Internet trolls don’t Trump the rule of law - including charity law

Social media has been around for well over a decade, and politics and political communication have been around forever. But I think we’re witnessing a new and toxic fusion between them which is putting many charities and their beneficiaries at greater risk.

Just a few weeks in, it’s clear that a central strategy of the new US administration is to use social media to intimidate opponents and to silence causes and people they don’t like. This time round, Trump brings his own personal social media platform, ‘Truth Social’, as well as Elon Musk’s X to the party.

Facebook and Instagram are falling into line, bowing out of independent fact-checking in favour of ‘community notes’. Other tech firms like Google are rolling back their equality, diversity and inclusion programmes and removing Black History Month and Pride Month from their products in response to the new administration’s agenda.

I fear that what we’re seeing goes beyond the horrible online abuse that LGBTQ+ people, women, disabled people, and racially minoritised groups have suffered for years. The trolls are not just posting anonymously from their parents’ basements anymore. They’re now in charge of vast political, technological and financial power, and they’re using it.

What’s all this got to do with the UK and charities here?

This isn’t just a US problem. Given the dominance of English, the trans-national nature of the tech, and the fact that so many of the social media platforms are US-owned, the effects of Trump 2.0 are already impacting people here – especially folks who are often the biggest targets for online hate. But also the staff, trustees and beneficiaries of UK charities which support them.

Just last month, the Welsh Refugee Council was threatened by online hate mobs. Their ‘crime’? The charity had re-posted a video of a school project where children showed welcoming messages to refugees, which it had neither produced nor commissioned.

Subsequent social media attacks by anti-immigration accounts were reposted by Elon Musk to millions of his followers, and the charity took the post down. Its staff reportedly received death threats and the charity had to remove staff information from its website for their safety. It is now working with the police.

As Churchill apparently said, “A lie flies around the world before the truth gets its trousers on”. The abuse and intimidation has its intended effect almost instantaneously, while any legal redress or correcting the record afterwards gets lost in all the noise.

Isn’t the first duty of government to protect its citizens, not to intimidate and threaten them? If leaders or influential people from other countries – even ostensibly our allies – are inciting violence against UK citizens, doesn’t the UK government have a duty to act in their defence?

Charitable purposes are set by Parliament, and interpreted by the courts

In the UK, centuries-old case law and legislation sets out clearly established charitable purposes. These are implemented by the Charity Commission and other charity regulators, and can only be changed by Act of Parliament or interpreted by court decisions, not by individual British politicians, newspaper proprietors, tech oligarchs or US Presidents.

Charitable purposes include:

• The advancement of health and the saving of lives – including specifically ‘charities that provide rescue services, such as lifeboats’;
• The advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity – which specifically includes charities promoting ‘equality and diversity by the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of age, sex or sexual orientation’;
• The advancement of environmental protection or improvement – specifically including ‘the promotion of sustainable development’;
• Any other charitable purposes – specifically including ‘the rehabilitation of ex-offenders and the prevention of crime’.

Refugee charities, charities working for LGBTQ+ rights, charities advocating for racial or gender equality, environmental protection charities, and those working with ex-offenders or to reform the prison system are legitimately constituted within UK charity law and with the UK’s charity regulators. But these causes and the people they support are all under attack.

We need a more strategic response

There are things charities can do to protect themselves, for example by trustees and leaders supporting their comms teams, evaluating the risk/benefit of posting content, ensuring there are crisis communications plans in place, and thinking carefully about which platforms to use.

But I think we need to ask: what is the UK government doing to ensure the safety of charities and those who work or volunteer for them, and their beneficiaries? We’ve already seen the real danger just last summer with the racist riots. We need a more strategic response.

For example:

• Should charities be pushing the government for revisions or additions to the Online Safety Act? The UK is free to set its own laws on the limits of free speech, and the laws around violent threats, abuse and intimidation.
• The government already regulates traditional media, especially broadcast media. It even regulates charity advertising! In an era where the boundaries between channels are disappearing, surely we should expect the same from social media companies?
• Can the Charity Commission provide specific guidance for trustees on dealing with serious online abuse and threats, and reporting that through a dedicated process?
• Could it also act as a gathering point for data about threats to charity staff, volunteers and trustees, and work with the police to analyse where these are coming from so they can be dealt with efficiently and effectively?
• More broadly, how can charities organise collectively, to learn from each other, find solidarity, and better defend themselves and the people they serve?

A death threat against a charity chief executive or an arson attack on a charity’s office warrants a bit more than just trustees registering a ‘serious incident’ report and receiving some guidance. The current framing of this process is mostly about the charity or those associated with it doing something wrong and needing to report that – but this problem is about the charity itself being attacked and the damage that can do.

Ultimately I’d argue this involves fundamental human rights set out in UK law, including the right to life and to protection from discrimination. Unless those rights are protected, I worry that charities especially working on certain causes might struggle to find leaders, trustees, staff and volunteers in the future. And the people and causes they serve will suffer further.

I don’t by any means have all the answers, but I do think we need to start asking some serious questions.