Scotland Yard ploughs £2million into new ‘thought police’ unit to snoop on web users and hunt down trolls
by Martin Beckford, Mailonline:
Britain’s biggest police force has set up a controversial unit – dubbed as ‘thought police’ by critics last night – to investigate offensive comments from the internet.
It will be supported by an army of volunteers trained to seek out anything they deem inappropriate on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
They will then report it to officers who will attempt to track down the culprits and possibly prosecute them, according to a report seen by The Mail on Sunday.
Scotland Yard is spending £1.7 million to set up its Twitter squad, which will have five detectives running it.
The establishment of the new unit comes after a surge in reports of racist and sexist abuse on social media, with some trolls jailed for making death threats against MPs.
But there have also been high- profile cases where police have been accused of being too heavy-handed in arresting or prosecuting people simply for making jokes.
Last night, MPs and civil liberties campaigners raised fears that the new unit would stop people expressing opinions for fear of arrest.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: ‘We want more police on the street, not thought police.
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