For most parents whose teenage years pre-dated Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, few things are as terrifying as the social media use of their children. What might seem like harmless fun, such as posting memes, sharing photos, or venting frustrations, can have life-changing consequences. As a barrister who represents students, I have seen how a single ill-judged post can ruin a young person’s future.
In one memorable case, a pupil was expelled from secondary school for using the phrase ‘deez nuts’ with a classmate
In one memorable case, a pupil was expelled from secondary school for using the phrase ‘deez nuts’ with a classmate. The male pupil had meant it as a joke, but the female pupil found it offensive and reported it to the headmaster. The headmaster, prim and proper, deemed it an obscene, unsolicited allusion to oral sex and expelled the teenager. I have also handled cases where pupils have posted online about sensitive issues, such as the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, and found themselves the subject of formal complaints from peers.
Offensive posts can go undetected at school but resurface years later. For students who go on to study certain professional degrees, like medicine or law, historic posts deemed unbefitting of a future doctor or lawyer can trigger disciplinary proceedings and bar entry into the profession.
Many employers, myself included, perform thorough social media checks when recruiting staff. It was during one such check that I discovered that a prospective au pair had a penchant for virtually naked selfies on Instagram. In some cases, a social media post can be unlawful. For teenagers and university students, the most relevant criminal offences will be those under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Malicious Communications Act 1988, the Communications Act 2003, the Sexual Offences Act 2003, the new Online Safety Act 2023, and the Public Order Act 1986.
The most common civil actions are likely to be harassment, defamation and, if there is financial loss, malicious falsehood. To illustrate, a pupil who posts abusive messages on social media that, in the eyes of a reasonable person, cause emotional distress or alarm to another pupil may be committing the criminal offence of harassment, as well as the civil tort of harassment. If the pupil’s messages put the victim in fear of violence, that could amount to a more serious criminal offence.
Any person, including a pupil, who sends online messages conveying a grossly offensive message in order to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient may also fall foul of section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. This is punishable by up to six months in prison or a fine.
A pupil who sends an unsolicited, naked photo or video (real or fake) to another pupil to cause them alarm, distress, or humiliation may be committing an offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and so too if the pupil shares or even threatens to share an intimate photo or video without consent. Beware, therefore, of sending a photo or film of your genitals to another person. Even if sent only to obtain sexual gratification (but you are reckless as to the distress it could cause to the recipient) then this is a criminal offence carrying up to two years in prison.
The Criminal Justice Bill, which has not yet gone through parliament, also intends to create a new offence of making a sexually explicit deepfake. That offence will not require the creator to share the video but merely to want to cause alarm, humiliation, or distress to the victim.
Finally, the recent riots in the UK have led to a number of high-profile prosecutions under the Public Order Act 1986. The offenders posted abusive messages on social media with the intention of inciting violence or stirring up racial hatred. One offender wrote on X: ‘Every man and their dog should be smashing [the] fuck out [of] Britannia hotel,’ where a number of asylum seekers had been housed. He pleaded guilty and was given a 20-month prison sentence.
Generally, the Crown Prosecution Service has a high threshold for prosecution as it needs to consider the public interest and the right to freedom of expression (under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights). It may well find, for example, that a course of conduct is offensive or shocking but not ‘grossly’ so. However, a victim with deep pockets may start a private prosecution or launch a civil claim. Such proceedings would be highly stressful and disruptive for the accused student.
Social media offers many benefits. However, as a lawyer, I too often witness its darker side. It is vital that schools and parents educate children about potential harms and risks, even if this means scaring them with articles like this one. There is a wonderful song in the musical Hello, Dolly! where an amorous Cornelius describes falling in love: ‘It only takes a moment to be loved a whole life long’. In our digital age, it only takes a moment, perhaps when drunk, distracted, angry, lustful, vengeful or just thoughtless, for an ill-considered post to cause lifelong regret.
Daniel Sokol is a barrister and, with his father Ronald Sokol, the co-author of A Young Person’s Guide to Law and Justice, which is published today.
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