You can’t say that

[ewx]

Someone on the radio, discussing Twitter abuse cases like this one, seemed to think that the thing that made a message illegal was being “menacing”. But the law is broader than that; from the Malicious Communications Act 1988:

(1) Any person who sends to another person—

(a) a letter, electronic communication or article of any description which conveys—

(i) a message which is indecent or grossly offensive;

(ii) a threat; or

(iii) information which is false and known or believed to be false by the sender; or

(b) any article or electronic communication which is, in whole or part, of an indecent or grossly offensive nature,

is guilty of an offence if his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should, so far as falling within paragraph (a) or (b) above, cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.

I think that makes quite a lot of online unpleasantness illegal, although you wouldn’t know it from the scanty levels of enforcement.

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I was also thinking of things like deliberately false news broadcasts: "MMR causes autism" is false and intended to cause distress. I think it's quite possible that SHOULD be illegal, but I'm surprised if it is. It's also quite possible the law is interpreted more narrowly than a literal reading would suggest: I massively disapprove of deliberately overbroad laws designed to see how much the legislature can get away with, but it's also common (I think?) to read sensible inferences in, like, a reasonable minimum standard for "distress", or how much of communication looks intended to be taken seriously, etc.