Public order offences: how feasible is their applicability to online hate?

Iñigo Gordon Benito

doi:10.35295/osls.iisl.1905

Autores/as

Iñigo Gordon Benito UNESCO Chair for Human Rights and Public Authorities, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1000-960X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.1905

Palabras clave:

Public order, hate crimes, hate speech, public disturbances, cyberspace, Orden público, delitos de odio, discurso de odio, disturbios, ciberespacio

Resumen

As an area of law in the UK, public order offences are almost entirely useless on social media. This set of offences (ss. 4, 4A and 5 of the Public Order Act 1986) was aimed to address any behaviour or expressive activities, either oral or written, carried out in a context of physical proximity to the victim. In principle, the foundational base of public order offences runs the risk of becoming blurred if we extend their applicability to hateful messages online and, therefore, to any impersonal way of acting. Consequently, only 13% and 14% of the hate crimes committed online in 2016/17 and 2017/18 in England & Wales involved public order offences. Therefore, there is a certain resistance based on the adequacy of these offences to the online environment without requiring the message to be audible or visible to someone, as a matter of immediacy/proximity. We will explain how this glimmer of hope has lasted over time amid fierce opposition to broaden the scope of application of public order offences beyond traditional public forums, such as disturbances triggering in a city's main square.

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Biografía del autor/a

Iñigo Gordon Benito, UNESCO Chair for Human Rights and Public Authorities, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)

El Prof. Dr. Iñigo GORDON BENITO, miembro de la Cátedra UNESCO de Derechos Humanos y Poderes Públicos de la UPV/EHU (http://katedraddhh.eus/es/equipo/equipo.php), desempeña su labor docente en el campo del Derecho penal. Su actividad investigadora se centra en los delitos de odio, el discurso de odio y la suplantación de identidad online. En noviembre de 2021 ha defendido su tesis doctoral titulada «Delitos de odio y ciberodio en el Código penal de 1995. Especial atención a la relación entre el subtipo agravado del art. 510.3 y la agravante genérica del art. 22.4». Actualmente colabora y forma parte del equipo de trabajo del Grupo de Investigación en materia de delitos de odio, financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación del Gobierno de España y que se extiende desde el 1 de septiembre de 2021 al 1 de septiembre de 2025 (Título del Proyecto: Delitos de odio en España: retos pendientes; Ref. Administrativa: I+D+I PID2020-115320GB-100). En 2018 ha realizado una estancia de investigación en Oxford Brookes University (Reino Unido). En abril de 2021 ha realizado una nueva estancia de investigación en el Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Kriminalität, Sicherheit und Recht (Alemania). Es investigador postdoctoral contratado desde junio de 2022. Ha obtenido la acreditación de Profesor Agregado en mayo de 2023. En junio de 2023 ha publicado su monografía “Delitos de odio y ciberodio. Una revisión acerca de las posibilidades de filtrado penal del discurso a través de los arts. 22.4 y 510 CP” con la editorial Tirant lo Blanch.

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