Brits: We can stop trolling if we know where they live - poll

The Great British Public want an end to anonymous registration for social media accounts in the aftermath of high-profile online abuse cases, pollsters have claimed – and the older and more conservative they are, the more likely they are to want it.

A YouGov survey found that 72 per cent of the British public want social media sites to demand the the names and addresses of users.

The poll purveyors quizzed about 1,900 adults and asked them: "Would you support or oppose social media sites like Twitter only allowing people to use them if they provided a full verified name and address?"

Just 14 per cent were opposed to this suggestion, while a further 14 per cent didn't know. Although, if the respondents were being honest, we would suggest this number might be far higher.

Opposition to anonymous registration grew with age, with just 54 per cent of young 'uns aged 18 to 24 in favour of stricter social media identification rules, compared to 82 per cent of people aged 60 and over.

People intending to vote Tory at the next election were stricter on identifying trolls than Labour voters, on 80 per cent versus 75 per cent, while sandal-wearing Lib Dems were the woolliest, with just 63 per cent of them demanding names and addresses in exchange for social media accounts.

Supporters of the UK Independence Party were slightly more likely than Conservatives to call for tougher registration rules, at 81 per cent.

London was the most liberal on anonymous sign-ups, followed by Scotland, while the "rest of the south" was the strictest.

A few weeks ago, most of the British public probably wouldn't have cared about anonymous social media registration. But since feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez and Labour MP Stella Creasy came under attack from vile, rape-threatening trolls, suddenly everyone's an expert.

And yes, we know that what the media calls a troll isn't actually what the internet has always called a troll. ®