A 25-year-old man from Newcastle-upon-Tyne has been sentenced to 16 months in prison, suspended for two years, after admitting to posting a series of offensive tweets, according to Counter Terrorism police.
Nathan Thompson, a resident of Whickham View, Newcastle, was sentenced at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty in March 2024 to multiple offences, including six counts of inciting racial hatred and two counts of malicious communications.
The offences, committed via two Twitter accounts, involved the dissemination of racist, anti-Semitic, and transphobic content, with the intention of stirring up racial hatred.
The Counter Terrorism Policing North East (CTPNE) unit, which played a key role in Thompson’s arrest in July 2023, linked him to the offensive material after extensive investigations.
The tweets, which were accessible to the public, included support for individuals who had committed terror attacks, amplifying concerns about the potential influence of such content online.
Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing North East, spoke of the ongoing efforts to monitor and respond to harmful online content. “The Counter Terrorism Policing network works around the clock to identify harmful content online and bring to justice anyone promoting such material on social media,” Dunkerley stated in the press release.
The press release also highlighted the importance of public vigilance, encouraging individuals to report any posts or activity that express extreme views or hatred to the police. Dunkerley further urged the public, “If you’ve seen material expressing extreme views or hatred, trust your instincts and report any posts or activity of concern to police so we can act on it.”
I didn’t realise expressing hatred was an offence. Is there a list of things you’re allowed to express hate about, such as Russia invading Ukraine, or is it all an offence? And who gets to decide when you’ve crossed a line, a random judge?
Will expressing negative views about the current government soon become an offence? I don’t use social media, and have no plans to, but as long as someone isn’t calling for direct action, I personally don’t care how abhorrent someones opinions are, they are free to express them, even if I don’t like it.
When social media was use by Iranian protesters in which some of the protests turner violent it was praise by western politicians. Go figure
You can tell a societies idols/sacred cows by those who we aren’t allowed to criticize or question. Funny how liberal metropolitans can sometimes be the most intollarant of others beliefs.
Well in this case it happened to be your basic far right fascist “kill all the Jews and gay people” as well as a bit of Hitler was great…topped off by showing support for a people who had murdered a lot of other people…
And we have never allowed some options to be expressed, we have never been free to express some things. We have freedom of expression with some caveats and those are pretty basic..you cannot encourage people to kill and harm others in our society, that’s a crime.
George Orwell was 40 years out, Shocking to see hurty words could end up with you serving some porridge.
So could popping out tge pub for a cig. I don’t smoke bu seems a bit extreme.
Scary times to be alive.
Good, we wouldn’t want any thoughtcrime to spread amongst the masses. Imagine a world where the commoners selfishly had opinions not approved by the party, one shudders to think.
If I self identify as a duck, does that make me quackers, or give me the right to shut down & persecute any who disagre with me? Once upon a time it would’ve been seen as clearly delusional, but nowdays it seems like the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Many things profoundly offend me but I just have to take it on the chin. Why are some others who are offended by their niche lifestyle choices being challenged allowed to dictate to the rest of society?
Think Starmer has been getting ideas from China, we don’t seem to be far behind with the new facial recognition cameras. Will it be social credit scores and digital money to track your every move !
Todays tech is perfect for dystopian control. i fear we’re sleepwalking into a chilling future.
We already have a similar system to China bit it’s not state run instead it’s a number of organisations that will cancel people if they don’t align.
Mohamed Starmer Seal of approval, UK is a total dictature.
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Inviting people to report online comment to counter terrorism police is straight out of the Gestapo playbook. Denounce a neighbour for an anti Nazi joke. This is really dangerous. The police, especially those in counter terrorism, need to focus their efforts on real crime or they will lose what little public support they still have.
This comes across as little to do with UK defence and more a click bait article that knows it will boil the piss of quite a few regular commenters. Seems a shame for a good site to do this from time time. The Warzone seems to keep itself above this kind of article.
Could have been filed under the new ‘Crime’ heading, but only if there was some ‘Defence’ content..
I’m not a fan that there’s a crime section in the first place.
There is a smither. CTPNE, like other CT and CTIUs around the country are the successors to Special Branch. So there is a national security, and thus defence, connection.
Come on guys..lots of comments about free speech. have any of you looked into what this guy was tweeting..it was full on new Third Reich…killing Jews and gay people…it was not “ I don’t like to much immigration” or “the impact of Islam on the nation”..this was pure far right Neo Nazi “Hitler was right” and the Neo Nazi mass murders that have popped out did a good thing in murdering people.
It was also recognised that the guy was mentally ill with learning disabilities, which was why he got a suspended sentence.
Yes that maybe. But in just few weeks I know perfectly rational people who are now very worried about commenting line about topics like immigration fearful they will be labelled some voted Labour ironically.
The issue is, are we looking at a rational fear ? is that fear rational or has it been developed by fear mongering. This is where the west is really laying itself open..after all the Chinese want that fear…unfortunately the west is not only taking the political warfare of its enemies..but it’s feeding it and amplifying it..a society riven by mistrust and hatred is easy to defeat.
I don’t hate and I don’t mistrust ( apart from some state actors..china, Iran, North Korea, china and a few other, as well as extremists who encourage or undertake violence) and I don’t not ever encourage violence or hatred to others…I don’t consider wanting to come to this county a crime ( it’s a great country) and I’m happy for people to love whoever they want and to identify how they want…I consider them all human being deserving of respect ( I’ve seen more than enough suffering and death to know what happiness and life really means) so I’m happy to say my views out loud.
With that as a background I will happily say that:
1) uncontrolled migration is destructive to a society and therefore migration does need to be considered and controlled for the good of society…it a potential positive if done correctly and a negative if done badly and that the present net migration rates of 600,000-700,000 are way to high for a medium sized nation of 60-70 million people.
2) and that multiculturalism does run risks of fracturing society and I think an integrationist model is more conductive to a stable and secure society. my personal view is that there should be some very specific expectations set for people migrating, that involve taking an oath, learning the language and integrating into society.
3) I also believe that there is a home grown Islamist threat that needs combating as well as a far right threat of terror and a small but real risk around Eco terrorism and that these are very much inflamed by external state and none state actors.
4) There is an issue of balance between the rights of different groups..someone’s right to self identify should not trump the rights of biological sex and religion..all need to be in balance and everyone should be able to live a happy secure life. Unfortunately because of human nature that means women need some specific protections against the more aggressive sex, like woman only spaces…places of worship and religion also need to be protected and nurtured…but balanced against how people wish to live their lives..
5) I’m going to be controversial now, Israel has the right to defend itself however it so wishes and it’s not our place to say they cannot…but its present government is close to the edge of extremist themselves, has also stoked the flames and is engaging in what could be seen as ethic cleansing. At the same time I think the west can be profoundly holier than thou and would and has killed loads more people than Israel in its own defence if it feels threatened in any way.
If I get arrested for that then we have a problem….but I don’t think we are anywhere close….they guy who was charged was spouting awful hatred and supporting encouraging the killing and harming of people for nothing more than their ethic background or who they loved.
Just remember our enemies are loving the level of toxic debate, misinformation and mistrust…3 million Chinese political warfare operatives are feeding this.
I’m surprised to see people on UKDJ minimising this stuff, put out at a time where we had an outbreak of racist violence spreading like wildfire, followed by bandwagon jumping my thugs.
Free speech is a red herring being used by the far right, and repeated by their – unaware or unaware – useful idiots.
Chinese political warfare operatives are loving this….it’s very worrying that people are trying to make comments about a nanny state, mistrusting our own government and legal system, because someone was charged and found guilty in a court of law ( in a nation with the rule of law) because they constantly and purposefully spouted on in public about killing people for the colour of their skin, culture or who they loved as well as supported and venerated a person that tried to destroy our nation and killed tens of millions. The fact he was not imprisoned and is serving a suspended sentence and getting the help he needs ( because he had mental health and learning difficulties) shows our legal system is working.
Russia is where it is now because of the agenda of fascism, china is essentially a mixed fascist/communist state, Germany once fell as a democracy because of that…be very carful….just because we need a national debate does not mean we should let in the enemies of our society into the debate ( fascists, extremists and communists).
I go some way with you on that. There was a fair amount of bot recirculation of claims which started various riots.
Where I note things are a merging between the far right and dog-whistles put out by some of our fringe of mainstream politicians. It’s revealing, for example, who was willing to share a platform with Tommy Robinson in his Trafalgar Square rally.
I have a Reform MP, and there are slogans being used echoing far right talking points to get social media attention / build a profile. I’m not sure the House of Commons is up to holding its members to account for that stuff.
Perhaps more concerning is the numbers who take this up without examination – people who are in the comments of local SM groups or who push things further without spotting the misinformation they are being fed.
An example would be the ‘the people who wrote on Facebook are all locked up but the people who assaulted the police at Manchester airport have not been charged – Two Tier Justice, without realising that the first pled guilty an so need not trial.
Such a shame that we aren’t allowed to spread racial hatred anymore.
How will we pass the time?