Lords question Facebook and Twitter on social media offences

• Parliament TV: Social media offences
• Inquiry: Social media offences
• Select Committee on Communications

Witnesses

Wednesday 9 July 2014, Committee Room 2a, Palace of Westminster

At 3.45pm:

• Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions and Tim Thompson, Legal Adviser, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
• Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh, Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)

Questions to CPS and ACPO

The Committee will question the witnesses on subjects including:

• whether the laws around social media offences could be more ‘technology-neutral’
• how widely they think it is understood that communications over social media can amount to a criminal offence
• if they can confirm that complaints originating from social media make up about half of the calls passed to front-line police officers
• whether ‘revenge porn’ fits into the ‘grossly offensive’ category, and what advice they would give to someone who made a complaint about it

At 4.45pm:

• Simon Milner, Policy Director - UK, Middle East and Africa, Facebook
• Sinéad McSweeney, Director of Public Policy - Europe, Middle East and Africa, Twitter International Company

Questions to Facebook and Twitter

Witnesses will be grilled on issues including:

• what Facebook and Twitter do to prevent exposure to harassing, threatening or grossly offensive material online, and what options they provide to enable users to report abuse
• what is the process for responding to such reports and how long it takes for them to respond
• how many requests they receive from the UK police or courts per month, asking them to identify the IDs of users accused of posting harassing, threatening or grossly offensive material online

Further information

• About Committees: Select Committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch Committees