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Abstract
The advancement of information and communications technology often results in early adoption, followed by concern over a digital divide, followed by mass adoption and then, inevitably, abuse and misuse of that platform. The most recent of these technologies is social networking services. The early adopters used Friendster and MySpace, and the masses now use Facebook and Twitter. The abuse of people on these platforms was called Cyberbullying in the case of the first two in the 2000s, and Internet trolling in the case of the second two in the 2010s. This paper reviews the legislation enacted in the UK parliament between 1981 and 2012 to deal with these offences, called ‘flame trolling’, for those based on transgress humour, or electronic message faults more generally. The paper presents a framework that includes a ‘Trolling Magnitude Scale’ based on established trolling culture, in order to link the legislative offences to the severities of those faults, as well as to the ability of specific Internet users to tolerate them or otherwise. The paper concludes that by using this framework law enforcement agencies such as the police can apply the laws more fairly and proportionally to protect free speech and at the same time be tough on the causes of electronic message faults in the form of Internet abuse and data misuse.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to recognise the assistance of all persons who provided feedback on earlier versions of this paper. The Centre for Research into Online Communities and E-Learning Systems is an affiliate of Swansea University's Institute for Life Sciences, and supports a number of projects including the Trolling Academy and the Free Digital Project, the former focusing on online safety, and the latter the rights of young people in the information age.