Police spammed with complaints by neo-Nazis under new Scottish hate crime law

MicroWave@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 235 points – Police spammed with complaints by neo-Nazis under new Scottish hate crime law
theguardian.com

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”.

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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).

Fuck that noise. ACAB.

I agree ACAB, that’s why anonymous complaints are a good thing. That way the cops can’t easily retaliate on you if you report a neo-nazi threat you saw on Facebook and it turns out to be their buddy

What is this scenario are you creating in your head? Since when do police do anything about Facebook?

Yeah man I think police are on the whole stupid bastards but I still think if you reported seeing a post from a neo nazi saying he’s going to burn down the local gay bar on Facebook they’d still look into it

Link to me this happening once in the US.

Once… what is happening in this US?

Are you not aware that people are punished / investigated for social media postings every single day? This is really not hidden news man lol

Then it should be easy for you to find me one instance of the police responding to an post on facebook in the US.

Ok. Sure.

https://kfor.com/news/local/oklahoma-city-man-arrested-for-concerning-posts-made-on-social-media-following-maine-mass-shooting/amp/

https://criminaldefensetucson.com/people-whose-social-media-posts-got-them-arrested/

https://www.wdhn.com/news/crime/auburn-police-arrest-and-charge-man-with-making-a-terrorist-threat-over-social-media-posts/amp/

I found that in about thirty seconds of googling.

Are you like… do you not read the news much man…? This is like if you got confused because you had never heard of a shooting taking place at a school before

Robert Card, who was wanted in connection with the Oct. 25 shootings at a bowling alley and bar that killed 18 people and wounded 13, was found dead Oct. 27.

Link number 2 talks about Twitter.

Link 3 doesn't mention any details at all.

You're stretching. Just admit you're wrong.