By Dan Satherley
New South Wales police say they are going to hunt down people who sent abusive messages to TV host Charlotte Dawson on microblogging site Twitter.
Dawson was hospitalised yesterday after receiving more than 100 tweets telling her to commit suicide.
Several people set up anonymous accounts just to post messages like "on behalf of the world would you please go and hang yourself" and "put your face in a toaster", using the hastag #diecharlotte.
The abuse began with a tweet from a Monash University employee telling Dawson, "on behalf of NZ we would like you to please go hang yourself".
Dawson confronted Ms Heti over the tweet, even going so far as to call her on the phone. Ms Heti told her she was a "well-to-do white girl" who should be able to cope.
NSW police minister Mike Gallacher said the trolls would be "dragged out of their mother's basement and put before a court".
"These are sick minds we're dealing with," said Mr Gallacher.
"I'd be interested to see if they're still tough guys when they're in handcuffs… Even a cursory examination of the comments made to Ms Dawson overnight reveals they are clearly offensive to a reasonable person, which is the test for any prosecution under Section 474.17 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act."
Anyone convicted of sending Dawson an abusive message would face up to three years in prison – but they would have to be caught first.
Online law specialist Rick Shera says in the case of anonymous accounts, that could be tricky.
"Twitter seems to be reasonably resistant to giving out details of its users, so if the people who are doing it are using handles which are immediately obvious who they are then that won't be an issue," says Mr Shera.
"But if they're not, then I think Twitter generally requires some sort of court order and even then, it sometimes resists. I don't know what its attitude would be in this instance, but it's not one of those who instantly give up information."
But if Twitter did hand over users' IP addresses – a unique set of numbers assigned to each internet-connected device – then police probably wouldn't have any problems tracking people down, in much the same manner people are caught sharing copyrighted material.
"When you're on the internet, ultimately you tend to be able to be found," says Mr Shera, "unless you're very, very expert at hiding your tracks – which probably people on Twitter may not necessarily be so."
Laws in both Australia and New Zealand are lagging behind the development of social media. Digital media strategist Karalee Evans told Australian paper the Herald Sun it is currently "difficult for police to gain access to the details behind abusive accounts in order to follow up complaints".
"At the very minimum, Australian law and police need to catch up with the internet," says Ms Evans.
Mr Shera says although harassment can be a crime whether it happens offline or not, there are gaps in New Zealand law that also need to be plugged.
"It doesn't make any difference as to whether it's online or offline, although as we've seen in New Zealand recently there do appear to be some gaps, and the Law Commission has said that there needs to be some work done around our laws to tweak them so that they work better in an online environment."
Ms Dawson remains in a Sydney hospital, under observation.
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