To inform the discussion over free speech and hate speech, this study examines the way racial, religious and ethnic slurs are employed on Twitter. Executive summary: How to define the limits of free speech is a central debate in most modern democracies. This is particularly difficult in relation to hateful, abusive and racist speech. The...

The European Union (EU) was founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The accession process for new EU member states ensures that new countries adhere to these basic principles of democracy. But there are few mechanisms at the EU’s disposal for ensuring that...

Twitter has transformed people’s response to crimes and how they engage with authorities like the police. Never was the changing nature of communication clearer than after the vicious attack on Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich. Twitter became a first port of call for many eye witnesses, while the perpetrators actively goaded onlookers into sharing evidence...

Various measures of offline political activism appear to be falling, but this paper shows that young people in particular remain interested in politics, and use social media to stay politically engaged. This paper analyses political support on social media, and finds that each of the main political parties now have significantly more Twitter followers than...

The widespread adoption of social media is changing the way we communicate, and in turn changing the nature of criminal activity and crime prevention. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook allow the police to include the public in law enforcement in new, potentially transformative ways. But they also make these engagements more difficult to control, and...