What you are vs what you did
KS3 · The Safeguard Hub · Press F11 for full screen, scroll for next slide
From "unkind but legal" to "against the law". Four statements are on the board.
Disagree with each other. That's the point. We'll come back to them.
Mocked for your football team? That stings.
Targeted for your race, faith, disability, sex or sexuality? Different in kind. You can't change it, you shouldn't have to, and the attack is aimed at everyone who shares it.
Rudeness → bullying → discrimination → hate incident → hate crime.
The Equality Act protects nine characteristics. Courts hand down tougher sentences for crimes driven by hostility to what someone is.
Hate hits one person but is meant to be heard by everyone like them.
One incident can change how a whole community walks to the shops. That is the real size of "just words".
Not everything offensive is illegal, and pretending otherwise would be false. The criminal line: threats, harassment, stirring up hatred.
So there are two bars: legal, and decent. You choose which one you live at.
A lot of online hate is dressed as edgy humour. Jokes get shared. Outrage gets paid.
The people producing it are running a business, and the product is your anger. See the machine, and it can't use you.
Cruel "jokes" run on audience. No laugh, no share, no fuel.
Withdrawing your laugh is not doing nothing. It is cutting the power.
Don't laugh. Don't share. Message the target privately, they'll remember it for years.
Report the content. Tell staff about patterns. Threats go to the police, not to you alone.
Hate crimes and incidents: report-it.org.uk (True Vision), including on behalf of someone else.
Incidents that aren't crimes still get recorded, because patterns are how escalation gets caught early.
Any trusted adult in school. Childline 0800 1111.
999 for threats or danger, every time.
Look at the four statements again.
Which one moved furthest for you today, and why?