Prosecutors will be tougher on social media ‘hate crimes’

People who post racist, anti-semitic and extremist messages on Facebook and Twitter will face tougher action by prosecutors.

The Director of Public Prosecutions will publish guidance in the autumn calling for greater priority to be given to hate crime on the internet.

Prosecutors normally have to apply a “high threshold” before taking action against people for postings on social media and prove that they are “grossly offensive”. Posts which are considered “shocking”, “rude” or “satirical” are unlikely to be sufficiently offensive for prosecutors to take action.

The guidance will make clear, however, that posts which “discriminate against the victim’s ethnic or national origin, gender, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity” should be prosecuted.

The new guidance was highlighted in the Government’s Hate Crime Strategy, published yesterday.