Real racists are currently getting away with denying people opportunities due to their ethnicity. It takes real effort to deal with that so the authorities ignore it. It’s easier for them to get publicity by arresting idiotic teenagers than tackling the issue correctly.

Just because there are more important issues to deal with, does not mean that racial slurs should be accepted as normal online banter. Collymore was right to address the issue – And unlike Chris Brown, he seems to have actually reformed himself and worked on becoming a better person accepting the wrongs in his past.

Wouldn’t condone racism in the slightest but always wonder about the use of police resources in these twitter cases. Surely there is some woman somewhere being attacked by her ex-footballer boyfriend who is more in need of police assistance.

Im not saying its ok to post racist comments online i just don’t think practical to police, 1 billion people are members of facebook….

According to the radio news this morning, the guy called Collymore an “effing C”.
Now, assuming that that stands for “fu*king cu*t”, and also assuming that the report was actually accurate, where’s the racism in that?

Hardly suprised at this now with some of the comments on public forums after the various racist cases this year.

whatever about the right to free speech . i refuse to give mine up to any group large or small. britan should be more concerned about the inherent racism of the number of black people unemployed or in jail and not pick on the low hanging fruit of idiots on tweeter excercising their right to be wrong

Arresting people on social media sites for posting racist or hateful comments is never going to work.

Example. Say 50,000 idiots organise a mass twitter / Facebook racist rant. The authorities simply cant question / arrest 50,000 people.

Sean I agree racism is a bad act to follow I’m all for punishing these eeejits that’s what’s wrong too much hatred in the world

sure we are all racists now :-/

While part of me thinks the likes of Collymore should just suck it up, it’s good to send out the message to cowards hiding behind their keyboards that there can be consequences for their actions.

Moves in the UK to stop being gratuitously insulting from being a crime: http://reformsection5.org.uk/

This would mean that this and a variety of other things, like insulting people on Twitter, would be perfectly okay and defensible.

Is that a good idea?

Firstly, I’d agree with following up such reports. But I feel the onus is on the social media org to police it. Ban users, IP addresses etc. Twitter should have a moral and possible legal obligation to ensure it is not used in this way.
Given their finite resources, I can’t see how the Police can really handle the level of racist abuse on SMedia.

That leads me onto another worrying point. I’d love to see stats around reported incidents and convictions at present.
My guess is the Mr. Z list Celebrity is getting more attention and preferential treatment once reporting an incident than Joe Blogs on the street.