09 Oct 12 | minipost, News and features
Yorkshire man Azhar Ahmed has been given a community order after being found guilty of “sending a grossly offensive communication”. Ahmed, 19, from West Yorkshire wrote on Facebook that “All soldiers should DIE & go to HELL!” This morning at Huddersfield Magistrates’ Court he was fined £300 and ordered to complete 240 hours of community service over a two-year period.
08 Oct 12 | Index Index, minipost, United Kingdom
A man who admitted to posting “despicable” comments about missing five-year-old April Jones on his Facebook page has been jailed for 12 weeks. Matthew Woods appeared at Chorley Magistrates’ Court today, where he pleaded guilty to “sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive” (section 127 (1) a of the Communications Act 2003). Woods’ comments, which included some of a sexually explicit nature about the youngster who went missing last week, were deemed so “abhorrent” that they deserved the longest sentence that could be passed, less a third to account for Woods’ early guilty plea.
20 Sep 12 | Mexico
The fate of a masked blogger has set Mexican social networking sites ablaze over the last couple of weeks, leaving behind a trail of mystery and confusion. A young anti-establishment blogger working under the name el5anto disappeared on 8 September, according to his Twitter account and reports from his blog colleagues. His blog and Twitter activities have all suspended since he vanished.
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20 Sep 12 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost, News and features, United Kingdom
The Director of Public Prosecutions has announced a consultation to establish clear guidelines on prosecutions involving social media . In a statement on The Crown Prosecution Service website announcing that footballer Daniel Thomas — investigated for allegedly homophobic tweets about Olympic divers Tom Daley and Peter Waterfield — will not be prosecuted, Keir Starmer QC said:
“To ensure that CPS decision-making in these difficult cases is clear and consistent, I intend to issue guidelines on social media cases for prosecutors. These will assist them in deciding whether criminal charges should be brought in the cases that arise for their consideration. In the first instance, the CPS will draft interim guidelines. There will then be a wide public consultation before final guidelines are published. As part of that process, I intend to hold a series of roundtable meetings with campaigners, media lawyers, academics, social media experts and law enforcement bodies to ensure that the guidelines are as fully informed as possible.”
Starmer and the CPS faced severe criticism for the handling of Paul Chambers’s “Twitter joke trial“. Chambers, who was found guilty of sending a “menacing communication” after he joked about blowing up Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster, had his conviction overturned in July of this year.
It emerged today that a man has been arrested under the Communications Act 2003 for allegedly setting up a Facebook page praising Dale Cregan, the Manchester man accused of killing two police officers.
