The commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police said “we will come after you” — even if you live in another country — if you post material online about the rioting in England that officials define as inciting racial hatred.
“We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you,” Sir Mark Rowley told Sky News.
‘Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law.’
How U.K. law enforcement actually will carry that out — particularly against people who live in the United States, where freedom of speech is paramount — is unclear.
What’s the background?
A 17-year-old male was accused of killing three and injuring numerous other victims in a July 29 mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed children’s dance class in Southport, a U.K. seaside town.
Officials initially said there was no evidence that terrorism was a motive in the attack, which angered many who accused the government of covering up evidence. Police identified suspect Axel Rudakubana and charged him with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. Officials identified him as being from Cardiff but also noted that his parents are Rwandan.
Unrest and violence erupted the day after the stabbings and have spread across the United Kingdom ever since.
Photo by BENJAMIN CREMEL/AFP via Getty Images
Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Radio host Glenn Beck, co-founder of Blaze Media, last week opined that “two-tier justice” — in which police more or less ignore Muslim immigrant crime but come down hard on non-Muslims — has been laid bare in the U.K. in the wake of the deadly knife attack.
U.K. authorities not only began cracking down on rioters but also on individuals who post material online they say incites racial hatred. In fact, U.K. police last week said they arrested a 55-year-old woman in connection with an “inaccurate social media post.” Cheshire police officers made the arrest Thursday over a post “containing inaccurate information about the identity of the attacker in the Southport murders,” the Cheshire Constabulary said.
Officials said the woman, who lives near Chester, was arrested “on suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred (S19 of the Public Order Act 1986) and false communications (S179 Online Safety Act 2023).” Chester is about a mile east of England’s border with Wales and about 40 minutes south of Liverpool.
‘We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media. Their job is to look for this material, and then follow up with identification, arrests, and so forth.’
“It’s a stark reminder of the dangers of posting information on social media platforms without checking the accuracy,” Chief Superintendent Alison Ross said. “It also acts as a warning that we are all accountable for our actions, whether that be online or in person.”
Ross added that “we have all seen the violent disorder that has taken place across the U.K. over the past week, much of which has been fueled by malicious and inaccurate communications online.”
What’s more, Fox News noted that Stephen Parkinson — director of public prosecutions of England and Wales — warned against “publishing or distributing material which is insulting or abusive which is intended to or likely to start racial hatred. So, if you retweet that, then you’re republishing that, and then potentially you’re committing [incitement to racial hatred].”
He added, “We do have dedicated police officers who are scouring social media. Their job is to look for this material, and then follow up with identification, arrests, and so forth,” the cable news network said.
A Sky News reporter asked Rowley what U.K. authorities will do in the wake of notable individuals — such as X CEO Elon Musk — who have been “whipping up this kind of behavior from behind a keyboard who may be in a different country?”
Rowley indicated that oceans and national borders won’t save them — or you.
“Being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law,” he replied. “You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred; there are numerous terrorist offenses regarding the publishing of material. All of those offenses are in play if people are provoking hatred and violence on the streets, and we’ll come after those individuals just as we will physically confront on the streets the thugs and the yobs … who are causing the problems for communities.”
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