“People have the right to be offensive, they have the right to be insulting, and that has to be protected.” This is how Keir Starmer – director of public prosecutions expressed his opinion with BBC and admitted that he finds difficult to work within the existing law. His comment was provoked by prosecutions of Matthew Wood and Aznar Ahmed on offensive postings in social media.
In 2010 there were 2,347 investigations on complains regarding social media posts, this number rose and at the moment there are 50 different cases across the UK each week. The emerging thinking, That Mr Starmer also agrees is to categorise social media communications as merely offensive or grossly offensive posts. And prosecute on those sort of cases, for example the individual threats or campaign harassment cases.
Image source: http://www.faceofmalawi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cyber_bullying.jpg
According to Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling internet trolls could face up two years in Jail under the new legislations. The law change is to be made as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Courts Bill going through Parliament, and due to be debated in the House of Lords in the coming week.
Under the act, which does not apply to Scotland, it is an offence to send another person a letter or electronic communication that contains an indecent or grossly offensive message, a threat or information which is false and known or believed by the sender to be false.
More serious cases could go to crown court under the new proposals, where the maximum sentence would be extended.
Usually, most people now the difference between saying something nice or cruel and the education is not an issue. There a lot of people that where targeted on social media and became victims of offence, so prosecutors and police needs to be better trained to deal with online abuse says Labour MP Stella Creasy.
Questions: Do you agree that cyber bullying needs to be taken seriously? What do you think about new legislations in social media?
Information source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29678989