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Digital Crime ‘the new front line’.

The Law Commission has called for a full review of the law dealing with digital crime.

Ten years ago, digital crime hardly existed now the Prime Minister has said it is so bad that it poses 'a threat to democracy'.

The rise of the digital age is unchecked and will cause mental health issues the level we have never seen before, as well as being a place for empowering self-expression, online platforms can become places of intimidation and abuse.

Technology has provided massive opportunities, but unfortunately, social media has become a world where untruths and abuse are commonplace.

The majority of the abuse is directed towards female, BME and LGBT people, in the weeks preceding the general election Diane Abbott received half of all abusive tweets sent to all female MP’s.

The Law covering online communications needs clarification and co-operation, under the existing guidelines the authorities are having to deal with terminology that is ambiguous, terms such as ‘indecency’ or ‘grossly offensive’.

Abuse online should be dealt with in the same way as abuse offline; it should not be accepted as just something that happens online, the present state of affairs is akin to the 1970’s and 80’s when domestic violence was unchecked.

The existing communications acts have not kept pace with the changes in the digital world.

The forum is very different than any other, a bully in a playground insulting a person will not be tolerated and yet the same bully can taunt through social media in front of an audience of 1000’s, and it will go unchecked.

A case was recently highlighted of ‘pile on’ harassment, where the abused person stated that she had been insulted, in isolation it may be passed over but when 100’s of follow up insults are then directed at her because of the first insult, the effect was very different.

The report by the Law Commission stated that online abuse has caused depression, anxiety, and feelings of shame, loneliness, and distress.
The challenge in reviewing the existing law to provide adequate protection is a monumental task, it must not be forgotten the role in which the social media companies play in this, they have a responsibility to protect those being abused. Instead, they protect the abuser. Many of the laws that online companies must abide by are American laws, so to obtain information from a company the UK authorities must obtain the right legal permissions from America, a very time consuming and costly process.

Perhaps online firms should be made to comply with the laws of the land, or otherwise they become unavailable, harsh, but the amount of revenue received from advertising in the UK should make them compliant soon enough.

We must protect the next generation, the digital world is the new wild west but without a sheriff, and that needs to change. Unfortunately, I believe we will end up with new Laws which fall short and are already out of date, let’s hope not.



Digital Crime ‘the new front line’.
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