If a person sends you threatening, abusive or offensive messages via Facebook, X.com or any other social networking site, they could be committing an offence. The most relevant offences are 'harassment' and 'malicious communications'. For harassment to be committed, there must have been a clear 'course of conduct'. That is, two or more related occurrences. The messages do not necessarily have to be violent in nature, but would need to have caused some alarm or distress. If there has only been a single communication, it’s unlikely it would qualify as harassment, but could be considered a malicious communication. For such an offence to be committed, a message must be sent to another person, or sent via a public communications network, that is indecent, grossly offensive, obscene, threatening or menacing.
