'TWITTER MONSTERS PREYING ON PAIN' - Mumsnet

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/337622/The-Twitter-monsters-praying-on-stars-pain

THE TWITTER MONSTERS PRAYING [sic] ON STARS PAIN

Sunday August 5,2012
By Marco Giannangeli


THE founder of one of Britain’s most ­successful internet forums, Mumsnet, has called for tougher laws to deter trolls, ­offenders who deliberately provoke users with extreme and often abusive comments.
Justine Roberts’s stance follows a week of controversy over actions on the global communication platform Twitter, which over the past 10 days claimed celebrity victims Gary Lineker, Kirstie Allsopp, former Blue ­Peter presenter Helen Skelton and Olympic diver Tom Daley.
“The laws need to be updated to reflect ­internet harassment,” said Ms Roberts, whose website, a forum for mothers to share advice, has 30,000 contributors a day.
Serious cases can be prosecuted under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, Malicious Communications Act 1998 and Com­munications Act 2003.
A new Defamation Bill going through ­Parliament will prevent website owners from being liable for content, as long as they agree to supply details of anonymous posters.
However, none of this addresses events that fall in the cracks.

“There should be a law to aggressively prosecute people who are purely there to cause damage and inflame. These may not come ­under harassment or other charges covered by the law as it stands. It should be prosecutable as a separate offence,” Justine said.
“While our audience is pretty intelligent, it’s like a gathering of people in the pub. Occasionally you have people whose sole intention is to have a fight.” In one instance, a troll posted on the bereavement section of the website, ­upsetting grieving relatives. “Trolls want to inflame, and sometimes they want to build a false picture to gain attention,” said Justine. “We deal with a few every month. It’s unfortunate that there are people out there who have nothing better to do.”

Police dealt with 14,000 cases of abuse on Facebook last year, according to Cumbria Chief Constable Stuart Hyde, head of e-crime for the Association of Chief Police Officers.
“That number will rise sharply if police are called in over comments on Twitter and other websites,” he warned.
“People have a right to publish their views but the public have a responsibility to keep their comments on social networks within the law. If they are not, then the police will assist with any prosecution.”
Some lawyers, however, say the law is ­constantly struggling to catch up.
“Social media is moving at such a pace that courts are finding it difficult to keep up,” said Pam Loch, employment specialist with Loch Associates. Twitter has found itself on the ropes ­following a series of celebrities quitting their account after high-profile troll incidents condemned by one lawyer as the latest “bloodsport” to hit the web.
While the company, which boasts 900 million users worldwide, says users must not post ­direct, specific threats of violence against others, these rules are buried in its help section.
Though Twitter would not officially comment, its policy is to “provide a communication service that allows controversial posts even though some may disagree with the content”.
When requested by a court or police to provide details of a member Twitter will first inform the user, and allow them time to obtain legal representation before complying. Social media expert Katie King, of, Zoodikers Consulting, said: “There has to be more clarity. The average person doesn’t understand what they can and can’t do. Twitter should be pointing people in the right direction.”

Other problems lie in the nature of instant communication, particularly with the Twitter format that limits each tweet to 140 characters. “If you say something to somebody ­directly and you say exactly the same words on e-mail, it can come across very differently. The written word carries no tone,” said former home secretary David Davis.
One of the most high-profile cases in recent days involved Tweets posted to Olympic diver Tom Daley, 18, about his late father. A 17-year-old boy was arrested and cautioned under the Harassment Act.
Last week former BBC presenter Helen Skelton publicly quit her Twitter account, ­saying, “turns out I don’t have very thick skin after all” following a reported onslaught of criticism about her Olympic reporting.
Also last week Channel 4 ­presenter Kirstie Allsopp ­confirmed she had been forced to contact the police over “vile” anonymous posts. Former footballer and BBC presenter Gary Lineker said he felt ­physically sick reading some of the messages sent to his son, George, 20, who had leukaemia as a child.
Swimmer Rebecca Adlington, who won ­Olympic bronze, and ­Manchester United’s Darron Gibson have all recently ditched the social network after ­being abused.
Andrew Stephenson, of lawyers Carter-Ruck, warned: “The difficulty for ordinary ­people is if the police do not consider it sufficiently serious to intervene.
“Everyone has a line they feel should not be crossed. I’ve certainly come across people who have suffered severe health problems as a result of malicious materials being published about them.”

This program was on Al Jazeera yesterday - one of the guest panelists is the Cumbrian Chief Constable mentioned in the Mumsnet article. LL

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2012/08/20128485630772835.html

Thanks, LL, interesting.

But while mainstream media is limited in what it publishes by libel, contempt and decency laws, social media is largely not. How or if it should be policed is a question yet to be answered.

And if a clampdown were to be implemented would it be a threat to freedom of speech, a denial of the unfettered access to information and comment envisaged by those who developed the World Wide Web?

IMO, the disgusting personal abuse hurled by half-wits and haters at assorted targets is going to be used as an excuse for a clamp-down on political comment and dissent.

The bottom-feeders who do it have handed authorities world-wide the perfect excuse for censorship of the internet on a plate.