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

Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 443 posts

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#61

Post by matthewmacleod »

naoqj wrote: post #29
basisword wrote: post #13

I’m generally in favour of some limits on speech. I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. It’s obviously very complicated and something people are going to argue a lot about. BUT this case has made me change my opinion. Things much worse than this are tweeted every day and this is the one that gets prosecuted. It’s blatantly politically motivated (‘national hero’, British soldier etc) a…

If you are in favour of limits on speech then you should not have a problem with this. Everything is offensive to someone. We should all go to prison!

Almost literally every person is "in favour of limits on speech" to some extent, so this kind of reductionism contributes nothing (and I'd argue generally makes the signal-to-noise ratio even worse).

There are huge numbers of interesting questions around how we treat freedom of speech in a civilised society. What restrictions can we collectively accept? How do we ensure that individual rights to speech are protected? How do we protect people from harassment or abuse, and how does this balance against the fundamental right to be offensive? Discussion about these is way more interesting than hot takes about how we're all going to prison for being mean on Twitter. And worst of all it detracts from the serious conversation to be had about how grossly inappropriate the reaction in this specific case is.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#62

Post by hwers »

trashtester wrote: post #41
basisword wrote: post #13

I’m generally in favour of some limits on speech. I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. It’s obviously very complicated and something people are going to argue a lot about. BUT this case has made me change my opinion. Things much worse than this are tweeted every day and this is the one that gets prosecuted. It’s blatantly politically motivated (‘national hero’, British soldier etc) a…

The problem with banning things like "racism" is that words change meaning over time. Maybe some time in the future, any reference to "White Privlege" may be considered racist, for instance.

Or that these days even people of color saying the n word is condemned, whereas just a few years ago (months?) it was sort of accepted.

Making that into a legal doctrine would be quite tricky.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#63

Post by NikolaNovak »

basisword wrote: post #13

I’m generally in favour of some limits on speech. I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. It’s obviously very complicated and something people are going to argue a lot about. BUT this case has made me change my opinion. Things much worse than this are tweeted every day and this is the one that gets prosecuted. It’s blatantly politically motivated (‘national hero’, British soldier etc) a…

>>"I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. "

Why not,and who gets to make the determination?

I'm an atheist, and having so many blasphemy and religion protection laws in liberal democracies misused (or rather, used exactly as they are truly intended) so horribly has really taught me what poorly defined restrictions on speech mean in the real world.

As for racist speech, I really truly believe that censoring does not ever serve its intended purpose. You are only breeding further resentment, driving the expression under ground,and giving people new reason to hate and feel oppressed.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#64

Post by tonyedgecombe »

tgv wrote: post #37
Claude_Shannon wrote: post #26

Quoted post unavailable.

No, he wasn't. It's offensive, but the figure of speech "the only good ... is a dead ..." does not call for murder. And offending soldiers is not a hate-crime, AFAIK. The tweeter should have been made to pay a fine to the charity Captain Tom was endorsing.

"burn auld fella" sounds like a call to action to me.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#65

Post by cjrp »

rndgermandude wrote: post #54
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact he was drunk doesn't really have much to do with it. It wouldn't be an excuse for running somebody down in his car or stabbing someone and shouldn't be here.

It actually might be an excuse to some degree. Diminished capacity is considered in many jurisdictions, and defendants who can demonstrate diminished capacity at the time of the offense can often get lesser sentences.

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

> Where the defendant is on trial for a crime of specific intent, his state of intoxication will be relevant to whether he formed the required intent.[8] This may prevent the defendant from having the required mens rea. If the defendant's intoxication is so significant as to prevent any sort of intent, this can lead to acquittal.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#66

Post by alickz »

naoqj wrote: post #29
basisword wrote: post #13

I’m generally in favour of some limits on speech. I don’t think you should be able to tweet racist messages for example. It’s obviously very complicated and something people are going to argue a lot about. BUT this case has made me change my opinion. Things much worse than this are tweeted every day and this is the one that gets prosecuted. It’s blatantly politically motivated (‘national hero’, British soldier etc) a…

If you are in favour of limits on speech then you should not have a problem with this. Everything is offensive to someone. We should all go to prison!

By that logic if you are in favour of actionable threats being illegal you should have no problem with this. It's just speech after all.

I'm also in favour of limits on speech, but I draw the line at threats and sustained harassment. I don't think the tweet in the article rises to that level, and I don't think I'm a hypocrite for allowing that tweet but not allowing threats.

I do understand there are benefits to the all-or-nothing approach to free speech though.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#67

Post by tored »

Barrin92 wrote: post #55
tored wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speech laws also requires the court to make a judgement on the intent of the perpetrator, the exact same expression can either be legal or illegal depending on intent.

Shooting someone can be illegal or legal based on the intent of the perpetrator, establishing the state of mind of someone accused of a crime isn't exactly a legal novelty

True, but the intent here is very subjective, the court basically has to fantasize about the perpetrators intent. And what it usually comes down to is if the perpetrator is "good" person or not. Speech laws invites courts to be subjective in their rulings.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#68

Post by onion2k »

candiodari wrote: post #21
onion2k wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess ideological conformity is a good thing for stable society? I don't think this is about "ideological conformity". No one is stopping you thinking, or saying, whatever you want at any time. The problem is when you use a platform to broadcast that message to a wider audience, especially one like Twitter that will show your posts to people who don't follow you.

The problem is that that is never, ever, where it stops. There's always people that society suddenly decides are "really important", usually the most dumb-witted, cruel abusers you can come up with. And of course, the rules don't apply to them. Just look at the president of France, if you want to see a particularly bad fuckup. He, and his wife, have confessed, publicly, on TV, repeatedly to having a paedophilic relat…

a whole bunch of people were sued for stating this during the campaign

The burden of proof for libel action is very different to the burden of proof for criminal liability. It's the difference between civil and criminal law - they're worlds apart. You can't really compare the two, despite them both being based around the act of writing something on the internet. Posting something potentially libellous on Twitter won't get you convicted of a crime, but it absolutely could get you sued.

Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK

#70

Post by heurisko »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #47
londgine wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why "slippery slope" was listed among other logical fallacies. It is exactly the opposite.

When the UK brought in laws around lockdowns and handling covid people here were complaining that it was a slippery slope and the government would never give up those restrictions yet they did exactly that and those laws are no longer in play. In that case the slippery slope argument was a fallacy.

There was indeed a slippery slope from "2 weeks to flatten the curve" to extended lockdowns.

I don't think those policies necessarily were a net benefit, either, particularly in the case of mask mandates for children, which weren't shown as effective enough to warrant damaging the mental health of children.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Post reply on HN