A police force has been slated after telling people to report one another for using “offensive or insulting words”.

South Yorkshire Police was criticised after urging its 166,000 Twitter followers to report “non-criminal hate incidents”.

The force’s account had initially asked people to report hate crimes based on race, religion, sexual orientation and disability.

But in a separate follow-up tweet, it added: “In addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing. Hate will not be tolerated in South Yorkshire. Report it and put a stop to it.”

South Yorkshire Police defended its tweet, saying non-criminal incidents can feel like an offence to the victim.

But it was relentlessly mocked, with more than 5,000 responses to the Sunday night post. Many people likened the force to George Orwell’s "Thought Police” from his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Paul Winters said: “'Non-crime-hate-incidents' is a bit wordy. Might I suggest you condense it. I think 'thought crime' has a nice ring, don’t ya think?

“Shame on you. Soon your citizens will no longer even greet one another in public for fear of reprisal. This is a bridge toward totalitarianism.”

Posting a picture of a front cover of Orwell’s classic, Jo Kneale said: “I'd suggest a copy of this for all officers. Oh, and watch Minority Report. You could probably just lock a good 25% of the public away now and call it crime prevention.”

And Scottish political analysis account Wings Over Scotland tweeted: “So just to be clear: you want me to phone the police when there hasn't been a crime but someone's feelings have been hurt?”

But the police posted a series of responses to users, with one saying: “Police can only prosecute when the law is broken, but we want to know about non-crime hate incidents.

“Incidents may not be criminal offences but can feel like a crime to those affected, and can sometimes escalate to crimes.”