London Police Go After Online Trolls

Police in London are eyeing ways to take down Internet trolls.

City officials were awarded up to 1.7 million pounds ($2.1 million) to develop and implement what the office calls "an online hate crime hub." The idea, which is currently just a proof-of-concept, is to clamp down on "online hate" and find ways to thwart online abusers, or trolls.

The funds were awarded as a grant from the Home Office Police Innovation Fund. The program will have four components. First, officials will train a "police team" that will filter and identify online hate crimes. Police will also be trained on how to use "online tools to address online hate crime," and will work within their community to find volunteers who can quickly help those who have been affected by the online hate crime. Lastly, the officials want to be intelligent in how they target potential online hate speech.

"Developing the intelligence base through the use of new data analytics, to improve decision-making and tasking, allowing predictive policing methods to enable crime prevention and targeted community engagement," the last item on the list in the application reads.

Online hate is nothing new to those who are using the Internet, and it's something that social networks like Twitter have struggled to combat. London Police, however, think they can bring online trolls "to justice" and help victims cope with the effects of the harassment.

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"The benefits of this program include efficiency savings for police while providing a better service, and a robust challenge to the socially negative impact of hate perpetrated online as part of a wider discourse," the police wrote. "However the most benefits are attained by those communities who are targeted for hate crimes by virtue of one or more protected characteristics. These individuals are disproportionately, but positively impacted by the potential of this program to detect and prosecute perpetrators of online hate crime and offer appropriate support services to help victims cope and recover."