Can you be arrested for social media abuse?

What happened and what has been the response?

England’s hopes of bringing home the Euro 2020 trophy were cruelly thwarted on Sunday night as Gareth Southgate’s men drew 1-1 with Italy at Wembley before losing the resulting penalty shootout 3-2 as substitutes Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka all missed their spotkicks.

In the hours following the disappointment, those players were subjected to racist abuse on social media by aggrieved “fans” of the national team.

The behaviour was described as “unforgivable” by Southgate himself.

“It’s just not what we stand for,” he said in a post-match press conference. “We have been a beacon of light in bringing people together, in people being able to relate to the national team, and the national team stands for everybody and so that togetherness has to continue. We have shown the power our country has when it does come together and has that energy and positivity together.

“Everybody has to remember when they support the team that they also represent England and should represent what we stand for. We have had a positive effect on lots of areas of society, but we can’t affect everything – other people have responsibilities in those areas. We have to work collectively to constantly improve those things.”

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The Football Association (FA) issued a statement likewise condemning the behaviour, saying: “We could not be clearer that anyone behind such disgusting behaviour is not welcome in following the team. We will do all we can to support the players affected while urging the toughest punishments possible for anyone responsible.

“We will continue to do everything we can to stamp discrimination out of the game, but we implore government to act quickly and bring in the appropriate legislation so this abuse has real life consequences. Social media companies need to step up and take accountability and action to ban abusers from their platforms, gather evidence that can lead to prosecution and support making their platforms free from this type of abhorrent abuse.”

Also expressing his disgust was Prince William, the FA’s president, who attended the match at Wembley with the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince George, and said: “I am sickened by the racist abuse aimed at England players after last night’s match. It is totally unacceptable that players have to endure this abhorrent behaviour. It must stop now and all those involved should be held accountable.”

As the FA appealed for action, UK prime minister Boris Johnson tweeted his own disapproval, saying: “This England team deserve to be lauded as heroes, not racially abused on social media. Those responsible for this appalling abuse should be ashamed of themselves.”

Culture, media and sport secretary Oliver Dowden warned social media platforms that they faced severe financial penalties if they did not do more to tackle the issue.

“I share the anger at appalling racist abuse of our heroic players,” he tweeted. “Social media companies need to up their game in addressing it and, if they fail to, our new Online Safety Bill will hold them to account with fines of up to 10 per cent of global revenue.”

What are the rules on abusive posts?

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all have abuse policies available online that explain in detail how they respond to offensive content posted on their platforms when it is reported by users, typically operating via a review process through which they determine the most appropriate course of action based on the severity of the message and whether its phrasing and intent meet certain criteria.

They might simply remove an offending post, temporarily restrict the sender’s access or permanently suspend their account if their behaviour is deemed to be sufficiently objectionable.

However, with hundreds of thousands of posts sent every day, it is difficult for the social media giants to stay on top of moderation and they face regular criticism for, in the eyes of some users, not being proactive enough in tackling abuse.

In response to this latest incident, Twitter said on Monday morning it had removed over 1,000 posts within the past 24 hours that had violated its policies and also permanently suspended a number of accounts.

“The abhorrent racist abuse directed at England players last night has absolutely no place on Twitter,” a company spokesperson said.

Facebook – which owns Instagram, where some of the abuse received by Bukayo Saka was posted – meanwhile said it tries to remove harmful content as quickly as possible and encouraged people to use the tools it offers to block abuse.

“No one should have to experience racist abuse anywhere, and we don’t want it on Instagram,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

“We quickly removed comments and accounts directing abuse at England’s footballers last night and we’ll continue to take action against those that break our rules.

“In addition to our work to remove this content, we encourage all players to turn on Hidden Words, a tool which means no one has to see abuse in their comments or DMs. No one thing will fix this challenge overnight, but we’re committed to keeping our community safe from abuse.”

In some instances, the nature of a threatening, abusive or offensive communication could be so severe as to amount to a criminal offence, in which case it becomes a matter for the police.

The Metropolitan Police offers guidelines of its own on what an individual should do if they feel they are being harassed in this way, explaining: “The most relevant offences are ‘harassment’ and ‘malicious communications’. For harassment to be committed, there must have been a clear ‘course of conduct’. That is, two or more related occurrences. The messages do not necessarily have to be violent in nature, but would need to have caused some alarm or distress.

“If there has only been a single communication, it’s unlikely it would qualify as harassment, but could be considered a malicious communication. For such an offence to be committed, a message must be sent to another person, or sent via a public communications network, that is indecent, grossly offensive, obscene, threatening or menacing.”

They invite anyone to report harassment to them online or by calling 101 with a view to their further investigation, also advising the individual to screenshot any offending messages in case they are subsequently deleted by the sender and to notify the platform in question via the proper reporting channels.

Why are we asking this now?

The abuse suffered by Rashford, Sancho and Saka is sadly just the latest example of footballers being targeted on social media.

Earlier this year, the Premier League carried out a boycott on posting between Friday 30 April and Monday 3 May to send a clear message “in response to the sustained discriminatory abuse received online by players and others connected to the game”.

The demonstration saw clubs, players, media outlets and fans come together to stay silent online for the duration of an entire weekend’s match play to draw attention to the issue.

But just three weeks later, eight men from across the country were arrested by police and four others interviewed under caution after Tottenham Hotspur’s South Korean striker Son Heung-min received racist abuse following his side’s defeat to Manchester United on 11 April.

“This action makes it abundantly clear that police will not stand for racist thuggery, even if it is committed online,” detective sergeant Matt Simpson, from the Metropolitan Police’s public order crime team, said on 21 May.

“The posts, all of which were on Twitter, were vulgar and utterly unacceptable. There is no safe haven for this type of abusive behaviour and we are committed to taking decisive action to root it out.”

The offensive tweets in question were sent to Manchester United’s reporting tool during the match before being passed on to Greater Manchester Police, with the authorities working closely with social media companies and both clubs concerned to identify the people behind the anonymous accounts from which the messages were sent.

Tony Burnett, CEO of the anti-racism organisation Kick It Out, commented at the time: “These arrests demonstrate the police’s commitment to tackling online abuse and we hope this sends a message to others so they think twice before posting discriminatory abuse.

“It’s also important that we remain focused on the welfare of those who play, watch and work in football, and receive abuse, and we will continue to offer our support to those who need it.”

While that operation was very much a step in the right direction, Euro 2020 has immediately seen the issue of racist abuse return to the fore and some England fans persistently boo their own side over the players’ decision to take the knee before matches in protest at racial injustice, behaviour that was condoned by home secretary Priti Patel when she dismissed the player’s actions as “gesture politics” on 14 June.

Her tweet on Monday morning expressing her “disgust” at the “vile racist abuse” Rashford, Sancho and Saka have been subjected to and backing a police response might have carried greater moral weight had her own earlier remarks not set such a poor example.

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