stated that LGBTQ and plus people will be helped by this motion. If that is the case, then why did that community organise a protest against Facebook's real name policy, which was trying to force online anonymity? It seems like there is a problem in that argument. On to the second point of online crime—no, thank you. On to the second point of online crime, which is organised online crime. We also heard that mafia bosses have other ways of hiding their identities. Now, not only are mafia bosses able to accurately find their victims' information online, but they are still anonymous. That is the worst of both situations. We, as highlighted, receive no mechanism as to how we are going to enforce people. Even if you have ID cards, there are things such as fake ID and the vast criminal networks have the resources. If they have the resources to ship cocaine across the world, I think that they have the resources to become anonymous online. We receive no mechanism or no analysis as to why that is not the case. We see no reason why large-scale criminal and terrorist movements will be deterred by this motion. The impact would be horrendous, putting information into terrorist hands. We need to explain more, terrorist attacks. We can stop fake bank accounts, as my partner said. This is going to use the same thing. We can still stop fake bank accounts. We can ping people's IPs and find out where their computer is and destroy their bank accounts if they are criminals. We currently do that under our side of the house. All that you are doing is allowing the criminal organisations to find people who are not a mass network of money and power. All they are able to find people who are not able to protect themselves the way that the mafia will be able to on your side of the house. That brings me on to my third point of clash, to do with the extremist views that we have heard about. Fortran reddit. There are places of hate, granted, but they are not places of hate. Reddit and Fortran do not drive cars into protests or fly planes into buildings. As a society, we are on a knife edge and this motion will cause a quite frankly scary tip towards violence. We had a rebuttal against it, but it did not deal with the analysis, which was that they all right have a safe space where they can vent their views. On your side of the house, if you destroy that safe space—yes, they can still have the views, but they no longer feel safe in voicing those views. They are not going to say, oh, well then maybe my views were incorrect. I will just stop and not voice my views anymore. They are going to turn to other, more extreme methods, as we have heard in our analysis. What is the impact of that? Well, it goes into mainstream. If they find more people like them because it is a more vocal protest instead of just some whack job shouting about it online—there are three points of clash. Bullying, we win on that because it will make it easier for bullies and worse for victims. Online crime, you are going to make the dark web worse and you are going to help mafia and terrorists and extreme views. All you are going to do is to alienate and isolate the alt-right on terrorist organisations and anyone who feels prejudiced by this motion. That is why you must, must oppose this motion. Thank you very much. I thank all eight speakers for their contributions. I can ask you to thank them for their contributions. Hands up, who knows what a metatag is? Well, you should know because you mentioned it. Do you know what a metatag is? You do. Well, does anybody else know what a metatag is? Well, you will need to explain to us later about that. Anyway, if I can now ask the judges to leave us to deliberate what will be a very difficult decision and if I can ask you please to return in about 20 minutes. Thank you very much. I need to google metatag and find out what it is. We will all be doing it, but not right now. We now move on to the floor debate. This is your chance. This will last for 30 minutes. I invite speakers from the floor to raise points in relation to the debate and points that you have just heard. If you wish to speak, please raise your hand. If selected, you should wait for the red light to come on on your microphone and tell the chamber your name and the name of your school or university before you raise your point. This is extremely important since I need to identify a winner. What's the prize? Is it a trip to the sun? We don't know. I can't promise you that because I don't know. Please limit your contributions to one minute. You too can see the clocks. If there is time, I may ask the teams to respond or contribute to points from the floor debate. I say again that there is a prize—possibly not a trip to the sun—for the best floor speech of the evening. I have some brave soul to put their hand well done. Your light now is your light. Come on. Give us your name, please, and the name of your school. Matthew Burton, Bearsden academy. That was very dramatic, Matthew. No need to say any more. Was that the dark web? On you go. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the clear issues in this debate has been the duality of the effects of this motion, whether we are exposing criminals or stripping the vulnerable of a much-needed shelter of anonymity. It is true from a really basic perspective that we are hurting both in equal measure, but what we have to remember is that there is a real difference between the criminals and the law-abiding citizens that we seek to protect. Criminals will break the law, have been shown to do it and will do it again. The law-abiding citizens that we seek to protect will not. Ladies and gentlemen, this motion does not hurt criminals. It exposes the vulnerable and strips away the much-needed shelter of anonymity. For that reason, we must preserve online anonymity. Right, somebody else now to take him on. Right, just stand up and your light should come on. That's it, thank you. So I'm Doa Shavir from HSOG. Just make your point, yes. Okay, so I sort of want to make a point about the idea of societal platforms and changing perceptions of what are radical ideas. So sort of what I want to say is in response to what Opposition has said about, say, for example, people who are LGBT, they're not able to come out to the community about it. We think that, I sort of think that, when you divert discussion from real-life forums, what that does is it doesn't send as many signals to a society that progression is needed, to say, for example, if I point to the example of, say, the Iranian Green Revolution, right? If these young people weren't actually going out on the street and saying we want our vote to be respected and they went on, like, 4chan or Reddit to do it instead, we think that that wouldn't have actually sent an appropriate message to society that changes needed, which is why we think that having this online capture where we can say things instead of making people go out into the real world can do it, can sort of be harmful and have negative social externalities. Thank you very much, another volunteer. This is good. Yes, please just stand up, say your name in school. Brodenjuut Stewart, I'm from Markiston. That really more takes the form of a question. We have seen similar things done before, for example, with the Chinese model, where the Government has largely cut off most of the population to the wider internet. Of course, most of the internet is not hosted in Scotland, it's hosted in places like America, so how would that be enforced? You can't force American companies to do this. The majority of their market is not in Scotland. What's to stop them simply cutting off Scotland from their services? Therefore, what would replace it? It's semi-works in China because they have such a large population, but with the relatively small population of Scotland, the benefits of those worldwide online services surely would be massively impacted, seen as we simply wouldn't have access to them. Thank you. Anybody else now? Yes, thank you. I'm having the clock set to zero at the bottom part, so you can see me if I have a minute. I'm Megan McNulty from the University of Stirling, and for a rather dramatic start, is the gay person who came from a very religious background. I would love that I didn't have to hide behind the screen as a child, but now that I'm older, I would love to be able to know those who tormented me and to know that they are brought to justice. The opposing gentleman said that cyberbullying would not be stopped with a ban on online anonymity. South Korea did that in 2007 and witnessed a 20 per cent drop in five years in cyberbullying. Considering 43 per cent of children out of 20,000 surveyed in the UK in 2016 and experienced cyberbullying, 32 per cent of which were serious threats of harm and death threats, I would love for those people to be able to have their names and their IP addresses released so that people don't have to deal with those terrors behind the screen. I would just like to know what your views are on those numbers and what you think of that. I would love for the people who tormented you and others in society to be named and shamed, but I do not think that that motion is the way to do it because of the other negative impacts that it has on society. Possibly it has worked in South Korea on a bullying metric, but I think that on other metrics, South Korea has a massive gang problem, and it has a great music scene, but there are issues in South Korea. It says a lot that a lot of the LGBTQ plus community—you will have to forgive me, I am not quite—is not in favour of that motion. Personally, you might be, but as a whole, the people have accepted that it is not a good step forward. I am Fergus Eugen, I am from Perth High School. The Government's mechanism, or lack thereof, was briefly touched upon yet, not fully rebutted. It referred to bank accounts and adopted their mechanism, whereby fake names would be considered fraud. Yet there are infinite situations in the real world where one's legal name is not appropriate. John F Kennedy, where he is alive today, would undoubtedly have a bank card and a Twitter account. His bank card would say John F Kennedy, his legal name, but if he went by on Twitter Jack Kennedy or JFK, neither of which are his legal name, would that be considered fraud? A celebrity in the modern day, Sia, a singer famous for her anonymity. Nobody has ever seen her face and Sia is not her real name. Under this motion, Sia would be unable to have any social media presence without it being considered fraud. That seems to be the most impractical motion that the Government could have come up with. I think that I see a legal career looming for that gentleman about to give legal advice. Anyone else? Yes, please. Have you spoken already? Yes. You were the dark web? Well, is there anybody else coming in before Mr Dark Web? Yes, thank you. I'd like to speak a bit about the power of the corporations. I'm sorry, Dominic Westwood, High School of Dundee, which was not something that was really touched on in this debate. We are reaching a turning point in our technology, where soon algorithms will actually know more about us than we know ourselves. Who actually holds this information? Well, it's actually in the control of the unelected multinational co-operations. Do we really want those people to control our every lives? We think that our anonymity is the only thing that protects us from companies like Facebook, who, although they may have good intentions now, are actually controlling more and more of our lives and influencing our elections and influencing the products that we buy. We think that user anonymity is the only thing that can protect us from this horrible future, and it's something that should have been mentioned more in this debate. Thank you very much. Anybody else before I return? Someone has already asked a question. Mdaelys, do you want to come in? Yes? Sorry, we've got someone. Where are you? Please just stand up, and your light will come on, name and school. Aubrey Agub, Hermitage Academy. Us, the everyday citizens, you know, everyday law-abiding citizens, we're the ones who use the majority of the internet with good reasons and do good actions in it. So why do we have to suffer the consequences of the actions of the minuscule number of people who are the perpetrators of criminal activities online? Right. Mdaelys, please come in, yes? Alex Fish, High School Dundee. So the main reason why we do that and why the Government would why we think criminals are probably a big factor in this debate is because at the point at which criminals are harming those law-abiding citizens, we think there's a point where the Government cannot allow a motion that would continually be detrimental to law-abiding citizens in general. That's why the Government passes any motion. We don't think that a motion that's going to help criminals is going to help law-abiding citizens in general. Yes, anybody else? Yes? I'm John Bryce from Murkeston. I have a question towards proposition, and I ask that, are they aware that the police, and especially the metropolitan police, already have a team of specialists that specialise in hunting down people that do proceed themselves to be anonymous and commit crimes whilst being anonymous, and they use much more effective methods in simply knowing their names, they use geotracking and they use tri-point co-ordination and things like that, where they are able to actually find their location and find their IP more than just their name, and it seems to be much more effective than simply not allowing anonymity for all people on the internet. Yes? Is anybody going to rise? Yes? Yeah, that's an excellent point. Your name again. Oh, Sophia Alvie, High School Glasgow. Yeah, although I do appreciate your point, I think that it's actually just kind of showing how important it is for the police to get involved and how it's not just the crimes that are being, that are taking place because of online anonymity. But it's also just the fact that for cyberbullying, it's essentially about the outweighing of crime being easier to combat, which, as you've just said, it already is trying to be combated, but we feel that this would aid it quite significantly, because when people know the name of someone, that's very much something that they can use to track, someone's name is essentially their identity, and so we think that again, yeah, it's about how the greater impact and the bigger picture as well, though, so thanks. Thank you, MDLs. Yes, I'll take one, I'll take you first, and I'll take you next. So if you stand up first, thank you. Jude Watson, Airdrie academy. Well, your point was very valid. I'd like to zero in the fact that you were mentioning the police and how they need to get involved. The police, with a lot of cybercrime, getting rid of anonymity wouldn't get rid of privacy per se, so say you're in an internet chatroom with somebody and they say, they say, hey, let's kill this person because I don't like them. You don't agree with that, you've reported to the police, and if they're not anonymous, they'll go to jail. If you agree with them, the two of you now have a safe space to plan this, just because you know each other are doesn't mean you're going to report it. And again, like the opposition mentioned, with the deep web, there are no accounts, and if you're not probably protected, they can use it as a vehicle to, the deep web can use it as a vehicle to attack you, and they're much more well protected than you are. There have been cases of people whose IP address isn't protected going on the deep web, being found out and people arriving at their house who they'd never met before and murdered them, and in that case, the police wouldn't be much help. Cleaning up after the fact is not what we need to be doing. I'm a wee bit confused, is there a deep web and a dark web, or are they both, they're both, it's a deep dark web. That's fine. Right, next please. Melissa Roger, Ader Academy. So there's a separate community called role players online who take characters from films or from comic books or from manga and claim to be them in order to create what would be called fanfiction, basically creating your own story with another person as the character. Would they be considered fraudsters for claiming to be something else too? I don't know the answer, somebody better get up and try to answer that. Who could answer that? If you take an assumed persona. Yes, please. Oh, they would not, because we don't think that that's criminal activity. All that would happen was that they would publish this fanfiction under their own identity instead of using another identity. Abab, you've been in, so I'm just going to take people who've not been in yet. So I've got two people who want to come back in. Are there any who's not asked a question? Yes. Holly Edgerson, Ineons High School. I think what side opposition has maybe missed is that an anonymity can be essential to our society, especially professional anonymity. For example, many teachers in the room, many teachers are not allowed to have their own name as their profile in case teachers find them. And with the same talking with people who are under witness protection perhaps for saying things, we do not want to put lives in danger just so we can find people easier. Some people do not want to be found and I think as a democratic and respectful society we have to respect that. Anybody else? It's not being in already. I'll return to you and then I'll Matthew and somebody else who's waving. Ah, right, please, thank you. Arun Utamishandani Hutchison's grammar school. I think what's been missing from both sides of the debate is specifically what the dark web is used for and it's obviously by criminals who have decided to create something because the normal web wasn't good enough for their sort of criminal activity. These are people who devote their lives trying to steal, trying to be criminals. If this law is implemented, there simply is not going to follow this. Just because a new law has come in doesn't mean that criminals will start just becoming law-abiding citizens. Criminals have been seen to sort of, you have been sort of, have been seen to create this sort of new material, that's how the dark web became about and if this would go through, then the criminals would just find something new to use to take over that. This isn't really going to really achieve anything. Thank you. Anybody else? You've been in before, so I'll keep you in the backstop. Anybody else new? Right then, so I'll come first of all to Matthew. Then I'll come to Fergus and then I'll come to yourself. Matthew Burton, Bair sin academy. There's been talk about a lot of bullying in this debate and the lady in the front row there mentioned about her own personal experience of bullying and stuff like that. I think that one of the key issues surrounding bullying has been whether anonymity online really helps that. I've got to say I'm really with side opposition on this one because I believe that online bullying is often conducted without anonymity. It's people using standard named public accounts to make fun of others and I think that's caused not so much anonymity. It's by the physical separation of the bullies from their victims and from the physical cues and emotional cues of that situation, which would normally hold them back. Removing online anonymity does little to address that, which is the root cause of cyberbullying. You said in reply to a point about role-playing and assumed personas that that wouldn't be considered fraud that would be fine under your side of the house, but that directly goes against your own metric, which was that you'd use the same kind of system as banks whereby your legal name would be considered fraud that wouldn't be allowed. If I assumed the character of, say, Doctor Who, I couldn't go and get a bank card that said Doctor Who on it and so under your side of the house neither could I create a Twitter account that said Doctor Who either. Yes, you can respond. Maybe we could have some sort of alternative where people who want to fully immerse themselves in the persona that they want to create fan fiction with could still just include their true identity as a sort of email or a link that they can get to. If they go on to their account and look hard enough, they will have to put it on before they actually participate in this, but maybe they could have their title name as Doctor Who. Just have that information available but still be able to kind of have their persona. Melissa. I also want to mention the issue of swatting. That's when it usually happens to streamers online during live streams where anonymous people call up a swat team to invade the home of the person on live stream so that they can watch the police come in with the guns and hold them down, handcuff them. How would that end up affecting your argument as it would be very difficult to trace phone calls like that under anonymous ways, especially because so many different people have used burner phones and stuff like that to call the swat team in the first place? I don't see any more hands of what I've thought of. As soon as I say that, it's the same in Parliament. I'll say that nobody else wants to speak. Forrestor, hands of what was up. Who is it that wants to... Holly, you've been in before, have you? Off you go. I think that a point that has been missed by perhaps by saying proposition is about age ratings. For example, social media has come up quite a lot. The age where you're allowed to get a Facebook profile is 13 but at that age you're still considered a child and your details should definitely not be found widely available on the internet. Furthermore, there are some social medias that you have to use through school such as, in my experience, we've had to use Pinterest. We're not allowed to put our own names up there for our own protection and by removing this anonymity we are going to be exposing children and their details to people who might abuse those facts. Thank you. I knew this to be complicated because it is a very complicated debate, but I'm going to ask one person from each team because it takes us up to give you two or three minutes. Well, you don't know if they want you to do it on your side. You put your hand up, right? Oh, diddy, where are you selected? Oh, you've had a wee discussion. What about a wee discussion over here? Who's going to come up and say for the proposition, just do a wee summing up on what you've heard. It's not part of the competition but it's interesting. While you're having your wee discussion, which looks at a long discussion, I'll come to you please and you're going to make some comments, maybe two or three minutes, please, on what's been said. I'd just like to talk about a comment made from, I can't remember quite who it was, it was a lady over on this side, to do with the Iranian green policy. Obviously, this is a great thing. I think that part of the reason that this could have come about is because a few Iranian teenagers or young people who are congenged about the environment got together online and said, look, we should protest about this, but if the Government and all the people who don't think that the environment should be protected know exactly who they are, then they're going to be massively hindered. I know that it's probably not as pertinent in that case because I'm not sure many people are going to actually commit violence stopping someone protesting about the environment, but there are a few more pertinent cases. For example, in Saudi Arabia, where LGBT rights are pretty much non-existent, the internet acts as a method of people getting to know other people in that community, inside of Arabia and outside of Saudi Arabia, and finding ways of talking to each other, finding ways of coping and dealing, and that can lead to protests. In Iran, they don't have—in Iran, sorry, they have—internet and anonymity, which is why something like this can happen. If you take that away, you're opening up the people who are trying to do good to a world of abuse and onslaught from the very people that we should be trying to show they're wrong. That brings me on to another thing that I wanted to talk about, which is that it feels like this motion is a plaster over a broken leg and it's trying to deal with things like homophobia, racism, bullying, sexism, but really we should just be dealing with those issues in education and in society as a whole instead of just releasing people's names online. As we've said, I really don't think that's going to help at all. Yeah, that's all I've got to say. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, just somebody wants to just say a few closing words for the other side. Okay. The first thing I want to say is the internet is worldwide. That's the thing about it. It crosses barriers, it crosses borders, it allows people to be in contact with people from anywhere across the world and because it is international, it is incredibly difficult to regulate. It's hard enough to regulate a tiny country. It's impossible to find legislation that fits the entire world. When you have societies that are so dynamics and political climates that are so vastly different, it's impossible to find legislation that neatly encapsulates all of these different ideas and levels of privacy and freedom, which is why this debate is so hard. But we think that any progress that's done under this side of the debate is useful and therefore it's a step forward in trying to tackle crime. We understand that it's not perfect and there are many safe spaces that are destroyed and we get that, but hopefully in time this creates a more tolerant society perhaps where people don't feel the need for safe spaces because people are able to give their views more openly and it is still behind a screen. You are still saying things. It's not like you're saying it to your face and if they don't like it they'll punch you in the face. It's still behind a screen but it's more open. We want you to increase his confidence. It makes groups feel like they don't need to be locked away, whether that be the alt-right or the LGBT groups. It shows them that if their views aren't hidden way in safe spaces and in public limelight then they get more mentioned and they're more accepted in society. That's what we want to say. In terms of protesters, as I mentioned earlier, it's impossible to cater for legislation across the world, which is why this debate was set in the west, which has similar ideals. However, because protesting is legal in this country, we don't really feel that that would hamper any rights in this country. Thank you. Thank you very much. There you are. Now, judges doing back in in five minutes. I thought, well, we'll just have a wee break for five minutes. You can stretch your legs, don't leave the room, just stretch your legs and so on, and then we'll start with the announcements. Right. Oh, golly. Hey, it's everything tonight. Thank you very much. Extremely interesting and a very difficult topic to nail down. I think that's why I chose it. I don't think there's any easy solutions. Here's the prize winners. The prize to the best contribution from the floor is from Fergus Duggan of Perth High School, a budding lawyer if I ever saw one. Come down for this. You don't get a holiday in the sun, but you do get a quake. Thank you. If he's standing, he will get a picture with you getting your quake. You want to be a lawyer one day. I knew it. He wants to be a lawyer. I can see him in the coat of sale. Andrew, you want us here? I was too naughty to ever be a prefect. Right. If you just go back to your seat now, that's your moment. The final prize goes to the best school speaker of the day, and this year we have joint winners. These are Cassenia Cappaleuc from High School of Dundee and Paragna Ciala Palley from Hutchison's Grammar School. If you come forward, please. After a well-thought final, the runner-up of the 2018 St Andrew's Day debating championship goes to drumroll, please. Thank you, Mercasyn Bearsden. And the winner of the 2018 St Andrew's Day debating championship goes to drumroll, Dundee Perth. I said nobody trusts them, Dundee. I'll remember that. I've got best pupil judges of the day, and that is Adam Melis from George Watson's College, Adam. Almost at an end, I'd like to invite Suzanne in someone on behalf of the English-speaking union to say a few words. Suzanne, please. Thank you. Pity, Presiding Officer, everyone. It's an enormous honour to be able to stand here in front of you and speak in this incredible room. I hope that all of the finalists who've just competed and all of you floor speakers have really enjoyed this opportunity. We've certainly had the great deal of enjoyment from listening to all of you. It's my pleasure to say a few thank yous today to all the people who've worked so hard to make this happen. I'm aware that it's been a very long day for some, and that for some of you it's still a long day to come, and particularly I'm looking at Nan and Elgin, who I know have a long journey home. I'd like to say a big thank you to the Scottish Parliament for hosting us today. I'd like to thank the Deputy Presiding Officer for chairing and for choosing this motion, which has turned out to be just a really fascinating topic. I think that people will be thinking as they go home about different points that came up or could have come up. From the Scottish Parliament, I would like to thank all of the staff who've looked after us so well today, but I would especially like to thank Douglas Miller and Alice Noble, who have put enormous amounts of work into today. I would like to give them a round of applause. I'm enormously grateful to the Scottish Government for their generous support funding for this event and also their support in organising it and making it happen. In particular, I would like to thank Ian Cyril, but I would also like to say a big thank you to the minister, Mr Baymond MacPherson, who came along and welcomed people this morning. I'd like to thank the Fair Saturday Foundation. It was really exciting that this event could be part of not only the Winter Festivals, but also Fair Saturday, and we were really delighted about that. I'd like to thank the panel of judges for the final. Victoria Groom, Jordan Foughtonhauer, Nivina Centelkumar and Adam Mellis and of course our chair Cameron Wiley. I'd like to thank Nivina also for running the tab today and I'd like to thank all of the people who have been involved with today in terms of chairing the debates, timekeeping and all the judges. I'd like to thank all the students from the universities from across Scotland for being here today, mentoring the teams, judging the debates. We're enormously grateful for what you did today for this event, but also the support that we get from university students across all of our programmes and indeed all of our other judges across our programmes. We have a busy debate and calendar and we are incredibly grateful to the people who turn out on a wet and windy evening to judge our heats. Most importantly, I would like to thank you, the schools for being here and I'm delighted that so many of you have stayed. It was really great to have so many people here for the final and we're very grateful to you all, both the pupils, the reserved speakers, the teachers, everybody who came today and participated. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did and finally I really need to thank my colleagues at the English Speaking Union. I'd like to say a big thank you to Jordan Foughtonhauer and Simon Christie for all of their hard work. This event takes a lot of planning over a long period of time and then a lot of input on the day and I think that I would really like to say a big thank you to both of those and also to Cameron for his work for the ESU in helping us with today. So I'll stop now. I hope I thanked everybody. I'd really like you all to give yourselves a big round of applause. All the pupils who participated and now I'd just like to wish you a very safe journey home.