In UK, Internet Trolls Could Face Two Years In Jail

An anonymous reader writes with this news from The Guardian about a proposed change in UK law that would greatly increase the penalties for online incivility: Internet trolls who spread "venom" on social media could be jailed for up to two years, the justice secretary Chris Grayling has said as he announced plans to quadruple the maximum prison sentence. Grayling, who spoke of a "baying cybermob", said the changes will allow magistrates to pass on the most serious cases to crown courts. The changes, which will be introduced as amendments to the criminal justice and courts bill, will mean the maximum custodial sentence of six months will be increased to 24 months. Grayling told the Mail on Sunday: "These internet trolls are cowards who are poisoning our national life. No one would permit such venom in person, so there should be no place for it on social media. That is why we are determined to quadruple the six-month sentence.

Comments

Much as I despise trolls

[msobkow]

As much as I despise trolls, I despise heavy-handed government censorship even more.

Re:Much as I despise trolls

[gweihir]

What, you will not allow a budding totalitarian regime to do what it does best, namely terrorize its population? You must be a troll! Off to jail with you!

Re:Much as I despise trolls

[ewibble]

Agreed, In real life you don't go to jail for 2 year for being rude what makes the internet so special.

Re:Much as I despise trolls

[dryeo]

When the first amendment was introduced, duels were pretty well legal and accepted as a response to an insult and even now "fighting words" are considered to be a defence against assault charges and possibly murder in some jurisdictions.

Re:Much as I despise trolls

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

Where does the freedom to "say what I don't like" end and harassment begin? You wouldn't be able to follow someone around while they're in public, yelling insults, all day, every day. Eventually you'd get a restraining order, and if you violated it, you'd go to jail. At some point "saying what I don't like" becomes more damaging to my quality of life than a punch in the face.

Re:Much as I despise trolls

[Mr. Slippery]

Where does the freedom to "say what I don't like" end and harassment begin?

In terms of content, you can say whatever the fuck you like about me. In terms of place and time and manner, you can't say whatever the fuck you like on my front lawn, because that's trespassing. You can't say whatever the fuck you like about me in my living room, because if you break into my house I will engage in legitimate self-defense and you will be quickly be unconscious or dead.

You can say whatever the fuck you like about me when we're in public, but if you continually follow me around at some point you are expressing a threat and committing assault. That has nothing to do with what you're saying, though, it applies even if you're silent -- it's the physical presence that's a threat.

You can say whatever the fuck you like about me on the internet or on TV or in a letter or on the phone or whatever. Unless you make a specific threat, and can be reasonably believed to have the means to carry it out, it's not assault. "I'm going to drop a nuclear bomb on Tom's house!" is not a threat, unless you command a nuclear arsenal. "Somebody ought to shoot Tom!" is offensive, but I don't have a right to not be offended, and unless someone is pointing a gun at me at that moment it's not assault or encouraging assault.

A nation with an interest in freedom could handle these cases without any new laws against trolling, using the same legal principles that have existed since the first idiot was prosecuted for mailing a threatening letter. But a moral panic about the 'net is fertile ground for authoritarians.

Re:Much as I despise trolls

[ihtoit]

we HAVE Magna Carta. We HAVE a Bill of Rights. We HAVE a written Constitution.

1215, 1688 and 1688 respectively.

yeah sorry, America, your Constitution is based on a document written into Law 88 years before yours was.

Re:Much as I despise trolls

[Barsteward]

as a 12 year old, you'll probably get detention

Re:Much as I despise trolls

[mvdwege]

In terms of content, you can say whatever the fuck you like about me.

Cool, so I can put up a webpage alleging that you are a paedophile then?

Despite what some loudmouths on Internet may proclaim, there are forms of speech that are damaging and therefore infringing on other people's rights. A government does have a legitimate interest in having those forms of speech curtailed, as much as it has an interest in having harmful physical acts like assault and battery curtailed.

Harassment, slander and libel, direct incitement to violence? It is up to the Frea Speach advocates to defend why these should be allowed, not for the rest of us to why we shouldn't have to put up with this in a civilised society.

So what qualifies?

[alvinrod]

Who gets to decide what qualifies as trolling?

I have a feeling that there are some people who would take a polite "You're wrong and I disagree with you for the following reasons . . ." as trolling. Sure the "I hope you die in a car fire" and "I'm going to kill your animals" are low-hanging fruit, but there's a line there somewhere and it's not always easy to find. I'm not very comfortable with laws that require some form of human interpretation as guilt comes down entirely to the human doing the interpreting and at that point you have to hope they don't have an ax to grind or some other reason for disliking you.

Re:So what qualifies?

[gronofer]

However the Communcations Act of 2003 is interpreted, is seems. See Wikipedia:

Malicious communications

Section 127 of the act makes it an offence to send a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character over a public electronic communications network.[8] The section replaced section 43 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 and is drafted as widely as its predecessor.[9] The section has controversially been widely used to prosecute users of social media in cases such as the Twitter Joke Trial and Facebook comments concerning the murder of April Jones.[10]

On 19 December 2012, to strike a balance between freedom of speech and criminality, the Director of Public Prosecutions issued interim guidelines, clarifying when social messaging is eligible for criminal prosecution under UK law. Only communications that are credible threats of violence, harassment, or stalking (such as aggressive Internet trolling) which specifically targets an individual or individuals, or breaches a court order designed to protect someone (such as those protecting the identity of a victim of a sexual offence) will be prosecuted. Communications that express an "unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, or banter or humor, even if distasteful to some and painful to those subjected to it" will not. Communications that are merely "grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false" will be prosecuted only when it can be shown to be necessary and proportionate. People who pass on malicious messages, such as by retweeting, can also be prosecuted when the original message is subject to prosecution. Individuals who post messages as part of a separate crime, such as a plan to import drugs, would face prosecution for that offence, as is currently the case.[11][12][13]

Revisions to the interim guidelines were issued on 20 June 2013 following a public consultation.[14] The revisions specified that prosecutors should consider:

whether messages were aggravated by references to race, religion or other minorities, and whether they breached existing rules to counter harassment or stalking; and
the age and maturity of any wrongdoer should be taken into account and given great weight.

The revisions also clarified that criminal prosecutions were "unlikely":

when the author of the message had "expressed genuine remorse";
when "swift and effective action ... to remove the communication" was taken; or
when messages were not intended for a wide audience.

Re:So what qualifies?

[beelsebob]

They're not - the judiciary and the government are entirely separate entities in the UK. Hence why the judiciary can preside over cases against the government.

Re:So what qualifies?

[ihtoit]

Except that's not the reality of the situation at all.

Judges are paid by the Local Authorities whose local jurisdiction they operate under. That's done through Legal Aid, which is controlled by the Local Authorities.
Jurisdictions are defined by the areas served by the Local Authorities and the police who directly answer to them. Council Tax pays police salaries. It's right there on the itemised bill.

Ergo, the police are beholden to local authorities: they REFUSE to investigate criminal allegations against any member of a local authority staff. They REFUSE to arrest corrupt judges. The Crown Prosecution Service have on record a grand total of ZERO prosecutions ever or pending against serving judges. Judges REFUSE to jail police officers who demonstrably perjure themselves. I have ample anecdotal evidence of this (currently withheld from publication pending private criminal prosecutions against named judges), there is also plenty of evidence in the remarkable absence of stories in the mainstream media of serving police officers being jailed for criminal activity and a grand total of ZERO serving police officers EVER having been convicted and jailed for causing a wrongful death (even though there are several videos of police officers actually committing acts which directly resulted in death). They all piss in the same pot.

Trolls are the lowest form of life. . .

[Mr_Wisenheimer]

. . . especially the ones behind using the internet to interfere with people's real lives, but I do not believe that mere trolling is criminal.

The EU, especially the UK's constant rolling back of the freedom of expression is downright concerning. If people go to prison for expressing an unpopular opinion I disagree with, how long before people go to prison for expressing an unpopular opinion I agree with?

Despite it's flaws, the near absolute interpretation of the constitutional right to the freedom of speech by the US Supreme Court is a godsend and makes me proud to be an American.

Re: Trolls are the lowest form of life. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing to do with expressing opinions or being rude, they are not covered under this law no matter how much offence a person takes. A person can only be prosecuted under this law if they are intentionally targeting a specific person in order to harass/stalk them.

I'm okay with that. The wording is clear enough that misuse of this law will be thrown out easily.

Re:Trolls are the lowest form of life. . .

[TubeSteak]

Despite it's flaws, the near absolute interpretation of the constitutional right to the freedom of speech by the US Supreme Court is a godsend and makes me proud to be an American.

I can't help but think that anyone who believes this is anything less that wildly ignorant about the Constitution and Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Here are some broad exceptions to the constitutional right to the freedom of speech:
1. Libel, slander, and various forms of misleading statements
2. Inciting others to violence
3. Fighting words
4. Disturbing the peace (offensive words can be considered a breach of the peace)
5. Intentional infliction of emotional distress
6. Copyrights & trademarks
7. Obscenity
8. Commercial speech

I may have forgotten one or three, but I think that suffices to make my point that there is nothing remotely like a "near absolute interpretation of the constitutional right to the freedom of speech."

Equally important to the point I'm trying to make is that at least 5/8 of those exceptions were well established as law when the Constitution was written.

Re:Trolls are the lowest form of life. . .

[Mr_Wisenheimer]

Your response demonstrates that you failed to read and understand my points. There will always be limits to freedom of speech, but those limits are much more restrained in the US than the UK, just to go down the list:

1) Libel in the US is a civil matter (not criminal) and requires meeting very strict standards of proof, including proving both that the defendant knowingly made a false statement for the express purpose of defaming the plaintiff (and not as a matter of comedic, satirical, or other protected purpose) and that the plaintiff actually suffered real damages as a result. Libel cases in the US are very difficult to win.. By contrast, the British libel laws are so unfavorable to the defendant's right of free speech that many US States such as California have passed laws to protect their residents from action in British courts.

2) Inciting others to violence is only illegal if there is an imminent threat of lawless action, such as a mob gathered around someone's house who you incite to storm inside. By contrast, British law allows someone to be imprisoned simply for making disrespectful statements about someone or some group that might, at some hypothetical point in the future, incite others to commit violence against.

3) The fighting words doctrine has largely been overturned and, in any case, is not a criminal act in itself, merely recognized as a mitigating defense to a claim of assault or battery.

4) Disturbing the peace is not a charge that can be used as a workaround to target someone's freedom of expression. The courts have ruled on this time and again.

5) Emotional distress is damage in a civil case. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

I'm not going to even bother than the rest, because you clearly missed the point. No right is absolute, but the US Supreme Court guards the freedom of expression in the US much more fiercely than European Courts do.

Define trolling

[jones_supa]

I hope they have defined properly what they mean with "trolling". By definition, trolling means writing inflammatory comments that excite people to write indignant responses. Thus, for example, bullying or threats do not technically count as trolling.

Re:Define trolling

[pr0nbot]

Roughly speaking, as I understand it, if it would be criminal to say something to a person's face, it will be criminal to say it to them online. For example, a death threat.

Re:Define trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Journalists do what journalists do - oversimplify and sacrifice meaning. Politicians making speeches do the same.

Here's what the actual judicial guidelines have to say about it:

Only communications that are credible threats of violence, harassment, or stalking (such as aggressive Internet trolling) which specifically targets an individual or individuals, or breaches a court order designed to protect someone (such as those protecting the identity of a victim of a sexual offence) will be prosecuted

So that's:
- Credible threats of violence
- Harrassment (itself defined in law, under the Protection from Harrassment Act 1997)
- Stalking ... which specifically targets an individual or individuals (this would multiple actions over a period, directed at one victim)
- Breaching a court order.

Posting "U sux!!!" on someone's YouTube video is not prosecutable. Posting "I'm gonna track you down and feed you your own testicles" might be, if a lawyer could persuade a judge that the threat was "credible". Posting anything of the sort on every video posted by a particular user would probably qualify as stalking.

They are elusive

[Kohath]

Police are searching for them under an old Ethernet bridge.

Mohammed is the #1 boys name in England

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's on topic. The topic is trolls.

Re:Ahhhh....

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberals in the US are salivating over the day they can do this.

I must really complain about the use of the term "liberal" as the far right democrat as a contrast to the further right republican party. A liberal, would be for the absolution of these laws, in such a manner that it would grant more freedoms or liberties to individuals.

Now, as for my stance on the law, I don't like it from the stance of increasing state power over individuals. At best, laws pertaining to harassment should be all that is needed for such cases. Restraining orders as a start, then go criminal if that is violated. If a person continually harasses others over an extended period of time, then forced psychiatric sessions for them or community service to force them to do something they don't want, without confining them. If there is any lacking aspect to what is already done, it is enforcement. Police are not willing or simply don't care enough to track down individuals outside of high profile cases. Too much happening, and not enough pay to care.

Chris Grayling is a cunt

[Cederic]

I live in the UK and I think Chris Grayling is an utter twat. I hope he loses his seat in the election, and that causes a terminal depression.

He deserves it.

There are already laws against harassment, against threatening rape or murder, against pretty much anything he wants to try and cover with further legislation. So fuck him, I reserve the right to offend him and if I see him in the street then he'll find out that I don't just do that online.

The law comes to Deadwood.

[westlake]

I have a feeling that there are some people who would take a polite "You're wrong and I disagree with you for the following reasons . . ." as trolling.

This isn't about trolling.

This is about abusive, manipulative, disruptive and often threatening behavior that would not be tolerated off-line in the name of free speech --- because it is the enemy of free speech.

Free speech cannot survive in an atmosphere of fear.

Free speech cannot survive when speakers are shouted down, bullied and hounded off stage.

Free speech cannot survive the mob.

Re:The law comes to Deadwood.

[stephanruby]

This isn't about trolling.

This is about abusive, manipulative, disruptive and often threatening behavior that would not be tolerated off-line in the name of free speech --- because it is the enemy of free speech.

Free speech cannot survive in an atmosphere of fear.

Free speech cannot survive when speakers are shouted down, bullied and hounded off stage.

Free speech cannot survive the mob.

No, this law is mostly about drinking and tweeting, and tweeting racist things as a result.

In the UK, the maximum penalty for someone drinking and driving, when a life isn't actually lost as a result, is up 6 months in jail. However, if you happen to be drinking and tweeting (and not driving), then that maximum penalty is multiplied by four.

Free speech cannot survive when speakers are shouted down, bullied and hounded off stage.

Free speech cannot survive the mob.

May be, but not in the tweeting cases prosecuted by the Crown. In each case, the mob sided with the target of the tweets, not the offender. And of course, we're not talking about online school bullying with this particular law. If this law was aimed at stopping school bullying, there would be a provision for underaged offenders, which there isn't. And it would be applied to those school cases, which as of now it hasn't.

...that would not be tolerated off-line in the name of free speech

That's a nice idea, but you haven't spend any time around drunk people. When a drunk person gets belligerent, you throw them out of the premises, or if you're not the owner of the premises, you walk away from them. Throwing them in jail is the last possible resort, only to be used, when that person is a danger to others, or a danger to himself (like when he or she is hitting other people, or trying to drive a car).

Throwing trolls in jail isn't going to solve the problem of trolls. For one thing, there will still be people trolling from outside the UK (they will do so just because they can, as a taunt against the British authorities). And for a second thing, people aren't going to stop drinking and tweeting, even inside the UK, so the angry judges and politicians are likely to be even more frustrated with the results and come up with even more draconian measures.

Re:The law comes to Deadwood.

[CanHasDIY]

I think it qualifies as free speech. But a threat that seems likely to be acted upon may require an investigation to see if it's going to be acted upon.

Hence the difference between online and offline speech - "I'm going to rape your pets to death" is far more actionable when you're standing in front of the person's house as opposed to some maternal basement half a world away.

There are limits to freedom of speach

[oneiros27]

Threatening to hit someone when you're in person is assault. Yet, if done over the internet, you can threaten to kill them, rape them, burn their house down, etc... and that should be legal?

Calling in a bomb threat isn't free speach, no matter if you were 'joking' or not. Screwing with people's lives, even if it's only one person and not a 'terroristic threat' shouldn't be, either.

And the strange thing is ... I'd normally agree with you about the freedom of speach and people need to grow a thicker skin... but once you get threats of violence, that's drawing the line.

I've had a stalker, and even though she was just crazy, not violent, I can say that you will *never* understand what this can do to a person. I knew who my stalker was (she worked with me, and management wouldn't do crap about it; luckily, we worked different shifts) ... but you start panicking every time you see someone in a crowd that might be her. You shut down when someone that you've chatted with on mailing lists meets you in person for the first time and expresses enthusiasm for meeting you.

So, in summary : fuck you and I hope you die in a fire. (yay freedom of speach!)

It's not censorship or more government control

[GrahamCox]

I think a lot of people are misinterpreting the intent of this. Much as I despise the current UK government, and am deeply concerned about surveillance and censorship and erosion of privacy and free speech generally, I think in this case it's not what's being proposed at all.

Basically, I believe in being free to do as you please unless it harms others. There's no doubt that trolling, in some cases, does harm, but right now the punishment isn't very harsh for the worst cases, and most people that indulge in trolling feel they have the "right" to do it (those were the exact words used by a recent troll who attacked the McCanns online and was called out on it by the news media; she later committed suicide. A pretty sad case for everyone concerned). This is confusing the right to free speech with a non-existent right to slander and libel with impugnity. If you are attacked, and it harms you (for some definition of harm) then you should have the right to prosecute the perpetrator to the extent the law allows.

All this is proposing is that harmful trolling is taken more seriously, and I agree with that. A judge will rule on the merit of any case brought, and hand down a sentence as he sees fit. This is merely proposing that the maximum available sentence is extended from 6 months to 2 years, and I agree with that. Note that this has nothing to do with the government having greater powers to monitor online activity - the judiciary have nothing to do with the government in the UK. If someone is trolled online and they feel it has harmed them, it is up to them to report it and press charges, and present their case in court. The government are not involved at all.

F the UK

[sabri]

I've said it many times before, and will say it again. The UK is not what it used to be. It used to be the bastion of European freedom, the saviors against Hitler.

At this time, they're exactly the opposite. They're on the front-lines of oppression, limiting freedom of speech and monitoring online and offline behavior all in the name of "save the children".

Re:F the UK

[tehcyder]

Holding people responsible for making threats of death and rape is indeed an infringement on free speech, in the same way that locking someone in prison for murder is an infringement of their right to liberty.

Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from its consequences, and the fact that it's on the internet is entirely irrelevant.

Re:F the UK

[tobe]

Sadly there's an element of our society that thinks it's funny and/or acceptable to threaten violence and specifically rape on people for simply expressing their views. A recent case where a woman was bombarded with these kind of threats for simply campaigning to keep a notable female on at least one of our bank notes comes to mind. The general population does not think this is an acceptable price to pay for free speech, hence legislation. I don't think you'll find many dissenting voices.

Re:F the UK

[Rei]

I agree. If by "poisoning" they mean people making insolts or dispatching flying penises in Second Life or stuff like that, then it's a bill too far. But if by "poisoning" they mean launching flickering images on an epilepsy forum to try to cause seizures, "doxxing", making legitimate rape and murder threats, etc, then I think it's absolutely justified. All too often is there the assumption that what happens online doesn't warrant enforcement, even if it's something that crosses over into the real world.

Everyone has the right to free speech, but it ceases being free speech when it crosses certain bounds (shouting fire in a crowded theatre, incitement to violence, solicitation of criminal activity, etc). All of these cases are nuanced and require careful balance, but what they should not be is ignored.

Re:F the UK

[RabidReindeer]

All of these cases are nuanced and require careful balance

It doesn't seem that nuanced. It seems to me the question is whether you're in trouble for expressing an unpopular idea (genuine infringement of freedom of expression), or for encouraging violence/panic. The epilepsy example is a deliberate act to cause harm which happens to take the form of a digital submission, but it's not really 'expression'.

I'm sure there are some interesting edge-cases, but this distinction seems important.

There's a third path: direct assault with intent to cause distress. That's what trolls are famous for, and recent news reports have had quite a bit of coverage of everything from people having to alter their lifestyles to cases of outright troll-induced suicide.

Re:F the UK

[nukenerd]

What idiot modded this as informative?

I suggest reading a bit of history before you post crap like this. Just try The Desert War and The Battle for Caen as examples. The British, Americans, Russians and French all fought ferociously against the Germans, and at one point it was the British alone.

Re:Ahhhh....

[K. S. Kyosuke]

His use was correct. Liberals are the first to demand everyone else walk on egg shells when their feelings get hurt.

A Libertarian will be the ones trying to remove such laws.

liberal, a. and n. A. adj.: 5. Of political opinions: Favourable to constitutional changes and legal or administrative reforms tending in the direction of freedom or democracy.

Re:Ahhhh....

[tehcyder]

Except this isn't about protecting people's hurt feelings, it's about punishing people who make criminal threats.

I know libertarians would say we should wait until the threat is carried out and someone is actually raped and killed, but in the real world most of us would prefer to stop it happening in the first place.

Your right to free speech does not include the right to (seriously) threaten me without recourse.