UK's Chief Troll Hunter Targets Doxxing, Virtual Mobbing, and Nasty Images (arstechnica.co.uk)

Some bad news for trollers on the internet who use sophisticated techniques to hurl abuses at others. The UK's top prosecutor has warned that they are introducing new regulations to take these matters carefully and punish offenders with jail time. From an ArsTechnica report:New guidelines have been released by the Crown Prosecution Service to help cops in England and Wales determine whether charges -- under part 2, section 44 of the 2007 Serious Crime Act -- should be brought against people who use social media to encourage others to harass folk online. Over the past four years the CPS has repeatedly tweaked its guidelines on offensive behaviour on social media sites. The latest overhaul, among other things, addresses doxxing, where a person's personal information such as bank details or home address are published online; violence against women and girls such as "baiting" -- which labels someone as sexually promiscuous and can include the use of humiliating photoshopped images; and online harassment campaigns that encourage the use of derogatory hashtags. "Social media can be used to educate, entertain, and enlighten but there are also people who use it to bully, intimidate, and harass," said director of public prosecutions Alison Saunders. "Ignorance is not a defence and perceived anonymity is not an escape. Those who commit these acts, or encourage others to do the same, can and will be prosecuted."

Comments

Selective enforcement

[meta-monkey]

Gotta punish that wrongthink. How much you want to bet they'll vigorously prosecute those who say mean things about immigrants or women, but gosh just never find the time to investigate someone who bashes white people or men...

Re:Selective enforcement

[Pinky's Brain]

http://www.express.co.uk/news/...

"Another girl, going under the pseudonym Lizzie, said: "I know a few girls who have come forward recently and been told they are being racist and I know a lot that won't come forward and to be fair I can't blame them."

This is what is still going on in Rotherham. Government can't or won't fix the atrocious situations occurring because of the utter failure of multiculturalism (it's success is mandated by the holiest laws in existence today, Human Rights, thus for them there can be no alternative). The only way for government to maintain the status quo is to prevent the native population from organizing. This is what this law is all about.

Re:Selective enforcement

[AmiMoJo]

What's with all the alt-right troll headlines on Slashdot lately?

I submitted the same story without the trolling. It's not nearly as bad as this makes it. The threshold is very high. Grossly offensive has a specific meaning in British law. If you want to discuss the facts of the issue feel free, but I'm pretty sure you aren't familiar with them.

I'm not really happy about it either, by the way, because the CPS is incompetent, but that's not what the summary or you address.

Re:Selective enforcement

[meta-monkey]

What're they gonna do, storm Parliament with their spoons?

Re:Selective enforcement

[elrous0]

The alt-right is an actual thing though

So are SJW's. And they too have separated themselves from traditional liberals, adopting a much more radical agenda. Just ask Bernie Sanders, an old-school liberal who ran head-long into the SJW movement during his campaign.

The sad thing is that Sanders would have made for a much better President than either of the two ass-clowns who got the nominations. But these days only the most shrill voices dominate. And as a straight white male who wasn't able to tout his victimhood and label all his opponents as sexists/racists/homphobes, he never stood a chance on the new SJW left.

Re:Selective enforcement

[Z80a]

It's a half and half situation.
While there are a decently sized group of people that entitles themselves alt-right, people been grouping several groups that aren't alt-rights into the same neat package to beat down the whole thing at once.

it is (mostly) well intentioned..

[Anonymous Coward]

but more than just a little bit difficult to enforce.

harassment is already illegal.... so just add some bits to include "...on the internet" and call it a day. the law will be there for when its needed.

Re:it is (mostly) well intentioned..

[mr_mischief]

Harrassment is illegal, yes. But is popularizing an offensive hashtag a "Serious Crime" as the name of the act suggests it's meant to address?

Re:it is (mostly) well intentioned..

[AmiMoJo]

The hashtag would have to be part of a harassment campaign for it to matter.

This reminds me of the story about a court deciding that unfriending someone on Facebook was harassment. Of course they didn't, the Facebook thing was just one small part of a pattern of behaviour both online and offline.

Get in the basket

[PopeRatzo]

I predict the Anonymous Cowards aren't going to like this one bit, no sir. Not one bit.

Re:To Mr. Saunders, aka Mr. Fucktard...

[MightyMartian]

There are some kinds of speech that can be criminalized, or at least made into civil matters. Shout fire in a crowded theater, urge on a violent mob, or, on the civil side, call your neighbor a pedophile because he dog craps on your lawn, and you'll find out awfully fast that freedom of speech is not limitless, and that like any liberty, there are edges.

Re:i.e. speech I don't like is bad

[MightyMartian]

What happens if the Internet troll is threatening to rape or kill you?

Believe it or not, it has never been acceptable to threaten bodily harm against people, and "on a computer" is not a defense.

That's already criminal behavior

[The Last Gunslinger]

Threatening a person with violence is criminal behavior already covered in the penal code.

Re:That's already criminal behavior

[MightyMartian]

If you can't express your feelings without calling for someone's rape, then you have a serious problem.

Putting 12-year-olds in prison

[Rick Schumann]

That's where I see this going: They'll hunt down these nasty trolls, only to find they're just '2edgy4u' 12-year-olds who aren't supervised in their internet usage. What do you do then? Can't put them in prison. Do you put their parents in prison? Huge fine? LOL. I think the best you could do is ban their household from the internet for some period of time, and inform the kids school that he's not to be allowed to use the internet except when 100% supervised. This does not even address the problem of trolls outside the jurisdicton of the UK, for which there's basically nothing they could do about it; do they really think Timbuktwoistan's government is going to give a damn about someone posting mean things on the internet? I think this is, once again, a case of politicians and government workers who don't understand the technology of the internet, and how unenforcable things like this really are because of that. What they ought to be doing is working to educate people that they should not be posting personal information on the internet in the first place, so no doxxing can happen.

Re:Putting 12-year-olds in prison

[ausekilis]

Tell that to all credit-related agencies.

Bought a house? Your name, address, and price paid are on a list for advertisers and lenders to swoop in on.

Recently looked into buying a car? Your name and address are put on a list for lenders and dealers to send crap to.

Anything else involving a credit check? Yup. Your name is on a list for credit card companies to send crap to.

Oddly enough, even if you explicitly opt-out of this advertising, you will still get a ton of garbage. I bought a house earlier this year, opted out of sharing my name to any affiliates and "recent buyers list" (or whatever it's called). I still got mail and phone calls from assorted insurance agencies, mortgage lenders, credit card companies, and banks for 3 solid months.

Re:Some people just have nothing better to do...

[lgw]

violence against women and girls such as "baiting" -- which labels someone as sexually promiscuous and can include the use of humiliating photoshopped images;

Wow, so now the definition of "violence" includes mean tweets? Having been through actual violence, from beatings to robbery, I'll take mean tweets any day.

"Violence" is not a thing that can happen through the internet. Oh, sure, you can incite it, but that's already a crime, no special "on a computer" law needed. I can see the point in making "doxxing" explicitly a kind of harassment, but really, don't these people have any real crime to chase? You know, the kind that leaves people with actual injury?

Re:To Mr. Saunders, aka Mr. Fucktard...

[MightyMartian]

Brandenburg v. Ohio gives the police and prosecutors the power to charge someone if their speech leads to imminent danger. In other words, you incite a riot, you'll be charged.

And if you call your neighbor a pedophile because his dog shits on your lawn, he'll likely own your law after the civil trial is over. Ever heard of slander?

Re:Some people just have nothing better to do...

[AmiMoJo]

It's a shitty summary that does not accurately describe the law. Obviously, baiting is not violence. However, photoshopping someone into porn and distributing it on social media as part of a campaign of harassment is illegal in the UK. For men as well as women.