DPP says rude, shocking tweets shouldn't be prosecuted

OFFENSIVE, shocking or rude comments posted on Twitter or Facebook shouldn't land people in court, new social media guidelines say.

As social media becomes an increasingly fraught battleground between what's appropriate and what's not, Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, stepped in yesterday with a new set of legal guidelines.

They were inspired by the conviction in May 2010 of Paul Chambers, who joked on Twitter about blowing up Robin Hood Airport in South Yorkshire. His conviction for sending a "menacing" tweet drew widespread condemnation and was eventually quashed on appeal in July.

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Starmer says a tweet or online message that is "bad taste, controversial or unpopular" might land you in hot water with your boss, but it shouldn't see you hauled in front of a magistrate. Neither should people be prosecuted just because an online comment is unpopular or unfashionable or may cause offence to specific communities or individuals.

Internet 'trolls' – those who post deliberately messages designed to offend – can escape prosecution if they "express genuine remorse" or take "swift and effective action" to "remove the communication in question or otherwise block access to it", says The Independent. A prosecution could also be avoided if the communication "was not intended for a wide audience, nor was the obvious consequence of sending the communication".

The new guidelines say that prosecutors should proceed with "considerable caution", and only take action when comments are grossly offensive and where it would be in the public interest to bring about a prosecution, The Times reports.

The DPP notes that "hundreds of millions" of messages are sent on social media every month and an offensive posting would have to pass a "high threshold" before authorities stepped in. Given the massive amount of communication taking place a more heavy-handed approach had the "potential for a chilling effect on free speech, and prosecutors should exercise considerable caution."

A clear distinction is drawn between messages that are offensive, indecent and obscene and those that are likely to be prosecuted, such as a message that amounts to "a credible threat of violence or a targeted campaign of harassment against an individual".