Facebook, Riots and the Law: How the UK Is Prosecuting Recent Unrest

Analysis In the aftermath of the violent UK riots, authorities have been charging individuals for crimes both online and offline, ranging from violent disorder to incitement of racial hatred. After Elon Musk publicly clashed with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on social media platform X, the policing of social media quickly became a global focus of the UK riots—along with cases of people sent to prison over social media posts. While some of the swiftly-meted-out convictions have been solely based on social media posts, the majority of the arrests, charges and convictions have been for violent crime and disorder. Nearly all prosecutions over social media posts so far have not been under the new controversial law designed to bring the online world to heel—but via 38 year old legislation....