More needs to be done to prevent abuse and threats on social media sites

The Football Association (the FA), the governing body for the sport in England from grass roots level to the women’s and men’s professional game, has called on the police and social media sites to do more to tackle social abuse and threats.

The plea came after Karen Carney, a professional footballer with the Chelsea and England women’s football teams, was subjected to vile and sickening rape and death threats.

Ms Carney received abusive and threating messages following a match between Chelsea and Fiorentina (a team from Italy) on 17 October 2018. This was in spite of the fact that Chelsea had won the match and Ms Carney had scored only goal of the match.

The abusive and threatening messages were posted on Instagram and details of these messages were subsequently reported by the media and the press. Those messages will not be repeated in this article.

On 18 October 2018, the FA released a statement demanding action. The statement read: “We are appalled and dismayed by the abuse directed towards Ms Carney on social media. The FA takes such matters extremely seriously and we are offering our full support to Ms Carney. The abuse of players on social networking sites is a serious concern and we call on the police and social media organisations to do everything they can to help tackle this growing problem.”

Instagram subsequently stated that the account responsible for the messages had been removed as the company does not “tolerate threatening or abusive behaviour”. 

In a statement given to Sky Sports News, a spokesperson for Instagram stated: "We do not tolerate threatening or abusive behaviour, and the account that sent these messages has been removed from Instagram. We encourage anyone who sees content of this kind to report it via our in-app tools and our global team work 24/7 to review and remove anything that violates our community guidelines."

The Metropolitan Police also stated that they take allegations of threatening and abusive behaviour very seriously and encourages any victims of such crimes to contact the police, so an investigation can be carried out.

Hundreds of millions of messages and posts are sent every day on social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Some messages may be considered offensive, but do not amount to a criminal offence.

Some posts may be upsetting or distasteful or express an unpopular view, but would also not amount to a criminal offence.

Others may be grossly offensive and could well meet the criteria for prosecution.

Others may be part of a campaign of abuse or credible threats of violence against an individual or group of people which may well lead to prosecution.

If the police consider a message or post to be potentially criminal, the police will take appropriate action.

This could involve arrest and bringing a prosecution, especially in those cases involving a sustained campaign of harassment or abuse or where someone's life is threatened.

In cases where offence is caused, the police will look at the whole picture and speak with the Crown Prosecution Service to determine whether or not a prosecution is proportionate.

The factors police and prosecutors will consider include whether it is in the public interest to pursue the case, how vulnerable is the victim and what resources are required to trace and prosecute the offender.

If the police and prosecutors do not consider that a prosecution would be proportionate, for example, if the person posting the offensive message was genuinely unaware of the effect of their actions and the victim was not distressed by the content, they may employ a community resolution. In these circumstances, the police and prosecutors would work with the victim to agree an appropriate outcome which could include, for example, an apology. 

Due to the vile and sickening rape and death threats made to Ms Carney in this case, an apology would not be appropriate. It would also not be a sufficient penalty against the person who posted the messages to deter them or anyone else from posting such messages on social media sites again in the future.

The police and prosecutors ought to bring more prosecutions against persons who post such messages and impose appropriate penalties against them which are properly publicised to act as warning that appropriate punishments will be imposed to any person who intends to post such messages in the future. 

Until this happens, it is unlikely that any person will be deterred from continuing to post abusive and threatening messages on social media sites in the future.

If you have been a victim of any kind of abusive and threatening behaviour including messages posted on social media sites and wish to obtain legal advice on dealing with such matters, please contact us at Ambersunn Solicitors.