At the end of last year, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) issued interim guidelines on prosecuting cases involving communications sent via social media.
The guidelines are designed to help prosecutors make decisions in relation to cases where it has been alleged that a criminal offence has been committed in the form of a social media communication.
But why are they necessary?
According to this article, there were 2,347 investigations into complaints involving social media posts in the UK in 2010, and this number rose to 2,490 in 2011. That’s around 50 different cases each week!
You’re probably aware of some of them, in fact, as they often make headlines. For example, when a Swansea University student was jailed for 56 days after posting racially offensive comments on Twitter about footballer Fabrice Muamba or when a Lancashire man was jailed for posting offensive comments about missing 5-year-old April Jones on Facebook.
Thousands of cases with many people charged. It was all getting a bit silly, really. So, things needed to change. Hence the DPP launched the new guidelines.
So, what do the guidelines say?
In a nutshell, social media messages may lead to prosecution in the following situations:
- Where there is a credible threat of violence to a person/property
- If they specifically target an individual or individuals and may constitute harassment, stalking or other offences
- If they may amount to a breach of a court order (including Contempt of Court)
- If they are grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false
The idea is to reduce the number of prosecutions. For example, where there’s a campaign of harassment or a credible threat, users are more likely to be prosecuted. But if someone posts an offensive message in a drunken state, and then deletes it once sober, they’re unlikely to face charges.
Interestingly, the guidelines apply equally to the resending (or retweeting) of communications. So, when Lord McAlpine threatened to sue the 10,000-or-so users who tweeted/retweeted false allegations of child abuse against him, he probably could have done (based on it constituting harassment).
It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out. My view is that while the guidelines are great for prosecutors, they don’t really help solve the problem at its root. Social networking sites have turned lay users into broadcasters, but without the associated legal training. If the Government truly wants to cut down on the number of prosecutions, education is key. I’m sure in many of the cases involving social media communications, the users had no idea they had even broken the law. Of course, ignorance is not an excuse, but most people use sites like Twitter to express views they would among friends, only forgetting it’s not just friends who see them. A gentle reminder of this fact by schools, community sites and even brands themselves wouldn’t do any harm.
There’s a Public Consultation on these guidelines currently in operation, and comments are welcome until March 2013. Details on how to get involved can be found here.
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