An Internet trolling expert has criticized what he calls double-standards following the retweeting of a homophobic message by Business Minister Matthew Hancock.
Jonathan Bishop is a campaigner on dualism – where the rules that apply to one group should apply in an equivalent way to those from a different group. “We have seen in the last two years many people going to jail for re-tweeting or re-posting grossly offensive messages,” he said. “It is totally wrong that trolls like Peter Nunn and Matthew Woods have gone to jail and all a government minister has to do is apologize.
“It is double standards for the public to be sent to jail and politicians to be let off.
“If there are rules for one then they should be applied equally to another.”
Jonathan Bishop’s research paper, ‘Internet Trolling and the 2011 UK Riots: The Need for a Dualist Reform of the Constitutional, Administrative and Security Frameworks in Great Britain’ has been published in the European Journal of Law Reform.