Be careful what you post on social media, MP warns, after tweet apology

Young people should “be careful” about posting “whatever pops into your head” on social media, an MP has advised as she re-stated an apology for a series of tweets she previously admitted deeply regretting making in her 20s.

Lauren Edwards, who is heading up the effort to legalise assisted dying after it ran out of time in the last Parliament, said if people make comments online and “don’t think it through properly”, they can “really store up problems”, citing her own experience.

Shortly after becoming an MP in 2024, she apologised and acknowledged she had made a “significant error of judgment” in remarks she had made about Estonians, a halal restaurant and Parliamentary cleaners in now-deleted posts dated between 2009-2011.

In one post, Ms Edwards used the word “retards”.

In an interview with the Press Association, she said: “I would just say the same thing that I said at the time and more recently, that I wholeheartedly apologise.

“It was at a time when I think, unfortunately, disablist language was really common in our society, and I think it’s really good that we’ve moved on from that.”

She said she tries to be “an advocate now, in particular for disabled people, and as I said, listen to them and understand their perspectives”.

Asked what advice she might give to young people using social media, Ms Edwards said: “I guess it’s important to live life in the present, and saying things on social media – obviously, as I’ve experienced, if you don’t think it through properly – can be interpreted in a different way than you intended, and can really store up problems.

“So I guess it would just be to be careful, but also to not mistake saying things or doing something on social media as being active, particularly politically.”

She said many people, not just younger people, “are living a little bit too much (of) our lives online”.

She added: “I think certainly the pandemic showed the value of human experience and getting out there and making a change in your community.

“And having an impact that way, I think, is much more positive than necessarily going online and sort of saying whatever pops into your head.”

Ms Edwards has previously told how she had disengaged from social media shortly after becoming an MP.

She told PA she also does not read anything about herself because “if you believe the good stuff, then you believe the bad stuff too”.

Asked if she had given a lot of thought to becoming the new face of the assisted dying Bill, given the strong opinions on both sides of the debate, Ms Edwards said: “Certainly, it’s a topic that comes with a lot of scrutiny, a lot of obligation and responsibility.

“And so, I certainly didn’t take the decision lightly to pick up the Bill.

“But I think it’s a really important thing that we need to do as a country, and I certainly felt a responsibility to those people who really wanted this legislation to be brought in, who were very frustrated, quite rightly frustrated, by the process not being seen to conclusion in the last Parliament.

“So I think from my point of view, any discomfort that I might have in having to be the face of this for a brief period, is really minor compared to the kind of deaths those people are facing and the much bigger issue that people are suffering. We do need proper assisted dying laws in this country.”

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill returns to the Commons on September 11,  with Ms Edwards expected to open the debate.