Police clarify ‘harassment’
Police have given me the following advice about the ongoing campaign on social media and in the MSM, designed to discredit the Lantern Project:
” A person has the right to express their opinions (freedom of expression Article 10 Human rights Act). It becomes harassment when they target you directly, or in a way that they want you to be made aware of it.
- They send you a message by way of a letter, text, phone call, hash tag you into a tweet or Facebook post. However simply using your name (so that you know they are talking about you – but they NOT tagging you in) would not be deemed as harassment in most cases. This is because the only reason you know about it is because you are looking for it.
- If the person is doing so by way of Facebook or Twitter for example then you need to block them and report to the company. Therefore you would only know about those posts IF you look on their time line.
- The exception might be if they are tagging in a friend of yours so that that person would be expected to tell you. (this would be taken on a case by case basis)
Simon JUST is entitled to post on Real Troll Exposure. It is his right to air his opinion. If he began making threats (and these were obvious to a reasonable person) then this may constitute an offence. He might well be committing libel which you could rectify via Civil action but this does not fall under the definition of harassment. Any future issues with Social Media have to be reported to the company and the person blocked so you cannot see the posts. At this current time the law does not appear to cater to what you are reporting.”
