This is why I post all my offensive comments on El Reg.
London cops waste £2.1m on thought crime unit – and they want volunteer informers
The Metropolitan Police is to spend £2.1m of public money funding a unit that will actively investigate “offensive” comments on Twitter and Facebook, according to reports. Backed by a team of “volunteers”, the Met's new unit will actively seek out anything “deemed inappropriate” on social media services, according to the …
COMMENTS
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Monday 15th August 2016 12:20 GMT Adam 52
I suspect (hope) this is the Met grabbing PR and extra Home Office funding for moving some people around.
They'd have had to be doing this anyway and much better to have a dedicated low-priority team than having response officers running around doing it when they should be doing something useful.
In general the Met is quite good at keeping the front line out of the streets. Whether that's a good thing because you get faster response times or bad because it leads to a stormtrooper attitude is up for debate.
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Monday 15th August 2016 12:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Dear Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe
You are a hypocritical, over paid, headline grabbing muppet.
"https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/14/met-police-chief-cuts-safety-public"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3391986/Met-Police-chief-orders-65-000-Range-Rover-despite-warning-budget-cuts-leave-country-risk-criminals-terrorists.html
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Tuesday 16th August 2016 08:12 GMT paulf
Slightly off topic but I like the way Viz usually get away with the kind of outrageous claims that would land other publications in the dock - they just attribute everything to an unreliable, ficticious source:
"Our source was on his twelfth pint when he made the completely untrue claim that <insert celebrity name here> liked to have sex with goats on a regular basis. 'The <celebrity> also has sex with rabbits', he lied to our reporter."
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Monday 15th August 2016 12:33 GMT Jason Bloomberg
Vigilantism
“There’s a risk of online vigilantism, where people who are offended by the least thing will have a licence to report it to the police.”
Everyone has a license to do that already.
Vigilantes are those who decide what is a crime and deliver punishment. In this case it is more 'nark', 'grass', or 'informant' than 'vigilante'. Those recruited will simply be providing information and the police will decide if there is an offence and, with the CPS, whether that should be pursued. No one seems to be proposing that Mr Angry can hit the Dislike button and the target will go straight to jail.
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Monday 15th August 2016 12:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
A Stasi-like State in the making...
I'm so glad that Brexit gave us our country back.
With this news and our departure from the European Court of Human Rights, our already 'secret courts', a determination to use our Security Services to spy on our texts, email, voice calls and social media messages and contacts, energy meter usage, vehicles we are driving, along with from/to where, I'm sure that the Brexiters will delight in the U.K. we 'got back'...
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Monday 15th August 2016 12:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A Stasi-like State in the making...
We aren't leaving the european court of human rights. It is an entirely separate organisation to the European Union. The two cooperate, but they are not the same thing.
May herself said she wouldn't be campaigning to leave it.
Of course, given that countries like Russia are full members of the Convention and theoretically under the judicial oversight of the Court, yet get away with literal murder on a regular basis, one wonders how effective it actually is.
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Monday 15th August 2016 14:09 GMT Teiwaz
Re: A Stasi-like State in the making...
"May herself said she wouldn't be campaigning to leave it."
- Was it not reported she said she'd like to stay in the EEC but leave the EHCR early in the Brexit campaign? She kept quiet through most of the rest of it.
Going by the push for Surveillance during her tenure at the Home Office, she's not one to let go of an idea.
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Monday 15th August 2016 15:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A Stasi-like State in the making...
"Going by the push for Surveillance during her tenure at the Home Office, she's not one to let go of an idea."
Yup, because of her enthusiasm for the mass surveillance of the people she is supposed to be serving (Democracy - we've heard of it), my first thought, upon her taking up her new post, was 'Prime Sinister'
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Monday 15th August 2016 22:15 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: A Stasi-like State in the making...
"On the launch of her campaign for PM, she stated that there was no support for leaving the ECHR (either the court or the convention) and that she would not be pushing for it."
Yes, a typical politicians statement. She's on record as wanting out of the Human Rights Act and hence the ECHR, but she's not going to push for that because she knew she'd never have won the PM position with that as an election promise.
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Monday 15th August 2016 13:23 GMT inmypjs
Re: A Stasi-like State in the making...
"I'm so glad that Brexit gave"
Dick.
This isn't anything to do with state control, it is just a predictable extension of the politically correct bullshit games politicians and officials play all day.
The "you can't say that" brigade being so desperate to display their correctness now think it acceptable to use the law and tax payers money to make sure people "can't say that".
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Monday 15th August 2016 12:46 GMT Kubla Cant
No evidence necessary
An interesting article in The Spectator (paywall, probably - extract below) recently pointed out that "Hate Crime" is unique in requiring no evidence. So how come it costs £2.1m to investigate?
The police’s ‘Hate Crime Operational Guidance’ now stresses that the victim’s perception is the deciding factor in whether something is measured as a hate crime. No evidence is required. ‘Evidence of… hostility is not required for an incident or crime to be recorded as a hate crime or hate incident,’ the guidance says. ‘[The] perception of the victim, or any other person, is the defining factor… the victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception.’ So you don’t need actual evidence to prove hate crime, just a feeling. The police are discouraged from asking for evidence.
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Monday 15th August 2016 12:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: No evidence necessary
"So you don’t need actual evidence to prove hate crime, just a feeling."
The public consultation draft of the Sexual Offences Bill in 2003 included a virtual "victim" - the hypothetically most vulnerable person who could be imagined. They didn't have to be present - in fact no one needed to be present for the offence of exposure to have been committed. Nor did there need to be any intent to cause alarm or distress.
Objections caused that low threshold of evidence to be modified for the final wording of the Act.
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Tuesday 16th August 2016 08:29 GMT David Roberts
Re: No evidence necessary
So you are saying that no one else has to be present for the crime of "exposure" to take place?
So, presumably, you would have to give yourself up?
Mumble.....if a tree falls in the forest and nobody..........mumble.
I once had a piss against a tree trunk when out walking. Nobody else was there. Should I give myself up?
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Monday 15th August 2016 13:53 GMT Gray
Re: No evidence necessary
So right. The "victim" is self-evidential. Here in the US, sexual harassment charges are based purely on the perception of the victim: hence to make a comment (while still half asleep prior to that second cup of morning coffee) "Good morning, Miss Jones. You certainly look nice today!" is an indefensible punishable offense of sexual harassment if Miss Jones perceives it to be!
So get used to it. I'm sure that the first moment our Congress manages to reassemble itself following our quadrennial self-flagellant silly-season of trumpeting and braying, they'll add "deviant speech" to our list of self-incriminating offenses.
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Monday 15th August 2016 15:53 GMT Kubla Cant
Re: No evidence necessary
"Good morning, Miss Jones. You certainly look nice today!" is an indefensible punishable offense of sexual harassment if Miss Jones perceives it to be!
It's worse than that. The guidelines say "perception of the victim, or any other person". Even if Miss Jones likes the compliment, even if she blushes and says "Thank you kindly, Sir. Fancy a quickie in the stationery cupboard?", it's open season for anyone within earshot to get the Police round and have you cuffed before you've finished that second cup of coffee.
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Monday 15th August 2016 13:35 GMT Tikimon
Everything offends SOMEone...
This will end up as a general purpose way for anyone to try to ruin the life of anyone they don't like. And as we know, once an accusation's made the cops proceed like blind automatons, you have a criminal record now, and good luck clearing your name.
Yanno, for all the yammer about bringing people together, governments sure pass a lot of laws that drive us all apart, don't they?
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Monday 15th August 2016 13:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
This has benefits...
Right now, we spend hours each day as operational copsdealing with hate crimes, threats,etc, reported from users of social media. Many in fairness are proper threats or abuse, so this unit should in theory, release more cops back on to the streets and out from behind a computer.
Hopefully.
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Tuesday 16th August 2016 07:19 GMT Bigg Phill
Re: How is this a "thought crime unit"?
If you publish your phone number and home address on the internet then no, I suppose not...
... However most of us don't do that so when somebody receives a threat through the post it's deemed very serious as the person who made the threat knows where you live and so there's a reasonable chance they might follow up on the threat.
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Tuesday 16th August 2016 14:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: How is this a "thought crime unit"?
You might be surprised how easy it is to find where people live based on social media information if you know where to dig. It is very easy to link someone's Twitter handle to their Facebook, which can be used to find out in what city they live. Even if they don't explicitly list that info you can often find it based on who their friends are, places they've been, pictures they have doing day to day stuff like walking the dog.
Once you have it narrowed down that to level, public records for stuff like home ownership, vehicle registration and so forth can provide the exact address. I'm sure a little social engineering would probably work with the utility companies, they don't treat your address as privileged information and in fact when I've called they've told me my address and asked to confirm it! Assuming a threat on Twitter is meaningless because the one making the threat has no possible way to locate a victim is foolish.
Obviously most people aren't going to call the police for an offhand comment, just like most people won't call the police if you get a crank call with a threat. But if something sounds legitimate and serious you should have the right to call the cops and have a proper investigation done, just like you would if they called your cell at 3am. Maybe it turns out the guy making the threat lives 10,000 miles away, in which case you might sleep easier figuring it will be harder to carry out than if the guy who lives 10 miles away.
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Tuesday 16th August 2016 21:01 GMT Richard 12
Re: How is this a "thought crime unit"?
And "obviously" nobody would ever get prosecuted for blowing off steam in a tweet about wanting an airport to get their act together.
Yet it did actually happen.
Laws like this are dangerous.
Putting together a group who's entire purpose is to prosecute people for posting things online is worse, because they will find something to justify their existence.
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Monday 15th August 2016 22:08 GMT Dave Bell
The story misses so much of the context.
There is a lot of abusive commenting on social media, much of it repeated and directed at particular people that may well be a breach of the particular site's Terms of Service. And the companies seem to do fuck all to enforce their own rules.
This isn't one guy saying something rude. These are sustained verbal assaults by relentless mobs.
There's a problem. I know people who have been victims, the blatant cases have a scale and level which goes way beyond what most of us would say. The fears of intrusion are based on these misconceptions.
I am not sure the informants are a good idea. It would be better if the police took steps that gave victims confidence that the law would be enforced, and encouraged these assaults to be reported.
Do some research: take a look at the case of somebody such as Milo Yiannopoulos, treating both sides with a degree of scepticism, as the Police should do in a similar case. Judge it on the evidence, not on your fears or wild claims of censorship by the state.
I am not sure I trust The Register on this, their story seems conveniently ignorant of such cases. And I am not sure I trust the Police. But having them move in may have a lot to do with the failures of the company and the community. Billions for capitalism. Not one cent for civilisation.
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Tuesday 16th August 2016 02:10 GMT JustWondering
Re: The story misses so much of the context.
@ Dave: It is good to have something to deal with those extreme cases, but my concern here is crime with no actual complainant. You could be having a conversation with someone where neither of you are offended, and have some creeper dropping a dime for revenge or just sport.
I think the only informant should be the person that is being wronged. Then you just have to hope the police can tell the difference between a problem and someone being a twat.
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Monday 15th August 2016 22:24 GMT x 7
well, we all know people who use Farcebook and Twatter are all braindead incompetents with personality problems, social awareness issues, and overdeveloped right wrists.
In ancient Greece the Spartans would have chucked them over the cliff edge in an eugenic attempt to preserve racial vitality
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Thursday 11th January 2018 01:09 GMT Maty
'... in an eugenic attempt to preserve racial vitality.'
While not disagreeing with the extreme Spartan proclivity toward practical eugenics, what 'race' are we talking about here? The Spartans did not see themselves as a separate race. Overall, the Spartans were that branch of Greeks called Dorians, but they didn't show any great fondness for other Dorians, yet alone trying to keep that race 'vital'.
As for chucking people off cliffs as a punishment, that was the Romans. Google 'Tarpeian Rock' for details.
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Tuesday 16th August 2016 04:33 GMT scrubber
Please, please, please can I be the manager ...
... I'd just set my autoreply to be: "That's not a crime, you imbecile" and collect the 50k.
Incidentally, if telling a Labour MP to "go into the sea" is a death threat then is telling them to go fuck themselves a rape threat? Because they really should all go fuck themselves. And the tories. And any libs still around. But especially the SNP.
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Tuesday 16th August 2016 08:42 GMT David Roberts
Only abuse people in different countries (apart from the USA?)
Just wondering how they intend to police this across national borders.
We all know that the USA considers that it's laws apply worldwide, however.
Just a minute; if I offend one of the brain dead dickhead Merkin commentards can I be extradited?
Joke alert to help with my appeal.
P.S. As they can't be arsed in the UK to do anything about international cold callers and scammers what chance is there that they will do anything about international Twitterati?