Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 239 posts

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#171

Post by CountDrewku »

floatingatoll wrote: post #138
teakettle42 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I read your moral position here as "if you are too frail to resist someone's words, you don't deserve protection from their verbal abuse with malicious intent" I’m not the original parent, but I read (and share) the position as: Barring intent by the speaker to inflict direct and immediate physical harm, if you are too frail to maintain your mental health in the face of someone else’s speech (or you pretend to be),…

In the case of the UK's laws, they are targeting people with specific intent to cause psychological harm. That's a critical component of "trolling": if no harm was caused to the abused party, then the trolls wouldn't bother, because they're fixated on hurting others for personal pleasure. So, then, "barring intent" is an invalid condition for this discussion, right?

What constitutes intent when it comes to words? Do you have some magical device that enables you to extract intent from people's heads?

I thought tru-crime was just science fiction and yet we have multiple individuals actually supporting a dystopian future where that's a real thing.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#172

Post by techbio »

citizenpaul wrote: post #152
zepolen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I find your comments offensive. Can you stop?

Hello I am Internet Officer Badge #762783. Do you feel that user "clairity" harmed you? If so I will begin the paperwork for detainment and evaluation for reeducation by the Internet Feelings Agency (IFA).

Sounds like you have qualified immunity, and I am required to report, your status of legal superiority offends my sensibilities.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#173

Post by CountDrewku »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #105
selfhoster11 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a false dichotomy, it's a hyperbole meant to illustrate an uncomfortable trade-off.

It isn't a trade off. That's the falseness of setting it up as two mutually exclusive and exhaustive choices. There are better ways to make a point than hyperbole.

Explain how it isn't a tradeoff. Give me one example that supports your stance please.

It's a sliding a scale. You get to move the marker one way or the other. Whatever you do for the "greater good" will inherently remove rights from someone.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#175

Post by clairity »

chrismcb wrote: post #169
clairity wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as happens so often, basketball provides a microcosm. fouls are called (and varying penalties assessed) for illegal moves that lead to an unfair advantage. implicit in that is that intent matters . many times, a foul isn’t assessed for an illegal maneuver because the intent to gain advantage wasn’t there (contact was happenstance) or no advantage was gained. however, some fouls are so dangerous (e.g., undercutting a…

Uhm... Intent had nothing to do with a foul. The idea is the move is illegal because it can give you an advantage. It doesn't matter if you intend to or not. A lot of the fouls in basketball are not intentional. A common foul is attempting to block a shot and hitting the shooter's arm. No harm was intended, but a foul was called. About the only time intent matters in basketball is got a three point attempt.

that's completely missing the discretion refs have in calling fouls. if they didn't employ discretion, you'd have a foul every 5 seconds, rendering the game unwatchable/unplayable (e.g., the rule changes that the nba made this season). intent and (unfair) advantage are crucial to that discretion. again, nuance.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#176

Post by micromacrofoot »

pessimizer wrote: post #95
micromacrofoot wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Are you suggesting that there are populated places that you can visit in real life where loudly shouting an arbitrary statement could not attract abuse? I'm suggesting that if I were in a public place and had a person shouting obscenities at me everywhere I went... it's illegal harassment, and the person can be identified and prosecuted. I've experienced both IRL and online harassment, and managed to stop IRL harass…

> I'm suggesting that if I were in a public place and had a person shouting obscenities at me everywhere I went... it's illegal harassment, and the person can be identified and prosecuted. What does "hiding" mean here? Not posting on twitter? Is this a law that will regulate bad words and not content? People would have far fewer objections to a blacklist of words you can't use in public. Is the problem with somebody…

It means essentially removing myself from the internet. No public social media and hiring a company to get myself (i.e., address and phone number) removed from public data brokers (you can do it yourself, but it means hundreds of unique forms to fill out).

You seem to be hung up on "obscenities" but yes you are correct, it's not just obscenities... there are a lot of varieties of harassment. Following someone around and shouting anything at them is likely harassment IRL, but it seems less clear online when you can't conclusively determine if anonymous accounts are the same person.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#177

Post by micromacrofoot »

pessimizer wrote: post #101
micromacrofoot wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they cross certain lines they become illegal harassment, and there are ways to handle them. I've worked with people who have been fired for "cubicle farm in the financial services industry" type of behavior, and it's becoming less and less acceptable as time goes on. In high school a group of boys was expelled for writing homophobic slurs on another student's locker. I lived in NYC for a period of time, and it's…

Are death threats not already illegal?

They are certainly illegal, but I've had very different experiences reporting IRL death threats versus online death threats.

Anecdotally it seems like law enforcement doesn't take online death threats seriously, and are incapable of determining legitimacy and origin. The lack of accountability seems to make it much more likely for death threats to happen online...

I've reported online threats containing my home and work addresses and they're basically shrugged off. If someone approached me in person and said the same thing the outcomes are very different.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#178

Post by micromacrofoot »

toast0 wrote: post #91
micromacrofoot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Back in my day it was just a given people said mean things on the internet. Isn't this indicative of a serious problem though? If there were places IRL where the average person is subjected to a constant barrage of callousness it wouldn't continue to exist, would it? Can we have free speech without accountability? In the past accountability seemed like a major factor.

> Isn't this indicative of a serious problem though? Mostly, saying mean things doesn't rise to the level of legal interventions. There are plenty of IRL venues where people will say mean things (sports, comedy clubs, reproductive health clinics), and many venues where saying mean things will get you asked to stop or forced to leave. If you say mean things on HN, you'll likely be asked to stop or forced to leave; but…

>If you say mean things on HN, you'll likely be asked to stop or forced to leave; but some sites don't make that part of their platform. Personally, I'm not going to participate in places where there's a lot of meanness, but that means I don't participate in a lot of popular sites.

This is a good point. I don't think a lot of what's commonly said on twitter (or online in general) would fly if said in a physical business... and this disparity seems to embolden a lot of people online to just constantly say shitty things.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#179

Post by [deleted] »

drost wrote: post #38
mandmandam wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is getting thrown in to prison for jokes? Assange was thrown into jail for basic journalism, but that was at America's behest.

> Meechan was arrested on suspicion of breaching the Communications Act 2003.[20] On 19 March 2018, Meechan was convicted of breaching the act by Sheriff Derek O'Carroll at Airdrie Sheriff Court.[21] The court ruled that Meechan's claim that the video was a joke intended for his girlfriend "lacked credibility" as Meechan's girlfriend did not subscribe to the YouTube channel to which the video was posted. https://en.w…

[deleted]

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#180

Post by lovecg »

mandmandam wrote: post #28
Subsentient wrote: post #26

And this is why I'm never going to move to Europe. My jokes would be considered "obscene" or "indecent" or something and I'd be thrown in prison. At least here in the States, for now, the government is letting the private companies perform the censorship, and not imprisoning people for tasteless humor.

Who is getting thrown in to prison for jokes? Assange was thrown into jail for basic journalism, but that was at America's behest.

Depends on what you consider a “joke” I guess. In my view 2 months in jail over this seems excessive:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-58738771

Post reply on HN