Proposal for internet trolls to spend up to two years in prison

Under legislation proposed by the Law Commission, cyber flashers and those who orchestrate online "pile ons" could face up to two years in prison.

 

To combat the rise in online abuse, which is not covered by current laws, the commission has put forward a raft of new offences. There would be an overarching offence for online abuse to outlaw actions such as pile-on harassment coordinated against an individual. Cyber flashing - where a perpetrator sends an unsolicited sexual image to another device nearby - and glorifying self-harm online will become specific offences, as will sending false or threatening communications.

 

The commission said the legislation governing online harms had failed to keep pace with the explosion in internet use. The recommendations are expected to be backed by the Government amid concern at growing online abuse experienced by millions of social media users, and seen in recent racial attacks on sports stars. Some 70 per cent of adults now have a social media profile and one third say they have suffered online abuse.

 

The culture minister, Caroline Dinenage, said the Government would "carefully consider" the proposals as it updated laws for the digital age, saying: "We are putting legal responsibilities on social media companies to protect the British public. But we have to be confident we can hold the individuals using these sites to threaten, abuse and spread hate accountable too." The commission said existing offences were ineffective at criminalising harmful behaviour while they could, sometimes, disproportionately interfere with freedom of expression, it cited vague terms such as "grossly offensive" and "indecent" which set the threshold for criminality too low and could make consensual sexting between adults an offence. Pile-on harassment could evade prosecution despite being harmful and distressing. The Commission said: "The result is that the law as it currently stands over-criminalises in some situations and under-criminalises in others," and it proposed a new offence based on likely psychological harm, where prosecutors would have to show a perpetrator intended to cause harm and had no reasonable excuse for the abusive posts. Reasonable excuse would include whether the communication was or was meant as a contribution to a matter of public interest. Media articles would be exempt. The offence would capture trolling as well as pile-on harassment and could be enacted through amendments to current malicious communications acts, which carry a maximum 2 years in prison.

 

Cyber flashing would be included in the Sex Offences Act 2003 amended to include the sending images or video of genitalia, and would carry a maximum sentence of two years in jail. Encouraging or glorifying self-harm is being targeted as part of the duty of care laws which will enable the regulator, Ofcom, to force social media firms to take down such posts and fine them if they fail to do so, however it will also become a specific offence for those who "target intentional encouragement or assistance of self-harm at a high threshold (equivalent to grievous bodily harm). It could carry a sentence of up to 14 years in jail, said the Commission. 

 

Knowingly sending false communications would be an offence if it could be shown to cause non-trivial psychological, emotional, or physical harm.

 

The Johnson Partnership

Nottingham Solicitors