The Crown Prosection Service, or CPS, has unveiled guidelines on how law makers should approach policing social networks. The guidance makes a distinction between offensive messages and those that are malicious, making social media as close to spoken conversation in the eyes of the law as it is to written media. See all: PC Advisor software downloads.
New guidelines say that merely offensive posts should not be prosecuted
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Kier Starmer, has announced guidelines that clarify the law with regard to messages posted on social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook. The new Crown Prosection Service guidance is intended to reduce the number of prosecutions arising from offensive social networking posts, following recent high-profile incidents such as the man who was arrested for posting a film on Facebook of himself burning a symbollic poppy.
In announcing the guidelines Starmer said that Twitter and Facebook posts that are merely offensive will not be treated as criminal acts. Instead the CPS should focus on credible threats of violence, malicious messages, and messages that breach existing court orders. This should have prevented the prosection of accountant Paul Chambers, who was pursued through criminal and appeal courts for more than two years for joking about blowing up Doncaster airport. His 'threat' was clearly not credible - although even under these guidelines it would have required the local police and prosecutors to have appreciated that.
Announcing the guidelines, Mr Starmer said: "These interim guidelines are intended to strike the right balance between freedom of expression and the need to uphold the criminal law.
"The interim guidelines thus protect the individual from threats or targeted harassment while protecting the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, or banter or humour, even if distasteful to some and painful to those subjected to it."
Comments
Matt Egan said: I understand exactly the role of the CPS If you wish to be pedantic yes one could choose to bring a private prosecution based on the letter of the law and take your chances with a judge But the police will follow the CPS guidance in deciding which cases to pursue and the CPS will itself decide which cases to take forward So in practice the CPS does indeed steer in which way the law is applied
Mike said: The writer seems to misunderstand what the role of the CPS is They are not law makers nor are they talking to law makers Nor do they clarify the law Parliament and the judiciary do all of that What they are saying is about guidelines for public prosecution as I understand it So it represents the basis upon which decisions about public prosecutions will be made But of course that wouldnt prevent a private prosecution being pursued in a case that did not meet the CPSs criteria and which could be successful The law is king not the CPS