Hate Crimes Online: UK To Prosecute Internet, Real-Life Offenses Equally

Prosecutors in the United Kingdom are being encouraged to treat online hate crime with the same severity of hate crimes that are committed in person, according to a new policy published Monday.

The advisory message came from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the agency in charge of conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. Advocates for free speech have raised concerns the new policy may stifle freedom of expression online.

In its newly posted guidelines, the CPS acknowledged the growth of social media has led to an increased need to police and prosecute hate speech online, as speech on online platforms can adversely affect individuals and wider communities of people.

In response to the changing landscape online, prosecutors have been encouraged to “to treat online crime as seriously as offline offenses,” and to treat online instances of hate crime with the same “robust and proactive approach used with offline offending.”

CPS defined a hate crime as “an offense where the perpetrator is motivated by hostility or shows hostility towards the victim’s disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity.” The agency also acknowledged for the first time “biphobic” hate crime, or a crime that targets a person who identifies as bisexual.

"Hate crime has a corrosive effect on our society and that is why it is a priority area for the CPS,” Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said. “It can affect entire communities, forcing people to change their way of life and live in fear.”

Saunders said it was the hope of CPS that the new policies would “take account of the current breadth and context of offending” while providing the best possible chance to achieve justice for the victims of the crimes.

"I hope that, along with this week's campaign, they will give people the confidence to come forward and report hate crime, in the knowledge that they will be taken seriously and given the support they need," she said.

In order to spread the new policy and encourage victims of hate crimes online and off to come forward and report the incidents, CPS also launched a social media campaign called “#HateCrimeMatters.”

The hashtag has already attracted quite a few dissenting comments, including cries of thought policing and crackdowns on free speech, as well as comparisons to offline hate crimes that seem to have much more severe consequences.

Despite the negative opinions of some, the move from CPS has been encouraged by others and appears to be in line with the increased scrutiny paid to hate speech happening online by tech companies and law enforcement agencies in the United States.

In the wake of the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, tech firms have taken a harsher stance against hate groups using their platforms. White supremacist site the Daily Stormer was bounced from Google, GoDaddy and Cloudflare after posting an article condoning the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer and praising the white supremacist who killed her.

A number of other companies have also cracked down on online hate, including service like streaming music service Spotify, communications platform Discord and dating site OkCupid—though organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned against curbing freedom of speech online.