Abstract:

The research question is how the courts used old discrimination crimes to regulate modern significations on social media. The argument tries to show that the United Kingdom’s social media hate crimes are construct elaborations of early twentieth century statutory laws against commonplace discriminatory criminal conduct. The article’s methodology is to examine the available multi-jurisdictional evidence, and then synthesize an outcome in United Kingdom law to explain social media hate crime. The argument then explains motive, purpose, and intention, as relevant to hate crime. The paper sets out an exegesis of operative hate crime statutes and the case law in the United Kingdom. The research outcome will indicate that construct elaboration in DPP v. Collins could define a Facebook writer’s culpable state of mind, demonstrating hostility within the meaning of section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (United Kingdom), without the requirement of the Facebook writer ever knowing personally the criminally affected victim. Thus, a social media hate crime, such as on Facebook, is nothing more than a publicly insulting signification, and the legislative purpose is to prevent the online transmission of hostility by punishing a private individual’s reasoning underlying his or her rhetoric.