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...

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...

In 2006, the State Services Authority released a report on 'The Future of the Public Sector' in 2025. The report identified seven future issues and challenges for the public sector. One of these was fostering agility to support a high performing public sector. The uncertainty that the future holds means that the public sector cannot...