UK Interim Guidelines And Consultation On Prosecuting Cases Involving Social Networks

from the beyond-banter dept

As we reported a few months back, Keir Starmer, the UK's Director of Public Prosecutions, made the remarkable suggestion that "the time has come for an informed debate about the boundaries of free speech in an age of social media." That debate has now arrived in the form of a UK consultation on "prosecutions involving social media communications," which takes as its starting point a series of interim guidelines for UK prosecutors when they are grappling with the freedom of speech issues raised by such cases. Here's how Starmer describes the initiative:

These interim guidelines are intended to strike the right balance between freedom of expression and the need to uphold the criminal law.

They make a clear distinction between communications which amount to credible threats of violence, a targeted campaign of harassment against an individual or which breach court orders on the one hand, and other communications sent by social media, e.g. those that are grossly offensive, on the other.

The first group will be prosecuted robustly whereas the second group will only be prosecuted if they cross a high threshold; a prosecution is unlikely to be in the public interest if the communication is swiftly removed, blocked, not intended for a wide audience or not obviously beyond what could conceivably be tolerable or acceptable in a diverse society which upholds and respects freedom of expression.

The interim guidelines thus protect the individual from threats or targeted harassment while protecting the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, or banter or humour, even if distasteful to some and painful to those subjected to it.

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Filed Under: free speech, hate crimes, social media, uk