med amine

The internet has changed the way we communicate. It has many positive values but has also allowed hateful content to spread to a broader audience, without editorial control and often behind a veil of anonymity.

While you may come across a lot of material on the internet that offends you, a small proportion of it is actually illegal. Hate material online is recorded by police as a ‘hate crime’ when a crime defined in law is committed with hate motivation. When online material is hate motivated but does not meet the threshold for a criminal offense, it may be recorded as a ‘Non-crime hate incident’. All recording is vital to monitor community cohesion. UK laws are written to make sure that people can speak and write, even offensive material, without being prosecuted for their views. Parliament has tried to define laws in a way that balances our freedom of expression with the right to be protected from hate crime.