Police spammed with complaints by neo-Nazis under new Scottish hate crime law
Police spammed with complaints by neo-Nazis under new Scottish hate crime law
First minister calls for end to vexatious reports after far-right agitators attempt to ‘overwhelm’ official systems
First minister calls for end to vexatious reports after far-right agitators attempt to ‘overwhelm’ official systems
Neo-Nazi and far-right agitators are exploiting Scotland’s new hate crime law to make vexatious complaints en masse in an attempt to “overwhelm” police systems.
A prominent figure in England’s white nationalist movement is among those urging followers to spam Police Scotland with anonymous online reports, the *Observer *has found.
The leader of a far-right group – one of several fringe organisations being assessed by the UK government under its new extremism definition – promoted a private channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram that includes a “call to action” urging members to “mass report”.
Posts in the channel instruct members to log cases of supposed “anti-white” hate, which they say includes a statement on the police force’s website that “young men aged 18-30 are most likely to commit hate crime”.
Why do neo Nazis need to overwhelm the police system. They’re often the same guys.
Conservatives only like cops when they abuse minorities or pretty much anyone else who isn't reich-wing. "They're hurting the wrong people!"
There's plenty of anti-police neo-nazis. Good luck trying to make sense of their ideological reasoning, but they exist nonetheless. This would also be advantageous for sympathetic police too. Gives them a reason to say "see, this tip line is bullshit. We don't need to pay any mind to it".
If they're persistent enough the tip line may be shut down. We've seen it in the US with anti-trans snitching pages started by a few states. Progressives of various stripes flood these pages with bunk information to the point of breaking the site for a long enough time and the state caves, taking the page down. It's a common and effective tactic, no wonder the fascists are using it too. Tactics aren't sacred or necessarily specific to a given ideology. If it works for the left it may very well work for the right too
anti-trans snitching pages
Excuse me, what the fuck??
..... In Scotland?
The only military-like police I've ever interacted with are all the ones in the USA.
Job security. If there is no crime, someone is going to start asking why we need all these cops.
So these are the people that JKR and friends have been calling to action. Not surprised, the TERF to Nazi pipeline is nothing new.
Anonymous complaints are a terrible idea. No wlnder this has been targetted
Anonymous complaints are a good thing, it’s often important to be able to report something non-publicly. It’s just being exploited here.
The fact that this system can be exploited by neo Nazis should tell you that it can be exploited by anyone. Including the cops who will be investigating these complaints.
Non-public and anonymous are not the same thing. I don't know about your jurisdiction but when you file a criminal complaint police do take down your name and address, if you're worried about retaliation or such there's ways to have all public records under a pseudonym and e.g. your lawyer's address, but the state will still know who you actually are.
You can also give an anonymous tip to the police -- but those don't ever reach the level of complaint. Police and prosecutors can toss such a statement without much fanfare, even if they don't they can't follow-up with questions, you're way less credible as a witness, especially since you can't be nailed for false accusation, at least not without investigators hunting you down. You can't file an accessory suit (that is, be a co-prosecutor) because courts definitely don't deal with anonymous people, if they anonymise the public record then because they think it's the right thing to do to serve justice, not because you don't want to show your face to at least the judge(s).
The law is fucked. Way too vague and ripe for abuse.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Scotland/s/WstLBF6X4C
It's not ripe for abuse as you think. Read through this thread in it's entirety.
Even that thread shows how that system is ripe for abuse:
"If a hate crime is reported to the police and following investigation no criminality is established, it will be recorded as a “hate incident”, although this is now being reviewed by the police. Hate incidents are not recorded against alleged perpetrators, but their names appear in the police files for the complainant.
Under Police Scotland’s enhanced disclosure programme, prospective employers can request criminal history information on any person including: unspent convictions, relevant spent convictions, unspent cautions, inclusion on children’s or adults’ lists, information from the sex offenders register, and other relevant information held by the police. This final category would include non-crime hate incidents, meaning they could be disclosed to employers."
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The leader of a far-right group – one of several fringe organisations being assessed by the UK government under its new extremism definition – promoted a private channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram that includes a “call to action” urging members to “mass report”.
Critics also claim the law will stifle free speech, with high-profile figures including JK Rowling, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk among those to have publicly attacked it.
After Holyrood minister Siobhian Brown said people “could be investigated” for misgendering someone online, Rowling dared police to arrest her over tweets she posted describing transgender women as men.
This weekend, Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, the leader of the SNP, defended the legislation, telling the PA news agency that “deliberate misinformation” was being “peddled by some bad actors” falsely claiming that it was now a criminal offence to make “derogatory comments” based on the characteristics covered in the act.
He said the flurry of complaints from far-right activists was proof that the law had “failed to hit the right target” and that the Scottish government had “sought to prosecute speech” rather than social media platforms.
Ch Supt Rob Hay, president of the ASPS, said in a letter to Holyrood’s justice committee that he was concerned the law would be “weaponised” by an “activist fringe” across the political spectrum which could divert police resources from more serious crimes.
The original article contains 906 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Ow yeah. Just spammed them.
And this is why the US First Amendment standards for freedom of speech should be adopted everywhere.
Hate speech is not necessarily protected by the First Amendment.
Factually incorrect, it is typically quite well protected in the US.