LONDON: Hate crime committed in the UK via social media will be treated the same as offenses committed offline, according to new guidelines set out by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
The revised guidance will cover all strands of online hate crime, and comes in response to the rising volume of hate crime reported to the police, and after consultation with community groups about the changing nature of this type of offense.
In 2015-16, the CPS completed 15,442 hate crime prosecutions, the highest number recorded to date.
The conviction rate across all forms of hate crime rose from 82.9 percent in 2014-15 to 83.2 percent in 2015-16, according to CPS statistics.
“Hate crime has a corrosive effect on our society, and that is why it is a priority area for the CPS. It can affect entire communities, forcing people to change their way of life and live in fear,” said Alison Saunders, director of public prosecutions.
“These documents take account of the current breadth and context of offending to provide prosecutors with the best possible chance of achieving justice for victims. They also let victims and witnesses know what they should expect from us.”
Alongside the release of these guidelines, the CPS has launched a social media campaign — #HateCrimeMatters — as part of an effort to encourage people to report hate crime incidents.
A hate crime is defined as an offense motivated by hostility, or that shows hostility, toward the victim’s disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.
Social media hate crime to be treated same as offline offenses
Social media hate crime to be treated same as offline offenses
Saudi Arabia ‘ideal partner’ in shaping next wave of intelligent age, communication minister tells WEF
- Abdullah Al-Swaha said aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age”
DAVOS: Saudi Arabia has accelerated efforts in “energizing the intelligent age,” making the Kingdom the world’s ideal partner in shaping the next wave of the technological age, said the minister of communication and information technology.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Abdullah Al-Swaha said the aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom was expanding global partnerships for the benefit of humanity and highlighted both local and international achievements.
“We believe the more prosperous the Kingdom, the Middle East, is, the more prosperous the world is. And it is not a surprise that we fuel 50 percent of the digital economy in the kingdom or the region,” he told the audience. He added the Kingdom fueled three times the tech force of its neighbors and, as a result, 50 percent of venture capital funding.
Al-Swaha said Saudi Arabia was focused both on artificial intelligence acceleration and adoption. At home, he said, the Kingdom was doubling the use of agentic AI in the public and private sector to increase worker productivity tenfold. He also cited the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant, which was conducted in Saudi Arabia.
“If we double down on talent, technology, and build trust with partners, we can achieve success,” he said. “And we are following the same blueprint for the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom aimed to be a “testbed” for innovators and investors. Rapid technological adoption and investment have boosted Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy, with non-oil activities accounting for 56 percent of GDP and surpassing $1.2 trillion in 2025, ahead of the Vision 2030 target.
In terms of adoption, Al-Swaha said the Kingdom had introduced the Arabic-language AI model, Allam, to be adopted across Adobe product series. It has also partnered with Qualcomm to bring the first hybrid AI laptop and endpoints to the world.
“These are true testimonies that the kingdom is not going local or regional; we are going global,” he said.
