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South Africa is stepping up to the plate in terms of dealing with cybercrime.

The Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and the Hate Speech Bill has been in the works for a while, both of which deal with hate speech as it could be sent via platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter.

Now President Cyril Ramaphosa has confirmed that most of the Cybercrimes Act will come into force, starting today.

What constitutes a harmful message as per the Act, is anything that a) incites damage to property or violence, b) threatens people with damage to property or violence, and c) unlawfully contains an intimate image.

If such messages are sent, the penalty will be imprisonment for up to three years and/or a fine.

This includes provisions on “malicious communications” according to Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions.

MyBroadband outlined the definitions of the malicious communications criminalised by the Cybercrimes Act:

A message which incites damage to property (defined by “damage to corporeal or incorporeal property”) or violence (defined by “bodily harm”) applies to any person who discloses, through an electronic communications service, a data message to a person, group of persons or the general public to incite:

1. the causing of any damage to property belonging to; or
2. violence against a person or a group of persons

The Act also criminalises the distribution of messages that threaten a group of people with violence or damage to their property.

If someone sends a message containing an intimate image of someone without their consent, then they are committing an offence according to the Act’s third component:

The Act describes an intimate image as both real or simulated, which show the person as nude, or displays their genital organs or anal region.

It also notes that the message is an offence if the person is female, transgender, or intersex and their covered genitals or breasts are displayed in a manner that violates or offends their sexual integrity or dignity.

Even in examples where the person is not identifiable in the image itself, it can still be an offence if the message makes it clear who the person is.

You can read the full proclamation here.

Hopefully, decency, respect, common sense, and now the threat of possible imprisonment will help people think twice before sending a criminalising message.

[source:mybroadband]