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Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

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Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#191

The UK is quickly becoming an authoritarian country. RIP freedom and democracy.

The UK tolerated child rape gangs for decades, arguably still do. Yet they want to prosecute hurt feelings. Joke of a country.

edit for the flagger:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_ring

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huddersfield_grooming_gang

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telford_child_sexual_exploitat...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_child_sex_abuse_ring

It goes on like this in dozens more instances.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#192
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The proposed law change will shift the focus on to the “harmful effect” of a message rather than if it contains “indecent” or “grossly offensive” content, which is the present basis for assessing its criminality. I'm feeling very harmed after reading your comment. I realize the content's of your message are objectively harmless, but I "feel" harmed. So...off to jail you go. --- But on a more serious note. Like you…

> we have come to the point where what you actually say, you intentions, are completely irrelevant, it's all about how your message is perceived The way this is typically framed is "impact matters more than intent". Like if you weren't watching where you were walking and accidentally stepped on someone's foot. You didn't _intend_ to harm them, but the overall _impact_ was that you did harm them. As you rightly point…

>IMO the best way to deal with impact has to be at the cultural level.

IMO the only reasonable way to deal with impact is to limit the law to purely physical impact. It should never be the business of any government to attempt to regulate, mandate, restrict or punish behavior based on the thought processes or feelings of anyone.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#193

A society where: - you are held responsible for other people's feelings, and for their feelings as a result of your words and actions, and: - anything that causes anyone to feel bad, is looked down upon by the collective Is tyranny by the emotionally stunted. The fundamental problem with it, is it makes society more enmeshed (a pathological relationship dynamic). People start caring more about going with the grain, t…

Is it morally appropriate to get together a group of your friends and pressure someone to commit suicide on social media? By your logic, it seems that it is; their suicidal reaction to malicious and intentional verbal abuse is not anyone else's problem but their own. Many people seem to feel otherwise, and there are laws in place in various regions as a result. Are they wrong to choose to restrict your speech in favo…

>Is it morally appropriate to get together a group of your friends and pressure someone to commit suicide on social media?

You are mistaking morality with legality. Morally its wrong, legally it shouldn't be.

>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".

Again, mistaking morality with legality. I'm not the OP, but that's my legal position, though it's not my moral position.

>Societies have a long-standing tradition of restricting individual behaviors for the collective good. Wishing that societies wouldn't this is hopeless, because it seems like every society that doesn't restrict individual behaviors to some degree ends up becoming a textbook example of how not run a society.

All coherent societies restrict individual behavior for the collective good. That doesn't mean that these restrictions should be dependent on entirely subjective things like thoughts and feelings. Minimal restrictions on individual behavior such as barring interpersonal violence or stealing property are more than ample for a society to run just fine without devolving into anarchy. I would argue we already have far too many legal restrictions on behavior, and we should be seeking to trim these restrictions away instead of pile more on and strip away what few freedoms we have left.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#195
post #191

The UK is quickly becoming an authoritarian country. RIP freedom and democracy.

The UK tolerated child rape gangs for decades, arguably still do. Yet they want to prosecute hurt feelings. Joke of a country. edit for the flagger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_child_sex_abuse_ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huddersfield_grooming_gang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telford_child_sexual_exploitat... https://en.wikipedia.org/w…

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Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#196
post #80
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throw one out. What’s an objective definition of trolling and abusive language that you could write into law? Separate definitions or together. Just give it a shot.

Language that is meant to intimidate? It seems pretty clear to me that the purpose of that is to stifle discussion.

To the mentally fragile, even the most innocuous statements are taken as intended intimidation. If this law is passed, how long before someone who states that there is a biological difference between men and women will be dragged before the court by complainants who claim that this factual statement was an "attempt to intimidate"? The internet is filled with people who openly state that, very literally and sincerely that "silence is violence" - this is not the atmosphere conducive to a law that criminalizes people who feel intimidated.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#197
post #127

From TFA: > A “knowingly false communication” offence will be created that will criminalise those who send or post a message they know to be false with the intention to cause “emotional, psychological, or physical harm to the likely audience”. Government sources gave the example of antivaxers spreading false information that they know to be untrue. One sinister side: how does one prove something is «know[n] to be unt…

how does one know? The same way the actual malice standard is applied in, for example, libel cases. The law is not self-executing. That's why we have judges and trials.

You could ask Paul Craig Murray about legal standards. Except he's in prison for reporting on a criminal trial about judges and politicians.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#198
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you confirmed that what the other poster said is true, and that text messages are not admissible evidence in a court of law?

Ok, you are suggesting what I said was false, so I am researching sources: == UK Search for “New NPCC consent form”. Since 2020, seizing texts can only happen with the complainant’s consent, and the form highlights that there should be no repercussion if consent is not given. Therefore, it doesn’t alleviate the main criticism of false accusations: The ability for the accused to prove his innocence. Link to the consen…

> Ok, you are suggesting what I said was false, so I am researching sources:

Not really, just before jumping to FUD it's good to take a step back and research.

> Search for “New NPCC consent form”. Since 2020, seizing texts can only happen with the complainant’s consent, and the form highlights that there should be no repercussion if consent is not given. Therefore, it doesn’t alleviate the main criticism of false accusations: The ability for the accused to prove his innocence.

Right, so if you're the defendant you can provide your own evidence because its YOUR content. Obviously there should be consent involved if you as the defendant say "go search the complaint's device"

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#199

The UK is quickly becoming an authoritarian country. RIP freedom and democracy.

The worst bit is, and I say this as someone who is and always has been very left wing, that the current left wing culture are actually making this possible. They've winged and winged about anyone tweeting anything controversial about a perceived 'vulnerable minority' and this has always been the end game. They want people to be punished for causing offense. I can't believe these morons go around joining groups like a…

The amount of in-fighting over a small disagreement is astounding, as is the conflation between "disagreement" and "causing harm". If you disagree on some intellectual framework regarding gender identity – to name something controversial – then this absolutely does not equal "discrimination". It's a massive distraction over the actual issues that matter, never mind turning people off from the left in general.

It's kind of amazing because people in the West live in the most free and non-discriminatory society in all of recorded history. Yes, there are still problems and it's not perfect and these problems require adressing, but try being gay 50 years ago, or in most non-Western countries. We really do have it quite good.

There is kind of a curious parallel with Trump's "Make America Great Again!"-rhetoric where he presents the US as a kind of dystopian hellscape, which is not that dissimilar to how it's presented among some of these people. My take-away from this is that there actually are some deep-rooted problems in the way we organize our society, and that the dissatisfaction, frustration, and anger over this manifests itself in different ways. Brexit is another interesting example, because it always seemed to me not so much about the EU, but more a general dissatisfaction about the state of things.

Re: Trolls will be jailed for ‘psychological harm’

#200
post #61

Thankfully, psychological harm is incredibly easy to establish, and therefore this could never be misused. All you have to do is ask someone, "were your feelings hurt?" and there you have it.

Plus the investigating authority has discretion as to whether or not the complaint is credible and should be pursued. Of course these decisions won't be simple minded reflections the prevailing moral panics. Perish the thought.

The proposed regulation makes so much sense that it sees safe to assume that anyone arguing against it is likely acting in bad faith. Bad faith arguments on a topic so near and dear to my hear make me feel attacked and unsafe! Hopefully be this policy will help reign such antisocial discourse.
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