“The national online hate crime hub that we are funding is an important step to ensure more victims have the confidence to come forward and report the vile abuse to which they are being subjected,” Amber Rudd, the home secretary, pledged last week when she unveiled the initiative. It is a serious problem and it must be treated as such by the government.”In 2015/16 there were 62,518 online hate crimes recorded by the police – an increase of 19% on the previous year. EU justice commissioner resists calls for legislation on online hate speech Read more“Online hate crime is increasingly prevalent but £200,000 a year would barely be sufficient to deal with incidents in north Wales, let alone the whole of both Wales and England,” said Plaid Cymru’s home affairs spokeswoman, Liz Saville Roberts MP. “There is currently a substantial under-reporting of online hate crime,” said Harry Fletcher of Digital Trust, a victims’ rights campaign. If all hate crime was reported, the number of crimes being investigated would reach the hundreds of thousands.

Source: The Guardian October 14, 2017 17:07 UTC