Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Haven't got a clue, for the reasons described.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

You do realise that normal etiquette on a forum is to cite sources when coming out with something like that?

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

No, just curious, as I could find nothing recent on the BBC’s News, Tech, or Economy websites, and it’s a fairly major impact on Social Media sites, as where FB leads, others follows...

For instance, there was an BBC article in May last year about hiring 15,000 staff to work in the community safety area, but around 7,500 would be involved in content moderation, with the rest being engineers, data analysts, and other related jobs (with a target of 20,000 staff being involved in the community safety area).

Sounds good, but FB has around 1.5 billion users interacting with it every day, Instagram has around a billion per day,

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Whatever people's views on the way that Katie Price conducts her personal life, she has been doing some marvellous work behind the scenes to put in place measures to protect disabled people (and others) from online abuse:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46951232

MP's have concluded that self regulation does not work (my own submitted evidence showed how it's more likely to be the disabled person that is labelled as a trouble causer, too thin skinned etc). The result is that it's more likely to be the disabled person who is driven off the site (which is often their only means of social interaction), than the perpetrators of the harrassment, discrimination etc.

MP's are now supporting calls to make innapropriate online comments (often thinly veiled, but purposely crafted to be as dehumanising, derogatory and degrading as possible) to the disabled a hate crime and a criminal offence. It is noted that much of what is written online by these cowards wouldn't dare be said verbally or face to face; 'keyboard warrior syndrome if you like. I assume that they still think that the internet is totally anonymous and that they can hide behind a username.

If would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who signed this petition, you really are helping to make a difference to the people whose already difficult lives are blighted by these vile individuals; thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Actress Samantha Renke, who has brittle bone disease, said she received social media messages calling her "vile" and saying "real humans walk on two legs".

I agree that direct abuse such as this should not be permitted. As long as any legislation is carefully worded to ensure that only those who deliberately targeted a disabled person in this way were prosecuted, I would support that.

What I would not support is people complaining of 'hurt feelings' over normal discourse.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

The trouble is that most of these types of people are savvy enough not to directly bring the subject of disability into their harrassment.

It's also generally regarded as socially unacceptable to openly insult and belittle disabled people (and other groups), so they tend to try and claim either that their behaviour is the normal way that they speak to people or that it's down to a personal dislike and nothing to do with their protected group status. The courts are well aware of this tactic and various tests have been used to demonstrate that the underlying cause of their behaviour is indeed disability discrimination.

This is not to say that there can never be any disagreement with someone from a protected group, as long as their circumstances are fully taken into consideration. For example, I doubt any right thinking person would pursue a political argument as someone lay in bed dying of a terminal illness. To do so would constitute harrassment, as would someone repeatedly criticising someone for something that they could not help e.g. stuttering during verbal communication or for the way that they express themselves in the written word.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

So are you trying to say that if someone in bed dying of a terminal illness utters racist, sexist, and other offensive phrases, it should be illegal to disagree with them?

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Well, extremities can and do happen. I'd say yes as the process of knowing you are going to die must be extremely difficult to cope with mentally. In addition, they may be exhausted, in pain or hallucinating both audibly and visually and not know what they are saying.

In short, as someone is dying they should be cut a bit of slack as it wouldn't be the time or the place to enter into a political discussion!!

There have been cases where people in pain (not terminally ill) who have sworn and uttered racist comments. To their credit, the black members of staff remained professional and courteous throughout. Their wish to be professional at all times overrode any personal feelings and, after all, they couldn't be sure their patient wasn't also suffering from a psychotic illness or had something like Tourettes syndrome.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

I sometimes suffer from a random form of Tourettes syndrome, admittedly usually brought on by the stupidity of others though ;)

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

The BBC News channel is reporting that MP's have now called for site owners to have a legal duty for the health & wellbeing of their users (presumably this will be above and beyond any existing 'duty of care' requirements).

The commons Science & Technology Committee also added their support for a regulator to oversee interactive sites.

The Government have responded by saying that they are considering this amongst other options.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

A regulator to oversee foreign sites hosted on foreign servers by foreign companies beyond UK jurisdiction?

One can really see that working. :rolleyes:

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Not sure how it would work, perhaps they will proscribe & block websites that don't comply??

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Can't be done with current technology. For example TPB* is supposed to be inaccesable through any UK ISP by court injunction over 3 years ago yet it takes just a few seconds to waltz round the blocks. That's before you use a VPN. You can bet if I can do it your average 7 year old probably knows many more ways.

This is why they just talk about it and don't actually try anything legal because they'll be shown to be totally impotent.

*The Pirate Bay

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Unless they were going to wide scale and implement something like SSL decryption and use products like Cisco Umbrella/Netskope. Could attempt to force the ISP's to implement at carrier level

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Sites to be forced by law to sign a code of conduct to protect young & vulnerable people after being accused of acting as though they were above the law:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-suicides.html