Someone gets jailed - For racial comments made on twitter? What?

I think we're digressing here a little, but what I mean is gathering a large amount of personal data specific to one person, including an itinerary of travel and whereabouts for the coming week (for example) for lulz does not compute as you would have thought there is some agenda behind it all. I'd be more worried that someone was gathering such images and information about me than by someone writing the words "I'm going to bathe in their blood" next to a single image of me that could have been mined from google or facebook by someone who doesn't know me.

I don't really know anything about libel laws, but what you've done again is to describe an offence (e.g. harrassment) and infer that by saying that shouldn't happen is a violation of freedom of speech. Saying whatever you want doesn't harm anyone. Mounting a campaign designed to intimidate/harrass someone might.

 

Ah, i've not been able to put my finger on why I've been so conflicted on this. I think the above nails it for me. Freedom of speech is such an important right that to allow hate to hide behind seems to render it redundant. Come the time if/when real freedom of speech needs to be exercised to speak out against the government, for example, the right will have been so diluted so as to be worthless.

I guess i'm not arguing against complete freedom of speech just expressing disappointment when it is used in this manner.

 

Yup, thats precisely what I've done, but what I'm pointing out is that a fair few people would use freedom of speech as a defence againt a crime that actually only involves speech. and those crimes do infilct harm.

Its probably the reason we will never have freedom of speech, because it requires responsability and humans generaly aren't.

 

Indeed. The boys in blue will be busy now going through every other Youtube comment ever posted, trying to work out if the user is British so that they can be arrested, tried and arbitrarily imprisoned for flaming and hatred!

If this has set a precedent then we should be concerned. When the troll Sean Duffy was imprisoned it was because of his sustained campaign of harassment, and therefore justified in the eyes of the law and the public. The fact that he suffered from Asperger's was neither here nor there, he was a sociopath of the highest order. Liam is an idiot, and if one of my friends started spouting off nonsense like that he's get a thump, but his comments were so generalised, with such a relatively small initial audience, that it has been blown completely out of proportion by the media.

It would only take any user on this forum around 30 seconds of searching to find FAR worse examples of hatred/racism/sexism/incitement etc. in the public domain. The criminal justice system will simply not have the funding to sustain this kind of attack on the freedoms of idiots to say idiotic things, because many thousands are guilty of the same crime every single day. I'd even venture that there are members on this very forum (though not in SD I'd imagine) who have been guilty of similar levels of stupidity elsewhere.

 

But the harm can be inflicted without the speech, it's not the words that caused the harm. Posting a load of similarly-themed messages that are derogatory about me on a variety of websites is a series of behaviour, premeditated. It's that behaviour that is harmful, not the words.

Everyone keeps saying the problem is that people aren't responsible for their actions etc. nowadays. Well to me banning expressions would be an example of of a cause of that symptom. Words are given power by the interpreter (i.e. the person who receives the words and applies their own meaning to them). You are implying that we should take away the responsibility from the receiver for their own good - expanding the Nanny state if you will.

You'll never have a healthy society unless you allow an individual to be responsible for themselves. What we're getting is a society full of opportunists who manipulate trivial matters for their own gain.

This is straight off the top of my head (haven't thought it through yet ) but I reckon I'd be far more in favour of making it an offence to believe lies than an offence to tell lies. That would put the responsibility on the receiver, who would develop the healthy habit of researching something before jumping to conclusions, and it would also make liars even more unpopular. Not that I'm in favour of making things illegal, more just making it a social expectation.

 

Very very few people can choose not to be, from those who attack a paediatricians house thinking it was a paedophile to those under the influence of people like derren brown or Hitler, I watch his speechs and find him comical at best but millions didn't

For example a recovering alcoholic and his companion he can't get away from constantly goes on about wanting a drink, I'd hold his companion at least as responsible if the alcoholic went back to drinking

Humans are still a pack animal and have a pack mentality.

History has many examples of people acting on an expression of thought since thomas beckett, You are responsible for what you say in public and what you publish either in print or electronically `

 

They still choose. Idiots could have checked that paediatrician is really the same thing as paedophile before they broke out the torches and pitchforks. They could have decided not to go lynch paedophiles in the first place. Germans could have chosen not to sublimate their economic deprivation and their dislike for their ineffectual government into xenophobia and fascism, especially when they saw people were getting hurt.

The audience gets tricked by Derren Brown, to a large extent because they choose to be. They expect to be, it's the experience they paid money for. It is well-known amongst hypnotists that the most hypnotiseable subject is one paying to be hypnotised. It is also well-known that you cannot make a subject do under hypnosis what they would not be prepared to do under normal conditions. People choose.

Junkie logic. The recovering alcoholic can tell his companion to stop carrying on about drink, or leave his companion. Not easy perhaps, but I can assure you it is possible, and it is done.

So just because people behave as irresponsible pack animals, other people are now responsible for them and have to mind their words? Which people are the mindless sheep again, and which people are the ones who have to carefully choose what they say in public (or change their professional title to remove any possible misunderstanding by illiterate morons)?

 

But a behaviour isn't criminal it’s the actions that are.

I don't think we'll ever get anywhere till we follow the spirit of the law instead of the letter of the law. Following the letter of the law get people off on trivialities and make lawyers rich. the spirit would bring laws back to what they where envisioned in the first place

What happens on the occasions that science suddenly proves a understood theory to wrong, do we then arrest everyone for past actions? it would also mean that before we said anything we would need a full list of quotes, sources and working out, just in case a misinterpretation causes us to lie by accident. In Fact the only people I can see liking it would be the lawyers again who would now act as translation and communication facilitators for everyone.

 

Oh, cool: thoughtcrime. Yeah, that'll work.

 

That's where it seems to be heading right now, I'm affraid, and fast.

 

Its difficult to make a choice when you have been indocrinated for years to a particular point of view,

The alcoholic might be able to leave his companion but how does the black man leave his skin colour behind?

Yes and always have been after all Henry did penance for Beckett, The Individual speaking/writing is the one who has to be careful how they say things. Those listening are the sheep! (whose to blame for the illiterate crowd, them or those who set the education system) Individuals are smart people are dumb.

The only difference now is everyone can self publish and there is a general ignorance of the responsibilities that come with it.

I don't remember freedom of speech being invoked over the woman on the bus in croyden when her racist rant was recorded, and twitter unlike a bus is a semi permanent record with global reach, His number of followers is greater than a single decker bus

 

But not impossible.

Well, speaking as a mixed-race dude, I decided long ago that everybody experiences prejudice or discrimination for some reason or other: because they are male, female, young, old, rich, poor, smart, dumb, physically disabled or athletically fit and yes, white or black. So perhaps I had to work harder at overcoming certain obstacles or prejudices because I is a working-class mixed-race kid from the estates? Well, my stunningly pretty upper-middle-class white female doctor colleague had her own obstacles and prejudices to overcome because she is, well, an upper-middle-class stunningly pretty white female. She just doesn't look like a doctor. She looks like a photo model prescribing chemotherapy. And during her rotation in A&E, every sleezy drunk hauled in from the high street on a Friday night with some nightclub-brawl sustained injury tried to grope her.

There's equal opportunity in life's unfairness. You can choose not to buy into some kind or special victim status.

Sorry, but that is as paternalistic as painting "the black man" as some poor disadvantaged wretch. People are capable of thinking for themselves. We have free education. It may not be brilliant, but I bet it is at least up to a par with the education African kids receive under a hot corrugated metal roof after walking five miles to school (after doing morning chores). We have free libraries. We have the friggin' internet. People can become smarter --if they choose to. And in the developing world, where people generally experience a lot more hardship than even the most disadvantaged sink-estate dwellers over here, they choose to. It's why they are kicking our lazy super-obese Western asses on the global economic market.

Should have been. She has the right to express herself and make herself look like a right tit in the process. People have the right to burn poppies in protest. People have the right to complain about immigrants. Freedom of expression means everybody has a right to make an idiot of themselves.

 

Although one could argue that the crazy bus rant lady was causing a public nuisance, not merely expressing herself.

Some of us just do better at ignoring stuff like that I guess.

 

I invoked it. I invoke it every time nice cuddly friendly authoritarians try to imprison people for expression.

We look at the Chinese and feel superior because we live in a free country with democracy and freedom of assembly and the right to a fair trial and so on - but in terms of freedom of speech we're not different to them qualitatively, only quantitatively. We're not like the Americans - we restrict what people can say regularly, and the only guarantee that we have that this won't be used like it is in China is that the guys at the top are "good" guys. I don't hold much hope.

 

The race card never worked on me I grew up across Africa/Asia/Europe and learn't that 'people' are the same regardless of colour, shame I didn't learn some of the others at the same time!
Everything you listed is individuals acting out of predujice, that is different publishing material that is hateful or incites a crime, I have no idea if you remember the "no blacks, no Irish" signs in windows, I lived in RSA during apartheid and loathed it. If everything you see pushes you to act in a certain way that is how the majority will act
I'd take that bet our state system is awful and we are moving country for a better school, both acadamically and its ethos and attitude to life.(access to education is more of an issue than the quality, in my experience of Africa)
People have the right to complain about gays/blacks/immigrant/whatever. What they cannot do is publish that complaint publicly (the right to protest is different)

In an ideal world I'd agree with you, but its not an ideal world and we have to deal with how people are not how we would like them to be, which means those that choose to publish their words have to be aware of the effects they have on others or how others behave and accept responsibility for their actions

 

Behaviour and action aren't synonymous but ...

HTF do you lie by accident?

I knew posting in a rush would get me in trouble but I've been interpreted more literally than I'd intended, just didn't have time to flesh it out to avoid such. The belief in itself would be harmless so thought police would be quite unnecessary, they'd need to be some action on the back of the belief.

But as I said, I'm not for making things illegal - I have anarchic tendencies - but where we already punish people for incitement/encouragement etc. I would just want to emphasise that those who act on such incitement should be more accountable than those who do the inciting. Perhaps that's how it already works, I don't know, I pay no attention to sentencing etc. I think you and I share the same perspective regarding affording individuals protection from facing the consequences of their actions.

 

Then why did you play it?

Dude, I was on the receiving end of a "No Blacks" situation once. So who do I blame? The racist who agreed to rent to me on the phone but backed out as soon as my coloured self walked into her office? Or society? Her parents? The media? I blamed the letting agent, of course. She was responsible for her own actions.

No, we have to accept them as they are and treat them as we'd like them to be. Accept that people are idiots, but treat them as the intelligent, sensible individuals they are capable of being. If you treat them as people incapable of independent thought, then that is the role you try to force onto them. If you treat black people as handicapped by the colour of their skin, then you are buying into racism.

 

But that takes no account of the joint scenario of an extremely charismatic and artful orator and a weak audience, both of which exist. Take an example of a religious cult who commit suicide and essentially kill their children who are too young to decide for themselves or fight against it. Who is more to blame, the invariably charismatic leader who incites them or the followers who lost their way and are trying to find a new path?

Or try Charles Manson on for size in your argument

 

by being unaware that what you believe to be correct is a fallacy, e.g. you inform someone that john bob holds the record for the long jump, unaware that it was beaten 2 minutes ago by john smith.

 

Well I am happy for people to hold their own definitions and interpretations of words, but that must be the first time I've had a discussion with someone about what a lie is and that sort of interpretation has come up since I was about 8 years old. For me there needs to be a deliberate attempt to deceive for it to be a lie so an accidental lie would be an oxymoron.

Whoever pulls the trigger. Or thrusts the knife. Or presses the detonate button. It justs seems twisted to me that anyone could ever be more responsible for something than the person who does it.

The idea that Charles Manson should get a tougher deal than Ed Miliband if they both acted in exactly the same way just because Manson was more charismatic doesn't seem right to me.

Treat the 'weak minded' as weak minded and nothing is likely to change. Show people from infancy that they're in control of their own destiny and can't lay blame at the feet of others for their own actions and there could be some positive evolution.

'Followers who lost their way trying to find the right path' - try applying that to the example of an alcoholic who has been attending AA meetings but takes out a group of kids at the school bus stop while driving 4 times over the blood/alcohol limit. Can he lay the blame at the terribly tempting adverts for booze?