The Tom Daley situation has drawn attention to the conflict between freedom of speech and acceptable behaviour. The teenager who sent a malicious tweet to Mr Daley has been arrested – an action perhaps coloured by the gentleman in question being an Olympic athlete.
There have been a spate of arrests for reasons good and bad; for example the police are pursuing the Twitter users who named & bullied Chet Evans’ rape victim on the social media platform. Apart from being absolutely vile behaviour, these Twitter users had broken a serious law in Britain; rape victims are guaranteed lifelong anonymity, and naming such a person in the public sphere is a serious criminal offence.
In addition female columnists report that threats of violence and rape are so frequent they become the norm. One conservative Catholic blogger stated that “I get at least five sexually threatening emails a day.” While some commentators have dismissed this as trolling with no real threat quotient, the abuse of popular technology blogger Kathy Sierra disproves this. In 2007 cyber stalkers stepped up their abuse with death threats, followed by publishing her social security number and home address. If someone threatens you with violence, and knows where you live, it becomes a lot more serious than mere ‘trolling’.
Online threats and bullying do need to be taken seriously; yet I am equally concerned by politically motivated and spurious arrests. Some foolish lads who posted about the riots on facebook got 4 years in prison. As far as I am concerned, this doesn’t help anyone. Yes, they were encouraging people to riot, in a childish and silly way. But rather than put them in prison for years at public expense, why not have them perform Community Service, helping to repair the aftermath of the riots they found so hilarious? The simple answer is that the public wanted retribution for the outburst of violence, and the Government found it expedient to give it to them.
Equally the man who joked about setting fire to an airport because his plane was late should never have been arrested. Unless he had a can of petrol and several firelighters on him, he was unlikely to actually do it. He was simply expressing frustration. On the other side, Nadine Dorries reported 3 bloggers who had critiqued her policies as stalkers. She also reported a political rival, Linda Jack.
There is a world of difference between being an idiot and threatening to kill someone. The former should be ignored, the latter investigated to the fullest power of the law. Internet harassment is a new field and understandably confusing for law enforcement agencies; that said, libel laws are a good place to start.
