> One person who saw the tweet, Janet Hunter Jess, told the court of her hurt at the message.
> The 72-year-old, whose family served in the armed forces...
That's just surreal. Bringing in little old ladies to testify that your tweet hurt their feelings. I really wanted this to be fake, but other outlets are running the same story. Madness.
It's the politics of the comment that should bother more than little old ladies.
It's a very, very anti-armed forces comment. I may disagree with it, but it's a completely valid point of view to hold. The idea that the armed forces, whose job it is to kill, is above this sort of criticism (wishing death, hellfire), is pretty mental and actually quite worrying.
Imagine Major General Snodgrass says "we must go to war with Russia now and hang it if it's nuclear!" Someone responds that Snodgrass is an idiot, a fool, a bounder and trying to compensate for the fact that he is slightly less sexually attractive to humans than a badger that was hit by a lorry last tuesday fortnight.
Snodgrass will have medals and be described by establishment types as a "National Hero." It goes with rising through the ranks. Also likely upper class for students of the British class system. Prosecuting people for being critical of a national hero who supports the class system is a thing some dream of seeing happen. This is a step forward for them.
Again I don't think it's right that all UK soldiers are evil and am generally opposed to killing in any circumstances where there's a viable alternative. The idea that expressing the other side of such an opinion should cause you to be prosecuted is insane on every level.
I've heard that the most celebrated holiday throughout the world (albeit on different days) is "Independence from England." Death is what soldiers deal in as even the armed forces most strident supporters will agree. It's the whole point, otherwise they'd be aid-workers.
"Death is what soldiers deal in as even the armed forces most strident supporters will agree. It's the whole point, otherwise they'd be aid-workers."
That's undeniably true but it's oversimplifying and cherry-picking the facts. The literature covering this subject is so vast that many libraries would not have the space to contain it all. What's contained within that information is a myriad reasons that explain why that statement isn't as straightforward as you would have us believe. It explains why nuances and fine minutiae are so important in any such discussion—and so on.
You should also not forget that war and soldiering have been inseparable from the human condition from the very beginning of recorded time, furthermore, archeology supports that view much, much further back—even back to the time of the Neanderthals.
As much of many of you who've never been in the position where you have to make a decision come a war may dislike the notion, war isn't going to be declared obsolete anytime soon. Only an ostrich would believe that.
One wonders what you would say when an enemy was at your country's door and unless some of you actually stopped it, then not only would your life be in danger but also it's likely everything you own will be pillaged and that everything you stand for will be rubbed out in utter disillusionment not to mention that your women would most likely be raped and then killed.
I say that as someone who had his rights to say no taken away by my government and was forcibly inducted into the military system against my wishes.
It may be a good rule, but that doesn’t include comments which have no other purpose than to offend at least one old lady. In order to be defensible, you need at least a bit of content to accompany the offensive form. Offend all the old ladies you want, but make it worth their time.
But there's also a lack of a purpose. The reason we have free speech is that it is beneficial to society to have it. This is not one of the cases I'd like to use if I had to support its benefit for society.
Laws in England are much less free on speech than in the USA. Slander and libel laws in particular in England are far stricter and easier to win a court case than in the USA.
And for being offensive apparently. To be honest, the US has the better approach in my opinion and Europe lacks in development or anyone that wants to prosecute others for internet comments. Yes, some older people might not jump onto this development and you should not go out of your way to be offensive to them.
I can easily imagine Michael Palin defending Graham Chapman and claiming the offending comment was made as a form of art, that it should stand on its own because of its offensiveness.
Of course, Graham Chapman would not have made such a bland comment.
This is basically how I saw it also, but interspersed with scenes of a car chase and a fight breaking out and and cops evicting pensioners and beating them with their sticks and finally Graham in his old biddy outfit talking to the press afterwards mentioning how great of a country we are when we put vile hooligans like them behind bars, "Scotland is no place for that kind of rubbish!"
Camera pans back as Palin turns towards it to close out the news report and in the background a swarm of naked people jog blithely into the distance.
You must not know very many 72 year olds. Show up to your next city council meeting where they discuss a bike lane or a homeless shelter and bring a bag of popcorn.
> He walked 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday, raising more than £32 million for the NHS, and was knighted by the Queen in recognition of his efforts.
I found this more surreal. Sir Walks-A-Lot. (yes I know, but I had to read it twice.)
I have no objection, but I am pretty sure he was not rewarded for this feat, but for his lifetime work, contrary to what the exact sentence I quoted made me believe.
> One person who saw the tweet, Janet Hunter Jess, told the court of her hurt at the message. Another person who saw the tweet, Luzier Jeffery, Kelly’s neighbour at the time, said she was “shocked” when she saw the message.
I see Brits are pining for the empire so hard that they went straight back to Victorian sensibilities.
Sadly, this kind of behaviour is on brand when it comes to the UK state. It is less than ten years since Section 5 [1] was reformed to remove the display of “insulting” words and writing in public as an offence (Rowan Atkinson made an excellent speech on the matter back then [2]). However, the overall mentality and other laws are still very much at large.
While I still do not claim to fully comprehend British culture, there is always an odd undercurrent of authoritarianism whose chill I can feel now and then – it is worth noting that it bridges the political divide. I have talked about this with my British colleagues and heard numerous explanations, but none that I feel satisfactory. At times when I feel particularly dark I joke about this with said colleagues and say: “You say that you went to war with the Germans on behalf of the free world. But at times I wonder: Was it not that they in a way were outdoing you and you were feeling a bit envious?” Now, clearly this is intended to be offensive and not something that I genuinely believe, but like many jokes, it somewhat works because there is some kernel of truth at its core.
>You say that you went to war with the Germans on behalf of the free world
Who said that? They definitely ruled over a lot of the non-free world at the time. India? East Africa?
A large part of the world supported the Axis simply because at the time, the British Empire was the relevant empire oppressing them, and by default, anyone who hated the British supported the Germans and/or Japanese.
A possibly apocryphal story is that a Brit was trying to explain to an African why it was necessary to fight the Nazis. He said "each country must rule over its own people, the Germans over Germany, the Poles over Poland, the French over France..." and the African said "..."
"After the war ended, the story of the INA and the Indian Legion was seen as so inflammatory that, fearing mass revolts and uprisings across its empire, the British Government forbade the BBC from broadcasting their story."
>But at times I wonder: Was it not that they in a way were outdoing you and you were feeling a bit envious?”
Were they? At the outbreak of WWII, the British controlled "25% of the world's population, and of 30% of its land mass".
The phrase "odd undercurrent of authoritarian" itself is particularly odd, because what's odd about a country that ruled over one of the largest, if not the largest, empires of all time having an authoritarian streak?
I agree with you, but this has nothing to do with the point I made. There was no claim as to any “true” nature of WW2 or British imperialism. What I stated was that a large chunk current Britons perceive themselves as having stood up to Hitler and defended freedom for all. Whether this is true or not does not matter with respect to either my joke or perplexity over the fact that authoritarianism is present in UK society to a larger degree than I am comfortable with. If anything, your response is in support of what I stated.
I think a lot comes from Benthamite thinking "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong." So stopping mean tweets can be ok if it makes most people happy. The Nazi thing on the other hand wasn't good for happiness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham
This whole conversation is winding down, but I just wanted to thank you for this comment as it brought me a new perspective on the matter. I have for at least a year had an uneasy feeling about Bentham’s utilitarianism, so your response indicates to me that I should consider it in the light of the tyranny of the masses and perhaps I will find some realisations there (personal or societal) if read more and think about it for a little while.
You don't see a difference in authoritarianism of British "banning the public wishing of mass death" and Nazi "requiring the public wishing of mass death? "
Is it funny? I'm a Brit and I don't really get it. Maybe because my ancestors were German jewish and had to get the hell out. WW2 wasn't really about being envious of the Germans.
For crying out loud… I thought that “Now, clearly this is intended to be offensive and not something that I genuinely believe…” (emphasis added) would be sufficient to avoid this. Likewise in another response where I am asked: “You don’t see a difference in authoritarianism [between this British behavior and that of the Nazis?]”, clearly I do.
The joke – regardless of whether it is to your liking – uses the ingredient of the high degree of pride many British still take in (rightfully) standing up against the Third Reich and defending liberal values; contrasts this using a massively exaggerated satirical equivalence to the failure to stand up for what I believe to be those very same values in the present day. As another poster pointed out, the fact that this is an obvious exaggeration is precisely why it is a joke and not an attempt at a political essay.
I am reminded of how at the end of Stewart Lee’s wonderful satirising critique of the culture of the TV show Top Gear, where he faces the camera and explains that, no, he in fact does not wish that Richard Hammond would be dead [1,2].
Absolutely, we should not hold back in punishing people who are threatening violence against others, or otherwise try to get other people to commit acts of violence.
But that someone tweeting “the only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella buuuuurn” is guilty of anything besides being lame, is beyond what I can understand. It seems like this is about something more than just being "grossly offensive", did this somehow make someone in the military upset or something? Surely it can't be illegal to be offensive now can it?
> The 72-year-old [Janet Hunter Jess], whose family served in the armed forces, said: “To see someone wishing British soldiers dead, it still hurts me. It still hurts me that anybody would disrespect someone that had given their live for the country.”
> Ms Jeffrey, 51, stated: “First of all, the gentleman in question had done so much to raise awareness and funds for the NHS in England and became a bit of a national hero at the time, but then the fact it referred to British soldiers as well.
It seems indeed this is more about that people in the military, or related to those with people in the military, was offended by the tweet.
I wonder if the irony around that this fellow fought in the second world war for freedom of speech for everyone is hitting any of these people offended at the tweet.
> I wonder if the irony around that this fellow fought in the second world war for freedom of speech for everyone is hitting any of these people offended at the tweet.
I'm not aware of WW2 being about freedom of speech.
On New Year's Day 1942 the Allies declared they were fighting "to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice"
They only declared that? What more could have been done? The declaration that was made was the main treaty of the Allies and eventually became the founding charter for the UN, which most countries in the world are a member of and have ratified in their own laws.
It's a bit tongue in cheek, but maybe avoid the red witch hunts, avoid murdering your own population for being black or revolutionary (or both). And for the French and British, not executing colonial soldiers and their families to avoid paying them (or to avoid respecting your promises of Freedom(tm) )
Maybe it was just a troll, but implementation is clearly not finished yet, and was surely not at the end of the war.
It doesn’t make the war about freedom of speech, it makes the war about resisting invasion (for Britain).
The Britain of the time had a tremendous desire to censor things they deemed unseemly which lasted long past the end of the war - see for example various obscenity trials regarding the publication of books in the 60s and 70s.
It wasn't about resisting Britain being invaded if that's what you mean, it was the invasion of Poland that kicked it off. Rather similar to the current where we are resisting Russia invading Ukraine. Hitler didn't want to fight the UK. He wanted to partner with us to take over the other 'racially inferior' countries.
> Yah, but fighting to resist invasion also means fighting to preserve values and legal protections.
An invasion is the same whether you are being invaded by people who believe in free speech or by people who don't. WWII was in no way about free speech. Germany was invading other countries not to impose their values and compelled speech, but to create "living space" and take their resources for the "German people". People war opposing this because they didn't want to be killed, nor did they want to serve the "German people" nor did they want their resources to belong to Germany. Nothing much would have changed in the opposition to German occupation if Germany had been a democracy with equality for all and deep protection for free speech, but still hell bent on conquering and controlling all of Europe.
> And when Germany ended up being invaded, they had less freedom of speech!
Germany allows most political speech, and doesn't execute teenagers for repeating foreign propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_H%C3%BCbener So this is a very strange instance of "less freedom of speech" to justify this whataboutism.
> I'm not aware of WW2 being about freedom of speech.
Second world war was obviously about multiple causes, not just one. But liberty and freedom was a pretty big part of that, and freedom of speech is obviously a big part of those two. If the other side of the war won, freedom of speech would have looked very different (or not exists at all), that much is clear.
The judges explanation makes the ruling sound even more ridiculous
This is a man who had become known as a national hero, who stood for the resilience of the people of a country struggling with a pandemic and the services trying to protect them.
> "To see someone wishing British/Russian/Chinese soldiers dead, it still hurts me. It still hurts me that anybody would disrespect someone that had given their live for the country.”
Given that soldiers typically kill people, it seems inevitable that someone will hate them, whether justified or not.
If you look at countries that demand unconditional patriotism, they are usually flirting with dictatorship or outright fashism. It's not something a free society should emulate.
But only certain kinds of offensive speech that the government considers offensive. If an atheist is offended by Islamic texts, that doesn't count somehow.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments? You've been doing it a lot lately, unfortunately, and it's not what this site is for.
Gods. The thought police truly has arrived. Society will burn eventually because of this, when someone can throw me in front of a judge for typing something “offensive” on the internet.
I don’t agree with punishing him, but if his further statements since then are anything to by, he is someone I very much don’t like. Obviously being unlikeable shouldn’t be a crime, but I don’t really have to respect him either.
Of course. I tend to excuse his behavior because of the accusations against him are dishonest to the core. Not that I would have had high expectations from anyone that calls himself Count Dankula in the first place.
> I thought he taught a dog to do a Nazi salute whenever someone said "gas the Jews", so I think slightly worse than just dressing it up.
It was a(n amateurish) skit. The Monty Python did worse, did he need an authorization for that or something? This is getting ridiculous and the trial was a farce itself, with real life consequences.
Neither should have a record of any kind of doing what they did.
Praise the first Amendment, the kind of liberalism European governments strangely aren't in a hurry to copy...
It's not a "law", it's often misused as a cheap way to attack things that are obvious satire. Like here, being edgy (even in bad taste) does not make someone an actual nazi.
Of course even if they were an actual nazi that should still be protected.
Poetically, the only other dog that I know of which learned the Nazi salute was absolutely despised by the Nazis, and they went out of their way to try to find the dog, using a lot of resources that could have been more efficiently used gassing innocent families.
I don't get how the UK has the tabloid culture while having a completely deranged legal system. Wouldn't anyone who has been in one be able to sue? Why does the USA have so much less(Obviously it has some) when their free speech laws are much tighter?
Why does the caption of the picture say "Captain Tom: Man guilty of 'offensive' Tweets"? He's the target of the tweet not the one guilty of it, correct?
Correct - I'd assume sites are more worried about what A/B tested title delivers the most clicks than whether they're using the most accurate/comprehensible title.
I would imagine it's to stir a bit of an emotional response. Captain Tom is revered by plenty in the UK so by prefixing your title with his name you're likely to get more click-throughs.
Wow. I guess this is why they put the First Amendment first.
How is what is "offensive" even defined, legally? Is it entirely up to the jury's interpretation, or are there characteristics that the jury is required to say that the speech has? They hint at this when they describe protected classes, but I don't know much about UK law.
Sure, it's not a very nice thing to say. However, if this tweet is the one that makes you "grossly offended", then you've lived a very sheltered life, and should perhaps limit your internet usage.
I suspect the majority of people involved in this case would agree, however none of them wanted to admit the emperor is wearing no clothes.
Feel free to run around london with a knife or push people on to the tracks at stations though. The police are busy dealing with real crime like upsetting tweets.
In the United States, Capitol Police also polices mean tweets. There are videos of people being confronted at their homes by California Highway Patrol, acting for capitol police, after they sent out mean tweets about some politician.
Not charged with a crime, but almost weirder in a way.
I remember a Republican senator sent the FBI to a person's home (to threaten him) because of his negative tweets about a public company's finances and its CEO, who was the senator's friend.
What I find the most remarkable about this thing is that if you dismiss the spelling and the overall style of it, it is kind of valid political statement that some people could totally relate to. Which is to prove once more, that modern Britain or USA or whatever else is essentially no different from the demonized images of "totalitarian Russia" or Third Reich, NK... — pick your favorite. And it's pretty much always been like that, sometimes a bit colder, sometimes a bit hotter.
In Germany you are not even allowed to print "Soldiers are murderers" on your T-shirt, which makes me angry every time I think about it. How about "historically and statistically soldiers have a tendency to be rapists, torturers and manslaughterers"?
1. Assuming that under a just war theory, a just war can AT MOST be just for one of the warring sides
2. big armies aren't any more likely to fight just wars than small armies
We can conclude that if you're a soldier in a war, there's a better than even chance that it is unjust, and deserters are on average more honorable than soldiers."
I really doubt this is a valid philosophical concept. Of course, almost anything can be correct as long as you redefine the word "prison" accordingly, but still, being prohibited of leaving your cell/home/visiting a grocery store w/o a QR-code/saying things on the internet are objective realities, regardless of them applying only to you or to everyone else as well. So, yeah, I guess it does work like that, but only as long as other people changing their definition of a "prison" is enough for you to feel free again.
If everyone posts "offensive" tweets then there is no basis for singling out an individual to jail them. I'm not literally arguing that if the entire population are physically in prison then they are free.
>So only comedians and animated TV shows are allowed to be offensive?
I heard some comedians say that they don't perform in Canada because of the same type of anti-free-speech laws. Maybe some Canadians can chime in but there are cases of comedians getting charged with hate speech laws.
I am an American but I know Mike Ward won his case but it had to go to the Supreme Court for a split decision. He was supposed to pay $42,000 in damages. The joke was in French and super distasteful about a disabled kid.
I think as Americans we forget most don't have 1st amendment rights.
I know Canada though is going to pass some crazy online hate speech laws this year and take all this to another level.
What if one of Jimmy Savile's victims had tweeted something similar before his crimes were known? He was well liked for a long time. Could they have been prosecuted?
I'd like to start by saying that it's a sad state of affairs. I don't agree with what he said but the fact that he was found guilty is unreasonable and sets a horrible precedent moving forward.
The article states that he was convicted under the Communications Act whose Wikipedia page[1] lists some other "notable prosecutions" - worth checking to know the other times where the UK government has overstepped themselves.
The Scottish Crown Prosecution Service has some guidelines[2] for prosecuting the "offensive content". In my eyes this tweet does not fulfil the criteria (although this may be covered under "national tragedy"so I hope he can appeal.
From the COPFS document:
Prosecutors should only consider action in this category of cases where they
are satisfied there is sufficient evidence that the communication goes
beyond being:
• Offensive, shocking or disturbing; or
• Satirical, iconoclastic or rude; or
• The expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion even if
distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it; or
• An exchange of communication that forms part of a democratic
debate
In some instances the context in which the comments are made will weigh in
favour of prosecutors being so satisfied, for instance where comments are
made following a particular incident, national tragedy or catastrophic event.
Such instances will most likely be readily apparent to prosecutors however it
may be that particular instructions are issued to prosecutors in response to
such incidents where the situation demands it.
The thing I didn’t understand is that the NHS is a gov institution, why are people donating any money to it at all? Do ppl volunteer money to Social Security? Or Medicare?
It's a bit complicated. People tend not to give money to "The NHS", but to their local hospitals. So his money hasn't gone to "The NHS", it went to the charitable funding posts of lots of these provider organisations.
If you're asking why those provider orgs don't have the money they need the answer is simple: we've had ten years of governments that thing the NHS should do more for less.
As British citizen this confuses me too. If the NHS needs more money, we all need to pay more taxes to pay for it. Donating money to a government department is just weird.
government institution/national treasure/religion/cult.
it's kinda like Americans donate money to schools, despite the fact that they are supposed to be properly funded by the government. The NHS is basically on the brink of collapse at the best of times both due to chronic underfunding and chronic inefficiency.
Also i realize it's not at all uncommon for Americans to donate to hospitals either.
Britain is crazy. I met some chaps once doing indi court reporting, since there is no more local news, and no one reporting on small courts. One day a pedophile was prosecuted for thousands of illegal photos. The criminal got a suspended sentence, so if he behaves for a year, he gets to skip jail. The indi reporter, remembering that behind those photos where real children being abused, saw red, and tweeted about how he would love to restore justice if he ever met the pedo in the street. The tweet earned him a few weeks in prison.
This is extremely common today.
A tragi-commic episode is the Tony The Tiger porno guy. A guy viewed a porno he received by email, I think, featuring a man in a tiger outfit (furries?). He was charged with some indecency crime. (
Sorry, Gwern, but your deepfake pedo porn idea would not work here, since it is a crime to even depict virtual acts which are banned under the decency law. You can't cosplay pedophilia or bestiality.)
Then there was the Scottish fella who was prosecuted for hate crime, after teaching his girlfriends pug to do a sieg hiel. The video, “M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi” went viral, and the boyfriend was charged and fined. I won't link it, in case it becomes a crime to share this stuff.
“My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is, and so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi.”
I only mentioned some of the most famous cases off the top of my head. There are hundreds more.
The problem is, for all the hate crimes like this that become famous, thousands more go unreported, and unpunished. Fortunately, the law society hopes to correct this, and is lobbying to remove the 'private dwelling' exception from hate speech laws. Making it a crime to mock goths and punks at the breakfast table. https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/04/stirring-up-divisions-in-priv...
For me the initial random association was that STV might mean Singapore TV. The clarification about Scotland is useful, certainly STV.tv is not sufficient to assume Scotland out of all the other possible places even if you know that it's a TV station.
We had an interesting freedom of speech case in Canada last year. Basically a judge ordered a Pastor to read a speech he prepared for him, anytime he wanted to speak out against the mandates.
This was v. condition of his sentence:
"The final term of his probation order will be that when he is exercising his right of
free speech and speaking against AHS Health Orders and AHS health
recommendations, in a public gathering or public forum (including electronic social
media); he must indicate in his communications the following:
I am also aware that the views I am expressing to you on this occasion
may not be views held by the majority of medical experts in Alberta.
While I may disagree with them, I am obliged to inform you that the
majority of medical experts favour social distancing, mask wearing, and
avoiding large crowds to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Most medical
experts also support participation in a vaccination program unless for a
valid religious or medical reason you cannot be vaccinated. Vaccinations
have been shown statistically to save lives and to reduce the severity of
COVID-19 symptoms."
I believe this was reversed but it did stand for a bit. The judge involved should be made to be re-educated or removed from office, though. The entire thing felt like an abuse of his power.
I found it bizarre, because it was like a twitter fact check in real life ordered by judge. Couldn't believe a judge would order something like that.
Seemed more than a little absurd and dystopian.
In a sort of artistic, foreshadowing in a book kind of way; I find the parallel of having to wear a mask and your speech being muffled by it, and being muted to a degree, a symbol of the current situation. Others are noticing this parallel too.
Maybe in some dark, comedic future our phones will sound out disclaimers when they hear us contravene the official narrative in some way.
"My user is speaking right now from an emotional place of mentally unwell conceited contrarianism, and believes information from dubious sources that constitute an infectious, disgusting threat to societal integrity. Would you like a readout of the state endorsed positions?"
Or, to put it another way: The principle of "freedom of speech" only exists to protect offensive speech, because speech that no one found offensive wouldn't need protection.
Your comment is easy to misread. If free speech only consists of demeaning and bullying statements, why is it worthwhile to defend?
In this specific case, what about the tweet in question is worth defending? Is it worth defending only because it happens to be speech, or is there some actual merit to said speech?
[edit: sure, downvote me instead of engaging the argument. Prove your first amendment worthless]
It's worthwile to defend offensive speech, like the one in the tweet, because one day there will be a culture/balance shift and what is deemed "offensive" will change. We have to defend what people consider awful now, because they are the low hanging fruit that normalizes the behavior and makes it more palatable to go after less offensive speech later.
I remember reading about how the British tried to limit "offensive" and "bullying" speech when we called King George all kinds of mean things. It's got a legitimate political use and is still worth defending. Most statements will offend at least 1 person, so is that enough to ban?
It's worth defending because it's criticism. Being offensive has zero relevance to whether or not it deserves to be defended. The merit of any speech is only obvious in hindsight and since we can't know when the merit will become obvious, all speech deserves to be defended regardless of how offensive it is.
For instance, the merit of this tweet has now become more significant due to the awareness it has ended up spreading about offensive speech laws in Scotland. Similarly, individual tweets about a leader or country may be seen as offensive and meritless in our time, but perhaps in another 50 years historians look at them as a sign of changing opinions on some matter, giving them merit.
Even if we drop that kind of grand view of things and just focus on smaller matters, companies pay a lot of attention to offensive speech because tracing down the cause will help them improve their product. Thus, clearly offensive speech has merit.
If we determined that offensive speech was meritless, people saying offensive things wouldn't start saying things politely, they'd just say the offensive things privately, depriving society of a valuable feedback method.
Freedom of speech is a principle that nothing to do with laws at all at first. It is always an essential component of scientific inquiry for example. It is not optional here.
There is also the freedom of association, so you do not have to associate with people whose opinion you don't like.
Many countries have laws that disallow you to disturb the public order. These are old laws that aren't based on any principle aside authority, vanity and perhaps a little practicability in some situations. They should be improved.
Blasphemy is illegal in my country. This law was not applied for decades and is therefore more or less invalid. It just hasn't been deprecated because laws do so very slowly without much incentives for public officials. So basically blasphemy is legal now. I would argue with the inception of the net and internet comments, offensive speech is legal too.
Britain doesn't even have vague principles of free speech (or association for that matter.) The recent Rachel Riley case is an insane example, but it happens every day.
-----
> Riley initially posted a screenshot of a January 2019 tweet by the Guardian columnist Owen Jones about an attack on the former British National party leader Nick Griffin, which said: “I think sound life advice is, if you don’t want eggs thrown at you, don’t be a Nazi.” She added “good advice”, with emojis of a red rose and an egg.
> Later, Murray tweeted: “Today Jeremy Corbyn went to his local mosque for Visit My Mosque Day, and was attacked by a Brexiteer. Rachel Riley tweets that Corbyn deserves to be violently attacked because he is a Nazi. This woman is as dangerous as she is stupid. Nobody should engage with her. Ever.”
> Riley said she was being sarcastic in her tweet, did not call Corbyn a Nazi, and told the judge that Murray’s tweet caused serious harm to her reputation.
This doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with free speech, you can’t slander someone, it seems Murray attempted to slander Riley, she claims he succeeded in some regards.
Given the amount of people who venue shop such cases in the UK, I would buy an argument that speech has been curtailed due to how much easier it is to win such judgements there - even when it is often unclear how the party claiming harm was actually damaged.
I disagree. Riley's tweet was clear and expressed her views accurately and sincerely, and Murray's tweet was sincere and a reasonable interpretation of Riley's tweet, which it directly referenced.
Riley wasn't slandering Corbyn by cheekily calling him a Nazi - although part of her defense was explaining how Corbyn is actually an antisemite (which would be irrelevant or even counterproductive in a case accusing Murray of maliciously lying.) It's her honest belief.
Murray honestly believes that Riley is stupid, and that Riley was showing her agreement with a physical attack on Corbyn. This can be a questionable interpretation if you realize that Riley probably hates Owen Jones, too, but it's certainly reasonable. Besides that, everyone had access to the Riley tweet, and could decide for themselves.
It's an unbelievably low standard for liability.
-----
> There are three major defenses against a defamation suit. The first is “privilege,” which typically protects journalists when they quote otherwise defamatory statements made by officials in parliament or the courts to allow for full reporting of issues of public interest. The second is “truth,” which protects the person being sued if they can show that what they said was true. And the third is “honest opinion,” which applies if an opinion was expressed and that opinion was held reasonably and expressed honestly rather than out of malice or to harm someone’s reputation.
> Murray’s lawyers believed they could defend their client using not just one but two of the defenses: truth and honest opinion. Was Murray not justified in inferring that Riley was equating Corbyn to a Nazi when she implied that the two cases were similar, especially in the context of Riley’s earlier statements? Was Riley’s comment not agreeing with Jones’s approval of a previous attack and suggesting it was deserved this time too? And was Murray’s view not expressed honestly and with the intention chiefly to defend Corbyn’s reputation rather than harm Riley’s? (Calling someone “stupid” in a heated exchange on Twitter is not usually considered defamatory, otherwise we’d have many tens of thousands of people facing enormous fines.)
Think about the world you wish to live in. Sometimes examples need to be made. Learning lessons can lift us all a little higher. I trust the man found guilty will land on a peaceful path.
Yeah, I'm not interested in a world like China where people making an anti-establishment comment on twitter get removed from society. This type of situation and result is a jump in that direction.
I'm unfamiliar with UK Law... Is this actually a court of law or was this done through the Sheriff's department?
The concept of Free Speech is very quickly being eroded around the world. Ira Glasser, head of the ACLU throughout the 80s until the early 2000s, was on Bill Maher last Friday. He said that when citizens don't defend Freedom of Speech, then you basically rely on the government to tell you what you're allowed to say, and that's extremely dangerous. Then you get things like this, where people are convicted of tweeting and censorship.
That said, I don't know if the UK has protections for free speech the way the US does. As a Canadian I know that the freedom of speech is not held in high regard as the US, so maybe that comes from its UK heritage.
> I'm unfamiliar with UK Law... Is this actually a court of law or was this done through the Sheriff's department?
Interestingly there isn't really such a thing as UK Law; there is the Law of England and Wales, the Law of Northern Ireland, and Scots Law, the final one being applicable here. These three systems are markedly different, and for criminal cases there is not even a shared supreme court for the three jurisdictions.
In Scots Law the term "Sheriff" has a different meaning to how the term is used in US law enforcement. It refers to the Sheriff Court [0], a Sheriff being a judge.
> That said, I don't know if the UK has protections for free speech the way the US does.
It would help in the US if the ACLU still primarily focused on freedom of speech and other historically core civil rights cases. They've massively expanded their purview.
I'm happy to discuss over e-mail if you want but I feel like my specific thoughts here might cause an unnecessary and vitriolic side argument. (For what it is worth, I've been supporting, involved with and a donator to the ACLU since I was 15. I'm not a detractor of the organisation or their history.)
If you’re going to troll on Twitter as a UK citizen, please do us all a favor and suffix all your tweets with “in RuneScape” so that we can laugh when you go to jail for suggesting offensive beliefs in a virtual fantasy world.
Meanwhile the police are solving the lowest number of crimes on record: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/burglars-go-unpunished-wi... Less than 5% of burglaries are being solved, and some places less than 1 in 30 crimes reach court. Perhaps policing mean tweets is not the best use of our limited law enforcement resources?
We've already fucked up the idea behind metrics in the SaaS world and now every company is chasing just making people active on their platform instead of solving real problem, why not replicate the same success in the afk world?
Low amount of solved crimes? Make it illegal to be offensive on Twitter and suddenly lots of crimes gets solved.
If you use the wrong metric then people will game it. Now watch governments do the same.
I interviewed at a company that developed call center software and they were fairly up front that part of what they did was occasionally intentionally drop calls to maintain wait time numbers for their clients.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law is probably well known but both corporations and governments pretend that this is not an issue because they don't see any alternatives to metrics and KPIs.
Decision making which relies on trust and reputation works well if an organization is small (50-100) and there is no big stuff turnover. Metrics are scalable - you can increase organization size from 1000 to 100000 and they'll continue to work (as bad as before but not much worse).
> If you use the wrong metric then people will game it. Now watch governments do the same.
So true.
In a world with information overload, the real trick is not having lots of information, it's knowing which variables really matter. Bad bureaucracies and journalists often fixate on the wrong stats, which is usually what's easiest to measure or benefits them personally the most.
In the case of Quora, they seemed to prioritize signups and decided to become a gatekeeper to loads of actually useful information for humanity. Twitter appears to be sliding down this same path. The managers responsible for these decisions probably have loads of metrics "proving" that they're geniuses for these decisions, but I'd say that they're not measuring the right variables which are a lot harder to figure out.
This may be a controversial statement to some, but in the case of Covid, the governments of the world have been fixating on what benefits them most ("permanent" emergency powers, the beginnings of a digital social credit score system through the backdoor of vaccine passports, shoveling trillions of dollars around that will inevitably lead to gross corruption, a permanent in-built excuses for every failure they preside over, an opportunity to reset the economic system (you will own nothing and like it), etc) and what's easy to measure (the omnipresent "cases") while harming a load of other important variables that also really matter to peoples lives and health: the survival of the small businesses their family built, social cohesion and mental health, early cancer screening, physical fitness and low BMI, the right to absolute bodily integrity, and numerous other important things that are harmed by the fixation on only one aspect of health.
Similar situation here in the USA. The cops are sitting on their laruels and sipping coffee in parking lots because they feel betrayed by "black lives matter" movement. I know it's anecdotal but I have certainly seen it here in Austin, TX where crime is up like 30% year-over-year. 911 won't even send a cop out for less than a homicide any longer, they just tell you to file a police report online. It's all very deliberate and the city government isn't doing anything about it.
I think the scary/unfortunate thing is that the lack of enforcement is causing some really perverse incentives. You hear stories of hit-and-runs caught on dashcams, with full view of license plates and a good view of the driver, and police still won't really do anything if there isn't a major injury. Makes it seem like the best thing to do is actually to run if the consequences are worse for sticking around.
>911 won't even send a cop out for less than a homicide any longer, they just tell you to file a police report online. It's all very deliberate
what you describe is basically a blackmail by the cops. Blackmailing the public that way kind of suggests that it isn't just few bad apples - it is the whole police system which is morally corrupt.
Or the police are responding to your claims that policing is racist. Where I am for example traffic stops for bad registration / stolen cars etc was found to disproportionately effect some groups. The cops were deemed racist.
I'm not saying they weren't, but especially for quality of life type calls where a cop used to come out, no way is that worth responding too. And if you paid attention to what BLM etc have been demanding, it's to reduce disparate impact on certain groups of police calls (FAR more calls for black males for example then middle aged asian females)
Agreed, at one point there were teenagers playing baseball in a half full parking lot. I told them to stop and they told me to f off and call the cops if I felt like it. So I did call the cops, and sure enough the support person got on my case and told me it wasn't an emergency in a really harsh manner.
I have to ask, did you call the emergency line or the non-emergency line? Because if you called 911, I can completely understand them getting on your case about it not being an emergency, because it wasn't.
It was the emergency line. However, to me it was an emergency as they had 2 baseball bats and were in a group that I deemed as threatening. I began filming them at which point they became more aggressive. This was to have evidence in case they were damaging cars (including my own which was 3 feet away).
You said the reason for your call was that they were playing baseball, not that they were threatening anyone. There isn't anything about that that strikes me as an emergency and the 911 operator was correct in telling you off IMO. Police have a non-emergency line for a reason.
That's just stupid, the operator could just as well connect you to the people taking car of non-emergency situations. They are still the police and one would expect them to at least try to help
Thank you. In my experience, policing extends into a number of mundane areas of life, few of which are life threatening emergencies. People can get police called for vomiting in the road, illegally selling sandwiches, or having a radio on too loud.
I think that part of their job is resolving violent or potentially violent conflict.
It’s true that perhaps my situation as described to the dispatcher might not have met a certain threshold, however, it would’ve made sense for them to ask more questions and give guidance as in general people have a bit of adrenaline when calling and might not be in the best shape to give a clear description. Immediately dismissing such scenarios could lead to some harmful results.
At least where I am cops really can't come out for this type of thing - especially if some of the kids are minorities.
There are just too many cases where a quality of life type call like this (you haven't yet been actually beaten) or a white person feeling "threatened" turns into a major issue -> police respond, end up needing to use force, the thing escalates.
I don't think you'd be very excited to do your job either in the environment they're in. The BLM movement has been given far too much latitude to kick up dust over police encounters that aren't worth getting bent out of shape about.
Perhaps you could try to be a police officer and help out.
If an organization has bad morale then it needs to change. It doesn't matter if the bad morale had some initial justification -- bad morale tends to be self-reinforcing. Even if the public now said very nice things about the police, it is unlikely that would improve the morale of the police. It's a bit like trying to pull a friend out of depression by saying nice things about them -- it doesn't work. A prolonged episode of bad morale also indicts the leadership -- such episodes are impossible without some official support. In the USA the model for turning things around is what the USA military managed to do in the ate 1970s, after the defeat in Vietnam. New leadership needs to be promoted, and the old leadership needs to be forced out. Then the rank-and-file must be given the choice, they can get their head in the game, or they can leave. That spirit of feeling sorry for oneself needs to are broken, and it can only be broken when top leadership is committed to breaking it. And at this point, police forces in the USA generally need the same kind of reforms that the USA military needed in the late 1970s. In particular, it was generally understood that the officer corp had been openly racist during the years of the Vietnam War, and after 1975 there was a growing commitment to transform the military into one of the most anti-racist organizations in the USA. This was achieved by the late 1980s, when the military transformed into an organization that then became the model for other Federal organizations that wanted to transform their internal cultures. That movement reached its apex General Colin Powell became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989 -- a moment which symbolized how much the military had transformed its culture. And now the USA police will need to under go the same transformation. To the extent that the police currently feel sorry for themselves, the current mood is entirely unsustainable.
It is just not a good time to be a cop. The right says you aren't doing enough, the left says you are doing too much. It is demoralizing and the pay just isn't there while the job market for doing other things is really hot. Cities, their governments, and the people who live in them (who elect the people who run the cities) will have to figure out how to re-build their police departments, but don't expect the police officers themselves to come up with their own solutions.
The USA lost in Vietnam, went on to have a very mixed record in the 1980s, got their confidence back in the early 90s, lost some of it in the mid to late 90s...and...well, the 00s taught the USA military again to be humble. Not a good template for municipal police departments.
Poll after poll shows that the military is the most respected institution in American life. Crucially for this conversation, it has an excellent esprit de corp. The kind of self-pity that we now see among the police is something that would not be tolerated for even 5 minutes in the military. So it is an excellent model when we consider how to reform the police.
While the numbers might bounce around from year to year, we should look at the long-term trend, which is that the military has been the most trusted institution in the USA at least since 1992:
> Crucially for this conversation, it has an excellent esprit de corp.
There have been plenty of scandals in the USA military that have sullied its reputation. "Poll after poll" is just anecdotal, and not born out in practice.
> So it is an excellent model when we consider how to reform the police.
Militarizing the police is not the answer. Imagine if the police acted like those MPs at Abu Ghraib.
I don't think the parent is suggesting the police be militarized; rather that they could look to the US military's experience in combatting organizational racism and improving both professionalism and cohesion.
The US military has had its share of scandals but I have yet to see that degrade the normative US opinion of our "soldiers," namely that they do a hard job on our behalf and deserve respect and gratitude for that.
I don’t think soldiers have any kind of special reputation, at least among non southern urbanites. They do a job that they get paid for, some of them are good, a few are bad, etc… there is a swath of the country that holds that in high regard, especially in the south and in rural areas, but that isn’t normative in all areas.
While the numbers might bounce around from year to year, we should look at the long-term trend, which is that the military has been the most trusted institution in the USA at least since 1992:
Yup, the cops I know here in San Francisco say it's a bad time to be a cop.
Also, the cops get blamed for things that are outside their control, like car break-ins, "They [the thieves] know that the most they'll get is a citation, so they'll be out on the street in a couple of hours," said Pete McLaughlin, retired.
Also we have a District Attorney (Chesa Boudin) who doesn't like to prosecute non-violent crimes, so rampant shoplifting has caused at least one CVS (at the corner of Eddy & Van Ness) to close.
The inability to lock these people up is frustrating, most of us aren’t blaming the police for that. Heck, it might not even be the DA’s decision (in Seattle, unlike SF, even if the DA wants to prosecute, it can be jammed up at the county level), and often it’s just a resource issue (too many low level property offenses, not enough lawyers and judges, or jail space). We need to be really in in tough on crime to fix those issues, and we still aren’t really. Policing is just one part of that, and right now is a horrible time to hire more police (like it is for hiring in other jobs ATM).
BLM has every right to “kick up dust” about police brutality. On the other hand, the police have a job they get paid way too much to do (just look at police budgets around the country!) so the least they could do is actually do it instead of acting like petulant children.
> kick up dust over police encounters that aren't worth getting bent out of shape about.
When every major BLM-esque protest in the last several years was triggered by the death of a black person at the hands of the police, that characterization is "grossly offensive"
Not saying you should be put on trial for it (like in the article's case). Just stating a fact.
We could debate their tactics or the value of property damage to a social cause in terms of convincing moderates. But your presentation is pretty gross.
> If they won't do their jobs then they should be fired.
No need: they are just quitting and getting other/better jobs. Civil servants (teachers and police, among others) aren't slaves after all, they have plenty of options.
Its not like the job is very appealing in current environment. The risk of either dying on job or getting imprisoned due to domestic disturbance calls gone wrong is very high. Not to mention, a lot of cops not showing up situation seem to be in line with the demands of general public who instead want to mental health workers to show up for handling a variety of scenarios.
Do other jobs of comparable death rates have higher pay? My understanding is that there are a number of jobs with higher death rates which aren't typically thought of as like, super "in the line of danger" jobs.
Are those stats wrong? or maybe misleading by focusing on the wrong slice of the population? Or something like that?
Or is the compensation for those jobs more than it is for police officers?
I don't know, making up easy to clear crimes and then solving them seems to be a pretty common MO. If they want to up their stats they are likely to do more of this.
It's a problem that feeds on itself. When police refuse to do their jobs, both criminals and victims begin to ignore them. Criminals become more brazen, victims resort to vigilantism. Wealthier areas still tend to get halfway decent police presence, but when that fails, they will just buy their own private security forces.
Ah the fallacy that resources can be applied equally everywhere. The fallacy that reducing enforcement of "mean tweets" can equally be applied to increasing the enforcement of burglaries. In microeconomics this dichotomy is described as the Production Possibility Frontier that recognizes tradeoffs exist. I dislike seeing the arguments "why are we spending money here when we could there" when they are not a 1 for 1 trade. We may sacrifice a large percentage of "here" to get a small percentage of "there". Read more on the Production Possibility Frontier if curious what I mean by that.
An example is that the guy who solved this "mean tweet" problem is the same guy who could go and solve the burglaries problem. Assume you have a team that analyzes cyber crime that is underemployed but the team is required for rare cases. In their free time they enforce "mean tweets" (I'm not arguing that is okay, I'm arguing about resources). The assumption that they could use their free time better to solve burglaries is probably not true. Unless they Aram Mojtabai from the Blacklist. All of his resources are 1:1 as he can do anything.
I think the OP was simply discussing the officer's time and he may be right. The article doesn't state who initially reported and pursued the charges. But your comment shows the issue I was trying to highlight.
You missed the point which was not normative - that resources are not always interchangeable at a 1:1 ratio. You can clearly fire and hire wherever you want. It's the efficiency of that transaction to be discussed. Does the value gained by adding an enforcer outweighs the value lost by removing a "mean-tweet-enforcer"?
If the force's problems are caused by a shortage of enforcers and adding one more enforcer provides a huge value... while at the same time this "mean-tweet-enforcer" provides little value, then absolutely, make the trade.
But if this "mean-tweet-enforcer" does a lot of other valuable things, and this one article that made the news is just a one-off, while at the same time the police are not at a shortage of people but have process issues leading to the reported evidence failures, and adding another enforcer does not help much - the trade may not value society.
I just see a lot of arguments that we should reallocate resources without analyzing the tradeoff where one side may gain little from a lot of expenses. The OPs article states that the burglary issues, from what I can see before the paywall, were caused by evidence failures. If the argument were able to show that the resources lost by looking into this tweet could be reallocated to solve the evidence failures in the article by securing more CCTV feeds or something, then that's a strong argument. Either way, the comparison is theoretical. There are no mean tweet enforcers. The discussion is not normative, but positive. Simply not all resources are a 1:1 trade.
The whole point of police training is to give a baseline level of competence to all officers. While they may not be perfectly fungible, any officer enforcing a "mean tweet" law already has the necessary skills and qualifications to do something more useful (ie. literally anything else).
It’s a bit of an optics problem. Presumably it’s a great benefit to have law enforcement respected by the community and not objects of ridicule and laughingstocks.
You seem focused on the economics of the situation and I’m hard pressed to come up with a number for police who are a joke vs. police whom the public have faith in. But a cheap way to get that benefit is stop having law enforcement act like asses.
It's actually funny - that they think finding someone "guilty" of being offensive does anything other than bring the entire court system into disrepute.
Sorry you couldn't feed your kids last Christmas, we just _had_ to spend all your taxes on judges and solicitors to put people in prison if they do something grossly offensive - like fart in public.
A trillion dollars wasted in a World War lined the pockets of a few thousand people, that at the end, urged the government to intervene because 'the allies' were about to lose the war and wouldn't be able to repay their loans.
There's a scene in the Australian show Mr Inbetween where the main character, a hitman, is being interviewed by someone writing a "true crime" book. She asks him if he feels remorse, if he has concern for those left behind by the hits: typically, the wives and children of the criminals he eliminates. The show to that point has made clear that his grievances are only with criminals/abusers/bullies.
He mentions that the interviewer knows his army history and he observes that no one asks about the families of people he's killed while a soldier. He was instead awarded medals for such behaviour.
I don’t think any country that charges people for such lamely crass jokes as this can reasonably criticize North Korea for their lack of free speech. The only difference is the severity of the consequence, for now.
The saddest thing to me is that most people in the UK don't care about this. The only free speech that actually needs protection is offensive speech, and no group of people or political party would go near any of this stuff.
The only chance any of this stuff could be reformed is off the back of a party with a huge majority ramming it through without much discussion or input from the public. Which is to say it could happen, but it won't be any kind of vote winner or manifesto promise. And it wouldn't be very democratic.
> The only chance any of this stuff could be reformed is off the back of a party with a huge majority ramming it through
The Courts could do something about it. The European Convention on Human Rights (and the Human Rights Act 1998 which incorporates the Convention into UK law) protects freedom of speech. Its free speech guarantee has a lengthy list of exceptions, but it is up to the Courts to interpret the scope of the exceptions. Thus far, they've tended to read them broadly, limiting the value of the Convention's free speech guarantees; but, maybe one day the Courts will start interpreting them in a more narrow way. I wouldn't get one's hopes up, but it wouldn't be an impossible development.
The UK Conservative government plans to replace the Human Rights Act with a "British Bill of Rights" [0]. It is hard to predict what the outcome will be. On the one hand, the overall intention is to "water down" the European Convention on Human Rights, making it harder to pursue claims under it in the UK Courts. On the other hand, the UK government wants it to put special emphasis on "free speech" rights. In particular, it wants to prioritise freedom of the press over the right to privacy, contrary to recent case law which the UK government perceives as putting the priority the other way around. We can't yet know whether this project of replacing the Human Rights Act will succeed, nor can we yet know what exactly any replacement legislation will say, nor can we yet know what the Courts will make of it. But it is possible that it might improve the situation on free speech, even at the price of regression in other areas of human rights protection.
IIRC the laws used in this prosecution were introduced when the UK was seeing a lot of ISIS support in certain segments of their population, and of course the various associated terrorist attacks.
There was a great outcry (led by Murdoch's media properties) that British citizens were tweeting pro-ISIS, anti-British sentiments but couldn't be charged under any law.
So the Tories changed that, and it was a popular change.
Of course, people always support laws that control "Them", but laws apply to all of us.
This kinda stuff is classic "Leopards ate my face, says lady who voted for the Face-eating Leopards Party".
Took me a bit to track down what the guy was charged with[3]: The relevant words of section 127 of the Communications Act of 2003 [1] have not been changed since it was enacted and were directly taken from section 43 of the Telecommunication Act of 1984. [2] I don't think Murdoch and ISIS had anything to do with those, not sure about the Tories. Yet cautionary tales about electing face-eating leopards are never completely wrong, even when they are false ;-)
In this case it depends if people being charged for decrying the military are the same people who supported the laws under anti-ISIS justification. I suspect it's the other way around. "Leopards ate my neighbors face, says lady whose neighbor told her his face would be eaten by a leopard."
I'd guess the guy charged here was from Ireland on the anti union side, so also an enemy of UK. They were still killing and bombing each other there a few decades ago, so from the British perspective he would be the same as an ISIS sympathiser.
Not just that. They will also sentence him. Sorry it is not silly, it is a crime in my eyes to deprive human from freedom for the things like that.
Sure it is not NK. And it will probable never be. But turning into some China like version of social credit system is definitely a possibility with the way things are going. So what would be our arguments then - we do not burn people alive?
Many Western nations condemn nations for things they themselves have a bad record on. USA condemns Middle-Eastern states for child marriage, yet has states with no minimum age for marriage.
This is why I could never live or do business in the UK. The people and their government are primitive and don’t understand what freedom means.
If you study parliament it quickly becomes clear that the UK operates under a dictatorship and the license of democracy it claims for it’s citizens is fraudulent. Witch hunts over tweets and attacks on common cryptography only prove that further. We need to start correcting UK citizens when they claim to be free and remind them the ‘special exceptions’ they allowed their government to include totally and obviously undermine and break their freedom.
And this man. Like the rest of his generation he was out with a machine gun in the fields. He’s beyond criticism? Because he’s old? Because he walked in his garden for charity? Because he was on the English side and all English soldiers get a pass, wink wink? He probably blew 30 young soldiers brains out on tour.
You can have an illiberal democracy. Democracy is about the will of the people, which can be very especially illiberal, because in a majority rules situation the minority's view doesn't matter. Liberal democracies have strong constitutions or similar norms that prevent tyrannies of the majority.
If the will of the people can be silenced for being offensive to those in power, there can be no valid democracy because there are people who literally cannot present their opinion to see it fairly represented.
How many times do we see tyrants 'elected' with 100% of the vote in 'democracies'? Do they count as democracies?
I find it really offensive how people who served as a govt employee gets lauded by the state and media. Its just stealth nationalism and then they wonder why the far right get emboldened?
I find the desperation in this what-uppity to be appalling and contemptuous because ego boosting medals, media recognition is worse than a decent wage.
The reactionary, populist, view is that we must defend free speech at all costs. This is not actually the constitutional law in the USA, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. This quote from a SCOTUS ruling summarises it really well [1]:
“There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”
Freedom of speech is (nearly) black and white. We cannot feel free to express our speech even if others find it offensive. If we do restrict it, that is not freedom.
You would do well to read the other cases concerning offensive speech that have passed over the near 80 years since that case. Fighting words now requires qualifications like
"produce a clear and present danger of a serious intolerable evil" and “imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
In subsequent cases even literally burning a cross on your lawn wasn't deemed "fighting words"
The doctrine is very nearly hallow. So hallow that should I yell in your face I'm going to get you alignItems! I shall have to add right now with the candlestick so it should qualify!
I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue lately and can’t really figure out what the legal standard is. Has anyone in the US recently been convicted of a crime that is purely speech?
Me less than 10 years ago. Police harassed and stalked me walking miles home from my job at Walmart in the early morning hours dressed in khakis and a dress shirt looking like an obvious member of the criminal element. I was stopped repeatedly each time made to wait while they "run my ID" to discover that I still don't have a warrant out.
On the last occasion where this happened after they brought back my ID I asked if I was good to leave. They said yes. As I walked away I said "fuck off then" from 20 ft away walking away at a normal pace. Arrested for I shit you not using a swear word on a public highway with the pretext for the stop being that they were "looking for someone who looked like me". When I didn't show up at home and they didn't let me call my wife my wife first called hospitals then organized a search fearing that I had gotten hit by a car and was dead in some ditch.
At trial I pointed out what the law is. Judge basically said he could do what he pleased but I could appeal if he didn't like it. I got the form for the appeal wherein it gave 3 lines I said "see attached" and stapled a substantial document describing why their statute which made it a crime to swear on the road and its application was unconstitutional.
They dropped it for lack of activity. I declared victory. Moved out of state over a year later. They basically chose to deny my appeal after I left despite the clear and obvious nature of the law. This is in a state that didn't require a judge to have a high school diploma as recently as the late 90s.
It's difficult to raise a legal issue when you can't afford to spend thousands of dollars to hire a lawyer or travel back and forth because your . In America there are no unalianable rights just however many rights are actually in your price range. This is exactly the moment when I realized I hate this country.
Unpopular opinion: this should sort of be more common in the US as well. Intent is what matters, if your intent is to express a sincerely held belief in good faith there should be no law against that. But if the purpose and demonstrable intent of your speech is to cause offense, harm or bully someone harm someones reputation or any other harmful intended effect against others, it should be appropriately criminalized.
For example: If you say "Joe is a liar" and then you are heard saying "I said that to ruin his reputation" it should be criminal. You did not express your belief or view, you merely used speech to cause harm. I am looking you "freedom from religion".
Outside of the legal realm, there needs to be a conversation about intent. A lot of socio-political issues can be toned down a lot if you consider the intent and perspective of the other side. For example, a pro-choice person sincerely believes a fetus is not a human yet and a pro-life person sincerely believes it is a human, with thay in mind they are not baby killers or misogynyst oppressors respectively. They both hold sincerely held contradictory views about conception. Regardless what side you are on, consider some or many on the other side do not have malicious intent and are not your enemies but fellow citizens on the same side.
You can't create an "intent inquisition" court system to fix the problems surrounding speech, offense, violence etc. There is no political solution. The sincerity with which we hold beliefs is what motivates the desire to harm those who hold contradictory beliefs, whether acted on or not. Humans naturally crave life in a civilization where their personal "god/pantheon" of core values is the unifying social glue. That kind of life seems to make sense as one where a person can live each day with only moderate difficulty, work and acquire enduring wealth, be part of a family that sticks together. When they feel like that is within reach, or under threat, they will game any system or flout its rules to fight each other.
I'm not debating whether or not we have tried to make such a system or have one, I am saying more of it will not solve our current problems surrounding speech, offense, violence, etc.
Your goal is different than mine. My goal is justice not solutions. For a person who did wrong to pay for their intent and for all innocents to remain so. I am saying like most other things we half-assef freedom of speech and expression without consideration of intent and the current constitution-worshipping culture only does harm against the goals of justice,peace and prosperity.
I'm convinced that true justice, prosperity and peace are out of our collective reach right now. My goal is to survive and be honest in a world where we only have shadows (or, too often, parodies) of these things. I am not necessarily opposed to you approaching your stated goals, though I think everyone who tries will fail unless we can create good relationships that transcend things like legal systems. I think that might also be what you are actually hungry for, since you cite concern about "constitution worship". I think the constitution and traditional law codes like it could be a relatively effective rule of law if it were actually followed. Probably more effective than whatever new thing we can make up today with our collective minds largely strung out with fear, stress, anger and mental illness.
Justice is the correction of evil and wrong. There are no grades of purity. It is always within reach if we act. But I agree about being honest and admitting we can't achieve justice in some situations and settle for preventing harm to others, we need to be honest about that.
The core principle you must understand is, in order to administer justice you must accept that guilty people will not have provable criminal intent most of the time and will retain their innocence. But when criminal intent is provable, all effort must be made to administer a fair punishment while allowing victims to show mercy.
Your statement about relationships makes sense, I would say establishing sociental trust is the primary step needed before establishing any rule of law that serves as the contract between the government and the people.
> For example: If you say "Joe is a liar" and then you are heard saying "I said that to ruin his reputation" it should be criminal.
That's what slander is. It's already illegal (not sure if it's a felony, though, or just a misdemeanor).
Apart from slander, though... strong disagree. You should be able to be offensive. Being offensive is in poor taste, and often is also poor tactics, but it shouldn't be illegal. Best reason why: "When it's illegal to offend, being offended is a weapon." (I stole that from someone here on HN, but I don't have the source handy at the moment.) I do not want to give that power to every busybody and power-tripper with an internet connection.
You should be able to cause offense so long as your intent is not only to cause offense. If your words match your belief it should be protected speech. What I am saying is for when people say offensive things for the sake of causing harm to others.
Twitter is a private platform where you can express any belief, even with ill-intent and your actions are judged by biased algorithms and people that are not accountable to any checks and balances of a government that derives its authority from the consent and will of the governed.
Probably a hot take, but I think this is a good thing. The line between political censorship and censorship in general is not as fine as everyone seems to think. For example, many people who aren't okay with political censorship are okay with the government censoring porn for underage children.
How are we going to deter assholish behavior from people who are out of their parents' and probably have no friends? I don't think jail time is the right answer, but at that point the government is the only real entity with the ability/right to correct their behavior.
I don't think it's society's job to engineer the non-violent and non-criminal behavior of its members but one thing that comes to mind to try: working to build a society that's worth their constructive participation rather than one where speaking their minds lands them in custody. Not to mention your position is incredibly myopic. If the government defines offense then what you're suggesting is basically a system where offense is conjured up to censor on behalf of the party that currently enjoys power. This may target your enemies today, but your friends tomorrow.
Any society of sufficient size will attract trolls who don't care about the worth of the society.
I think politics and government are intertwined as a matter of history, not as a matter of inevitable fact. Political rivals can disagree and use systems to disenfranchise one another, but they can also agree on some norms of decency (in an ideal world these would align with their constituents, but as a matter of history they tend to be the norms of some established elite).
If you want to call my position myopic, look at Jan 6th and what the lack of censorship had done then. There is plenty of harm caused by deliberately not censoring some things, as it gives a chance for malicious groups to grow.
What I think is myopic is the overall attitude "censorship bad, free speech good." It's incredibly individualistic and could only exist in the experiment that is the U.S.
Also: the line between nonviolent and violent behavior is, as all other lines, fairly blurry. Do we censor attempts to incite riots under free speech? If so, why do we not also censor statements that promote a culture of hating society?
> The 72-year-old, whose family served in the armed forces...
That's just surreal. Bringing in little old ladies to testify that your tweet hurt their feelings. I really wanted this to be fake, but other outlets are running the same story. Madness.