Scotland Yard is set to spend almost £2 million on a new police team to target internet trolls.
The Online Hate Crime Hub will include a dedicated team of officers who will support victims and receive technology-training to identify those who target others online.
The Home Office will fund £450,000 of the Metropolitan Police project which will cost £1.7 million over two years.
The London Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime said a consultation on crime reduction had identified the increasing role that online hate played in targeting individuals and communities.
The consultation found that social media provided anonymity for sick trolls, making it harder to bring them to justice.
It also found that the police are not equipped to tackle online hate crime.
The team, including one Detective Inspector, one Detective Sergeant, and three Detective Constables, will use technology to hunt down the location of online criminals.
They will also aim to develop links with volunteers who will report both criminal and non-criminal online hate incidents.
However, some critics have slammed the initiative, dubbed the “thought police”, claiming it will “stop people expressing their opinions online for fear of arrest”.
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron told MailOnline: ‘We want more police on the street, not thought police.
“Online bullying is an increasingly serious problem but police should not be proactively seeking cases like these and turning themselves into chatroom moderators.
“With such measures, even if well intentioned, there is a real danger of undermining our very precious freedom of speech.”
Andrew Allison, of The Freedom Association libertarian group, added: “There’s a risk of online vigilantism, where people who are offended by the least thing will have a licence to report it to the police.”
