In another UK case, a 19-year-old just got 6 weeks in jail for using a racist slur directed at a football (soccer) player in a tweet: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-60927111 .
What was the actual content of the tweet?
Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
171–180 of 443 posts
Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
#172I’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 b…
There is merit to the idea of the 'paradox of intolerance.' If we tolerate someone explicitly being intolerant, what have we achieved except changed who is allowed to be intolerant?
Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
#173Crickets from the usual crowd who would be crying "cancel culture!" on all TV and radio for weeks and calling for heads to roll had the tweet been about something other than a cause they support (military worship). Governments and companies continue to get more and more empowered to do this stuff because people always show that it has never really been about freedom but rather pushing their own views.
Disc: american commenting on uk legal matters. > people always show that it has never really been about freedom (emphasis mine) Which people? They always act this way? It was never about freedom, for anyone? Who could possibly say this authoritatively? I think the last ~5 years has put a bright light onto freedom of speech. It is a complicated topic with some surprisingly nuanced positions. Does it include the abilit…
“ > people always show that it has never really been about freedom (emphasis mine)
Which people? They always act this way? It was never about freedom, for anyone? Who could possibly say this authoritatively?”
thanks for asking the tough questions
Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
#174Crickets from the usual crowd who would be crying "cancel culture!" on all TV and radio for weeks and calling for heads to roll had the tweet been about something other than a cause they support (military worship). Governments and companies continue to get more and more empowered to do this stuff because people always show that it has never really been about freedom but rather pushing their own views.
I think this comment leaves a bad taste. It is dissing at partisanry where there isn't any. I personally know many republicans and democrats who have a staunch sense of free of speech. They all would be crying in unison. The problem with your view is 1) It is unsubstantiated - where do you see "crickets from the usual crowd"? 2) It is exaggerated and playing into partisan tribalism of people. 3) Creates more division…
This is a partisan topic. The reason why this has happened is an old law that has been repurposed by the police to pursue these claims. In Scotland, which has a different govt to the UK on this issue, the hate speech laws are even more stringent (and the police even more aggressive in pursuing crimes on Twitter).
This is always going to be a controversial topic with too sides. That isn't apparent in the US because there are such strong protections on freedom. But that doesn't change the fact that there are some people who believe they should be removed: those people exist in every society, they are a majority in the place where this occurred, and they are a majority in many other countries.
Saying that someone is fanning the flames when they say they support freedom misunderstands the topic totally. There are people who believe free speech is weak and decadent, the First Minister of Scotland is a lawyer...these people are not crazies, they are people in govt today. And there aren't two sides to freedom, you are either for or against, there is no middle ground (I live in Scotland, the primary argument of people who want to supress freedom was your argument, word for word...my freedom is gone now).
Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not baffling to me that people don't like people who act this way. I don't like such comments either. What's baffling to me is the punishment given for it. Using the given parallel, I'm not familiar with a case where such punishment was given to someone who burped loudly at their dinner table (or some other social faux pas). It seems currently and historically, such social norms and expectations have been primar…
What about China’s supposedly social credit system? Maybe government intervention on such “trifling” matters is now possible thanks to IT systems, and we will come to see this as the norm, rather than the exception, as more and more people forcefully or willingly give up some of their liberties in order to have (or merely feel?) more security.
If you compare UK with China then what is next, North Korea? What is the point of mentioning China, is relevant to the discussion? Is China a model of great society and personal freedoms that other countries should follow?
Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
#176I feel like I must have been corrupted by the internet or something if the tweet in question is considered "grossly offensive". It certainly isn't nice , but 18 months supervision and 150 hours of community service? I don't even know how to put my bafflement into words here.
It's just standard 'edgy' anti-english diatribe from a Scot. It's really nothing I don't hear regularly either out in public or from friend-adjacent people here. It's bad taste and trashy but that's kind of it. The problem is exactly that it's not an unusual attitude to hear. The difference is who it was aimed at. So for me the real issue is that we're cherry picking when we apply a very vague and loosely applied law…
This is definitely a Celtic Vs Rangers thing rather than an England/Scotland one.
Unfortunately we in Glasgow are still dealing with this nonsense in 2022.
Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
#177I'm an American so I don't know that my opinion has much importance here, but as someone who has never really believed in "cancel culture" and who regularly rolls their eyes at the self victimization of politicians and celebrities who advocate for hate against marginalized groups then act like they are being bullied when those same groups call them on it, this is definitely eye opening.
Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think white people who lived during the time of segregation or redlining had white privilege? Because there's plenty of those people still living today. The kids shouting slurs at Ruby Bridges are still alive. Now yes, obviously white privilege is not the only axis of oppression and both in the UK and US class privilege is overlooked to a massive degree but pretending white privilege is a racist term is stupid…
>Do you think white people who lived during the time of segregation or redlining had white privilege Whites were 80-90% of the population during that time, assigning a vague notion of "privilege" to an entire race of people as a basis for reverse racism is not only useless, but misleading, because these "privileged" people were still in competition with other whites (and non-redlined minorities). The implication is t…
> Whites were 80-90% of the population during that time, assigning a vague notion of "privilege" to an entire race of people as a basis for reverse racism is not only useless, but misleading, because these "privileged" people were still in competition with other whites (and non-redlined minorities). The implication is that they collectively derived benefit from unfair rules against blacks, but frankly this is a dishonest assertion.
They absolutlely did derive a collective benefit, i'm astounded anyone can deny this. Are you just ignorant of just how badly treated black people were compared to white people in that period?
Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disc: american commenting on uk legal matters. > people always show that it has never really been about freedom (emphasis mine) Which people? They always act this way? It was never about freedom, for anyone? Who could possibly say this authoritatively? I think the last ~5 years has put a bright light onto freedom of speech. It is a complicated topic with some surprisingly nuanced positions. Does it include the abilit…
The largest media outlets that beat the freedom of speech drum (fox, other right wing sites) never do so in response to people whose speech they don't like being silenced.
One major factor is a disagreement in what counts as speech. I see this from people individually discussing topics and from official stances of platforms, even supposedly free speech platforms.
One of the safer to discuss at work examples is how loud can speech be while still being speech. Is a concert playing loud music free speech? Is it still free speech when the music is at such a level it causes hearing damage for those attending? Even if some attendees are children? What if it is only temporary hearing damage? What level of loudness creates enough harm to another person for it to stop being considered speech? Where is the distinction between me causing you bodily harm with airwaves or with punches?
Another example is bright lights. Having a sign up is free speech. But what if the sign is well lit up at night? How many photons can I send toward you before it stops being speech and starts being violence? Clearly aiming a powerful enough laser to cause eye damage would violate it. But what if it was a weaker red laser that I was shining through your window. If it is the aspect of targeting you that matters, then when if I set up a bill board and put a bunch of red lasers pointers that moved around randomly to draw attention, so it is no longer targeting just at you.
Then there is all sorts of problems one can get into with photos and the numbers that represent them.
Re: Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK
#180Earlier 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…
People digging up old stories on Macron's and his wife are anything but concerned about helping justice. They're only interested in proving Macron was abused by his wife so she can get convicted and then he (the victim!) gets hit as a side effect.
People doing that kind crap have no limit to how low they're willing to drop their common decency to promote their shitty political agenda: They spread their lies over social networks, alienate the debate with inane affairs and waste valuable resources from the judicial system.
I'm glad those idiots are getting sued.