• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

4 months for "Trolling"

I think you have a psychological problem if you are so afraid of offensive words or pictures that you think they should be made illegal.

As well as a misunderstanding of the concept that power corrupts.
 
stevea said:
The nice thing about this thread is that so many closed-minded anti-freedom totalitarians self-identify.

How can anyone justify the position that calling a dead person some names and making a vid to ridicule them is a CRIMINAL offense and deserves incarceration ? If I do the same to Dick Nixon should I be jailed ?

If the family is actually harmed then they have a cause for CIVIL action. To make it a criminal matter is amazingly backward - knuckle-dragging.

The only sense in which "freedom" is a meaningful concept is that we allow others the right to do what we would not do, what we find objectionable, what we find offensive. We need to assert rights only to do unpopular things. So IMO anyone unwilling to accept that this guy was rude yet within his rights is anti-freedom. As with the porn/mail topic we always have some population of small-minded anti-freedom people who want to enforce their views on others to the detriment of legitimate freedoms. Totalitarians,

To make this a criminal rather than a civil matter is to claim the act is harmful to society at large - and not just to the individual/family, I don't see that at all. The guy didn't foment a riot nor scream fire in a crowded theater. It's just offensive speech, categorically similar to the stuff on this forum. No general harm at all.

What is next in the prissy overly-sensitive totalitarian regime some here prefer ? Shall we jail people who use the wrong Indian/Native_American/First_Nation term ? Shall we lock people up if they believe that inoculations cause autism. Why not tax and jail people who reject evolution, or maybe the death penalty for rejecting global warming ? Clearly many find these ideas objectionable too.

No - speech should be protected. The only exceptions are speech that cause harm directly.
Click to expand...

Nice strawman.

I agree with your conclusion that this should not be criminal, but your argument has nothing to do with what this guy actually did.

He specifically went to sites designed to memorialize a recently deceased person he did not know personally to defame them to people who did know the deceased. It also seems as he did this for no personal gain other than the power trip of hurting causing others emotional distress.

While I personally disagree with this being criminal, I can understand why others feel such behavior should be.
 
cwalner said:
He specifically went to sites designed to memorialize a recently deceased person he did not know personally to defame them to people who did know the deceased. It also seems as he did this for no personal gain other than the power trip of hurting causing others emotional distress.

While I personally disagree with this being criminal, I can understand why others feel such behavior should be.
Click to expand...
I'm with you on every point here. If I was going to support criminalizing Internet speech (aside from direct incitement to violence, which I believe is already covered in just about any jurisdiction), this would be a deserving example.

While the Phelps crew here in the US does disgusting things, they've at least got a broader point they're trying to make, albeit in an ineffectual, objectionable manner. This guy seemed to be only interested in causing pain and distress. The Innertubez would obviously be [much] better without him.
 
stevea said:
The nice thing about this thread is that so many closed-minded anti-freedom totalitarians self-identify.

How can anyone justify the position that calling a dead person some names and making a vid to ridicule them is a CRIMINAL offense and deserves incarceration ? If I do the same to Dick Nixon should I be jailed ?

If the family is actually harmed then they have a cause for CIVIL action. To make it a criminal matter is amazingly backward - knuckle-dragging.

The only sense in which "freedom" is a meaningful concept is that we allow others the right to do what we would not do, what we find objectionable, what we find offensive. We need to assert rights only to do unpopular things. So IMO anyone unwilling to accept that this guy was rude yet within his rights is anti-freedom. As with the porn/mail topic we always have some population of small-minded anti-freedom people who want to enforce their views on others to the detriment of legitimate freedoms. Totalitarians,

To make this a criminal rather than a civil matter is to claim the act is harmful to society at large - and not just to the individual/family, I don't see that at all. The guy didn't foment a riot nor scream fire in a crowded theater. It's just offensive speech, categorically similar to the stuff on this forum. No general harm at all.

What is next in the prissy overly-sensitive totalitarian regime some here prefer ? Shall we jail people who use the wrong Indian/Native_American/First_Nation term ? Shall we lock people up if they believe that inoculations cause autism. Why not tax and jail people who reject evolution, or maybe the death penalty for rejecting global warming ? Clearly many find these ideas objectionable too.

No - speech should be protected. The only exceptions are speech that cause harm directly.
Click to expand...


As other have pointed out, you've not addressed any of the apparent facts of this case and seem to be objecting a priori to any restrictions on speech that "case harm directly". Your definition of this is not given; one can only speculate as to whether you believe that religious or racial hate speech, which is generally illegal in Europe, should be permitted.

The guilt party here appears to have deliberetaly targetted a number of digital media outlets with messages which can only have been intended to cause significant distress to the deceased's family. In the UK, as with a number of other Western countries, this falls within the scope of a criminal offence. The operative term is "significant"; contrary to your suggestion, argument and simple offence is not sufficient.

In reality one would normally have expected a lighter sentence however the Judge's reference to a previous offence does suggest a history here and the possibility that initial cautions had been given. It may very well be that locking the fellow up is appropriate, although I must admit I think the length is wholly excessive.

You may not like our laws, but speech is guaranteed by ECHR. Society has placed slightly tighter restriction on this viz-a-viz (say) hate crime or slander than the US, but to therefore suggest that Europe is in any way "anti freedom" is more than a little misinformed.
 
stevea said:
So then this forum is illegal in the UK ? Certainly some parts are offensive.
To say offensive speech his illegal is equivalent to saying freedom of speech is illegal.
Click to expand...

Are you fine then with nuisance phone calls (see earlier posts for the definition)?
 
Architect said:
In reality one would normally have expected a lighter sentence however the Judge's reference to a previous offence does suggest a history here and the possibility that initial cautions had been given. It may very well be that locking the fellow up is appropriate, although I must admit I think the length is wholly excessive.
Click to expand...

My biggest concern is that 4 months in prison may aggravate the behavior. As others have suggested a sentence of community service coupled with counseling might be more effective at curbing the misbehavior than jail time.

However, as you said, that might be what was tried in the previous cases, so the judge may have decided that he had his chance to change, so now the only thing to do was punish.
 
corbin said:
I think you have a psychological problem if you are so afraid of offensive words or pictures that you think they should be made illegal.

As well as a misunderstanding of the concept that power corrupts.
Click to expand...

Yet as I showed this is the case in many countries, including the USA.
 
cwalner said:
Nice strawman.

I agree with your conclusion that this should not be criminal, but your argument has nothing to do with what this guy actually did.

He specifically went to sites designed to memorialize a recently deceased person he did not know personally to defame them to people who did know the deceased. It also seems as he did this for no personal gain other than the power trip of hurting causing others emotional distress.

While I personally disagree with this being criminal, I can understand why others feel such behavior should be.
Click to expand...

You need to go deeper than this to understand why he was convicted.

The prohibition of using means of communication such as the phone or the post to send obscene/offensive material has been illegal pretty much since the means of communication came about. So this type of conviction has at least decades of legal precedent behind it (in both the USA and the UK).

As I said earlier I'm not saying that the conviction was right or wrong as I simply haven't mind my mind up yet so I would like to see people who think it was wrong or right explain the reasoning they used to come to that decision. Especially those that seem to be saying that because it was done via the internet that should make a legal difference in how we deal with what the lad did.
 
Forget about the fact it was an internet communication for the moment.

If your daughter had recently died and a stranger came up to you in the street and said, repeatedly, "By the way, your girl was a slapper"* would that still be acceptable?

I'd be surprised if it wasn't regarded as harassment. Free speech has little to do with it.

* - Or consider something innocuous: "Jesus Saves", "Buy one, get one free".
 
As I mentioned in the OP, it was a disgusting, offensive act, but I'm not sure it should be criminal. Would it have been criminal to go on to a Christina Aguilera fansite and post derogatory remarks about the singer?

I watched with some distaste as the dead children that were being commemorated on this site were described as this mans "victims".

At no point do I condone this idiot's actions but I don't think it's an offence requiring gaol time. If we start gaoling people for being ********* we're going to need a hell of a prison-building program.
 
Skepticemea said:
...snip...

At no point do I condone this idiot's actions but I don't think it's an offence requiring gaol time. If we start gaoling people for being ********* we're going to need a hell of a prison-building program.
Click to expand...

But we aren't starting to do this - we've done it for a long time (albeit we've updated or replaced the legislation that covers it over the years).

Have a look at this page: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_offences/#p_12 it provides interesting reading.
 
Last edited:
Darat said:
But we aren't starting to do this - we've done it for a long time (albeit we've updated or replaced the legislation that covers it over the years).

Have a look at this page: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_offences/#p_12 it provides interesting reading.
Click to expand...

The case Connolly v DPP about a Roman Catholic who sent pictures of dead foetuses to pharmacies, referenced in the above link, is quite instructive. Judgment dismissing the appeal here:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2007/237.html

It recognises that not everyone would necessarily be offended, or need the same protection, to the same degree.

28. In my judgment, the persons who worked in the three pharmacies which were targeted by Mrs Connolly had the right not to have sent to them material of the kind that she sent when it was her purpose, or one of her purposes, to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient. Just as members of the public have the right to be protected from such material (sent for such a purpose) in the privacy of their homes, so too, in general terms, do people in the workplace. But it must depend on the circumstances. The more offensive the material, the greater the likelihood that such persons have the right to be protected from receiving it. But the recipient may not be a person who needs such protection. Thus, for example, the position of a doctor who routinely performs abortions who receives photographs similar to those that were sent by Mrs Connolly in this case may well be materially different from that of employees in a pharmacy which happens to sell the "morning after pill". It seems to me that such a doctor would be less likely to find the photographs grossly offensive than the pharmacist's employees. To take a different example, suppose that it were Government policy to support abortion. A member of the Cabinet who spoke publicly in support of abortion and who received such photographs in his office in Westminster might well stand on a different footing from a member of the public who received them in the privacy of his home or at his place of work.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Roadtoad said:
As to his having Asperger's, so what? This was over the top, even for someone with that condition.
Click to expand...

It certainly doesn't excuse it, but it suggests that putting him in jail may not be the best way of preventing him from doing it again. I hope somebody has had the sense, at some point in all this, to get a competent clinical psychologist involved.

Dave
 
Darat said:
But we aren't starting to do this - we've done it for a long time (albeit we've updated or replaced the legislation that covers it over the years).

Have a look at this page: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_offences/#p_12 it provides interesting reading.
Click to expand...
Although that legislation has been in place since 2003, an increasing number of people are being arrested, tried and convicted under a piece of legislation where the "mens rea" is whatever the CPS and/or court decides it is.

Here's a story from the New Statesmen from last year, also interesting reading:

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/11/section-127-paul
 
The Twitter Joke Trial though regards a tweet in poor taste but which was posted in jest, and which would have shown up to Chambers' followers. It was found IIRC by someone working for the airline because they searched for that phrase or similar. Had it been sent directly to airport employees, that, IMO, would be an entirely different matter.
 
Last edited:
commandlinegamer said:
The Twitter Joke Trial though regards a tweet in poor taste but which was poster in jest, and which would have shown up to Chambers' followers. It was found IIRC by someone working for the airline because they searched for that phrase or similar. Had it been sent directly to airport employees, that, IMO, would be an entirely different matter.
Click to expand...
Considering the number of people that appear to actively seek offence (and the internet is certainly a target rich environment for that) I consider this piece of legislation to be pretty dangerous. Did Chambers get leave to appeal to the High Court?
 
Last edited:
Skepticemea said:
Although that legislation has been in place since 2003, an increasing number of people are being arrested, tried and convicted under a piece of legislation where the "mens rea" is whatever the CPS and/or court decides it is.

Here's a story from the New Statesmen from last year, also interesting reading:

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/11/section-127-paul
Click to expand...

The oldest reference to such legislation is from "...the 1930s legislation covering misuse of telephones..." so as I said for decades. One of the main issues the article has is with the use of the phrase "..public electronic communications network.." and I strongly disagree with them on that. The change of wording seems to me to be very much in the spirit of the older legislation, if such a change hadn't been made I would suspect that it could be argued that telephone calls that used the internet in part of the network would no longer have been covered by the legislation.

Of course that doesn't mean that it is right or wrong to have such legislation it just provides the historical background to the discussion.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom