Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Meanwhile a friend who lives a few streets away had an expensive bike stolen from just outside the side entrance of her house, behind a gate about a week ago. She's reported it to the police and received a crime number but that's about it so far.

Now if only the perpetrator had used some offensive terminology...

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Yep a family member got burgled in march no police officers came to the house not even a crime scene tech just a crime number for insurance purposes despite the damage done to them physically and mentally the resources are not there apparently. Hurt some feelings which will be the extent of the majority of cases because of this and some people want already stretched resources further stretched so life online can be as fun and happy as some want.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

There are always idiots..we should be teaching our children ways of being able to walk away from such stupidity and how to have a thicker skin..No one loses by walking away from such small minded people and the reality is we can't legislate for what goes on in people's minds.We can only legislate against people's physical actions.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Yes, 'offend' someone by calling them a name and virtually all hell breaks loose but suffer the real lasting trauma of a burglary and the actual invasion/theft/damage of your personal property and nobody seems to care.

We were done way back in the early 1990's when thieves kicked our back door in and even now what happened has stayed with me. We were lucky back then - police attended and the following day and a forensics guy pitched up but that was about it.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Both crimes are important and should be dealt with.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

I think one is more important than the other.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

It's easier for the police to do something with an IP address. I've had my bike stolen and my house broken into and the police also didn't 'do' anything but aside from examining CCTV (which they did for the bike) and taking forensics (which they did for the break-in) if nothing turns up they are limited by a lack of information. :shrug:

---------- Post added at 20:40 ---------- Previous post was at 20:34 ----------

I think you're being unfair by characterising this issue as people calling each other names. I looked at the story and assumed it was about people, largely women, getting horrific threats and violent language used against them online. I still think this is what they're primary going after although there will inevitably be the high-profile cases of them going after someone for something mild.

The enforcement of existing laws relating to threats of rape, death and violence though is perfectly acceptable to me and it shouldn't be a choice between that the enforcement of other laws. If there is then the police should prioritise the more serious crimes first but we should also see how we allocate resources.

However if you make this a case of someone calling someone an idiot online vs a old granny getting mugged in her own home then of course it's silly. We would agree on that, it's just not the debate we're having.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

I think you're being extremely unfair by saying something I didn't. I don't think every example of hate crime boils down to name calling but a good proportion, probably the vast majority, do and that's what I'm referring to. I don't think it's necessary to qualify every statement I make here with a list of exclusions. If I believed, stupidly, that all hate crime is trivial nonsense, I'm quite capable of articulating that unequivocally so if I haven't done that it's safe to assume that's not what I'm saying.

Even where the abuse is most appalling such as those you quoted, how many people actually sincerely believe that some nutter from the ether who spends their entire life in their bedroom spouting this garbage is really going to murder them or rape them for something they've said on the internet? No it's not pleasant at all, it's highly unpleasant but we do need to put things into perspective and that's all I'm trying to do.

Lots of things shouldn't have to be a choice but in the real world they do - take NHS care for example and the provision of live saving drugs. There's a limit to the available resources and unless more are going to be provided to cope with the additional load, then someone else's provision is going to suffer. If the police are deluged with hate crime reports merely working through them all to prioritise them is going to be a substantial task which will require resources the police are always telling us they don't have. The very reason burglaries are being 'trivialised' is because the police no longer have the resources to deal with them properly and for me the reality of someone actually being in your home is far more worrying than a threat on the internet or for that matter some very unpleasant abuse on the train for example.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

I was referring to this:

Otherwise sorry if that's not what you meant.

I don't know but as a fairly anonymous white male it's not a problem I often face. Those that do face it however are pretty vocal about how horrible an experience it is. There will be many negative experiences in life I'll never be a position to relate to and in those cases it's sensible to listen to those who are at the receiving end and believe them that it's a harrowing way to live.

A good example would be to read the accounts of female game developers or journalists at the receiving end of Gamergate. People invading their social media accounts, e-mails, phone numbers to hurl abuse and threats at them: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/0...nal-spotlight/

Or what happened to Leslie Jones for daring to be a women in a Ghostbusters movie: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cul...f-leslie-jones

When these people are targeted they can't escape it.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

I've been on the receiving end of some very unpleasant anti disabled abuse Damian but not once did i think of reporting people to the police. There always have been and there always will be ignorant morons but contrary to what some think you can't legislate everything away. My skin has thickened and my temper threshold is much higher because of the abuse I've had and I'm nothing special i haven't done anything that anyone else can't do. Most of the time the idiot brigade are looking for a reaction and any reaction and those will love having the police involved it will in their mind add something. The really serious and thoroughly unpleasant persistent abusers will be vpn'd up to their necks using ghost accounts or zombie accounts and the level of resources needed to unravel those will be out of all proportion to the number of cases.

We don't have the resources and people are not prepared to pay the amount of tax to have the resources to deal with every issue and given the number of actual physical crimes that don't get properly dealt with because of lack of resources prioritising online abuse is a slap in the face for thousands of crime victims in the UK. Internet is a choice as is how you interact with the internet you do have choices and options to avoid abuse generally and it is not something the police should be doing with their ever tightening resources.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

It is what I meant there - in respect of people calling eachother rather unpleasant names etc. That's not how I see all hate crime however and as I stated above, clearly some forms of this abuse, even verbal/written are far more serious and sinister than others and some does become 'real' as opposed to ethereal.

All the more reason for inhabitors of the social media world to be a lot more responsible what personal and identifying information they present to all and sundry I'd have thought. If I went out every day without shutting/locking my doors I don't think I'd get a lot of sympathy if I was burgled. If I broadcast all sorts of personal information to the world, I might expect a similar lack of sympathy if I wound up getting stalked or threatened by a nutter who knows where I live or work. The world shouldn't be like that but it is sadly and we all know it don't we, so why are so many people so blase about what they put online and why are they surprised when the haters appear and get very nasty indeed? :shrug:

I'd like to know what percentage of really nasty threats (e.g. murder, rape etc.) made on the internet turn out to be credible and/or carried through. A miniscule proportion I'd wager in which case whilst they're certainly unwarranted and highly unpleasant, we might wish to worry more about the far bigger risks of the real world like crossing the road, getting mugged, etc.

Of course media personalities etc. can't hide their lives so for them I'd agree that they're probably more susceptible to serious abuse, less able to protect their personal information and more likely to feel personally threatened when under attack from trolls for example.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

People can be safer online but you can't always stop it. This is even more true when you don't have the cloak of anonymity because your online presence is related to your career as was the case with many of these female gamers who've been driven out of their homes in some cases as trolls post their addresses online. They can find out about you, your employer and set out to destroy your life. Even then it can't be nice to open your phone every hour and see a flood of e-mails, tweets or messages with graphically nasty threats.

Here is another example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/wom...deo-games.html

These people ruin lives.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Which is why I mentioned those who are, for example, celebrities or high profile figures who are far more easily traced and hence more vulnerable and yes, can very well have their lives ruined by sad inadequates who get a kick out of this sort of thing. They'd clearly not be the victims of what I referred to as 'name calling', however, but something far more serious. They'd also be in a very small minority.

For by far the vast majority of people, if someone appears on social media or something and threatens them they'd be wise not to bat an eyelid because they can be pretty confident that it's far more likely their abuser is a sad, pathetic little individual for whom threats/abuse are an escape from their inadequacy, than someone who has the inclination/ability to turn their online threats into reality. If we're not going to believe that then we really ought not to use the internet or leave our front doors...

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Like most things if you take the bait....:erm:

Better to ignore the saddo.

Re: Police to get tough on internet trolls.
 

Absolutely, but some people also bring problems upon themselves by posting inappropriate comments online:

Disability discrimination is just one of the problems emerging from the people that the Government have employed to help with the transfer from DLA to PIP (ATOS):

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/170173...ws-_-558269389

Other problems include lying, false reporting, turning up for work drunk and effectively not allowing claimants to record the conversation to protect themslves