Twitter user sentenced to 150 hours of community service in UK • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by dane-pgp » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:28 AM UTC

helloworld11 wrote: post #186

beaconstudios wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Out of many criticisms of the U.S. that the country deserves, its mostly rigid protection of free speech rights in a formal sense is one good thing, and it hasn't led to a hell of bigotry, or at least no more so than have weaker protections for free speech in other countries. Depends on how you measure it. The US has some pretty notable racial issues, even compared to other Anglosphere countries. I wouldn't put tha…

Many countries, including many in Europe have some very serious, heavy racial issues that are both more ingrained than those of the U.S and in quite a few cases more violent or openly discriminatory. The U.S. however is generally at or close to the center of global media familiarity and attention, so naturally, the theme of its own racial issues is disproportionately magnified. How many major countries are overtly et…

> How many people in European states will openly speak of certain groups, like gypsies, muslims and so forth with extremely derogatory words, but barely be called out on it by anybody?

It might be hard to find statistics, but I think we shouldn't just give up and rely on anecdotes. For example, a 2017-2019 Pew Research Center survey[0] found that people in the U.S. were somewhat more willing to accept Muslims as neighbors and family members than the Western European median.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/08/in-the-u-s-...

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

#372

Post by krapp » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:32 AM UTC

f7ebc20c97 wrote: post #307

krapp wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This implies all such causal chains, regardless of their nature, will always be accepted as valid. If that were true, no lawyer would ever lose a case. It's the same argument that people make when they say, because any word can be claimed to mean anything, any so-called hate speech crime can be used to make any arbitrary speech illegal, simply by labeling any form of speech "hate speech." It's the 'perfectly spherica…

Okay, buddy, we have this thing called the Internet now. It's a magical place where you can be anonymous and say whatever the fuck you want. The cat has left the bag. All restrictive speech laws do now is push dissidents underground into radicalizing echochambers like 4chan, while at the same time rapidly expanding the scope of "dissident" to include anyone who says anything remotely offensive to anybody. Is that wha…

It's odd that you seem to find restricting speech and pushing dissidents underground into radicalizing echo chambers to be a problem, while not being at all concerned about those dissidents' capacity to radicalize orders of magnitude more people and form even bigger echo chambers when given free rein on the biggest platforms the internet has to offer.

The entire point is to slow the ability of dissidents to spread their message, because despite what believers in free speech maximalism claim, truth doesn't always out. "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on" was a meme well before the internet gave lies the speed of light.

>while at the same time rapidly expanding the scope of "dissident" to include anyone who says anything remotely offensive to anybody. Is that what you want?

I've already commented that I reject the slippery slope argument. If the people of the UK find their free speech laws go too far, they can change those laws.

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

#373

Post by SamBam » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:35 AM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #370

SamBam wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the judge said specifically that he was sentencing him as a deterrence to show other people. > "The deterrence is really to show people that despite the steps you took to try and recall matters, as soon as you press the blue button that’s it. It’s important for other people to realise how quickly things can get out of control. You are a good example of that, not having many followers." Jesus, 18 months su…

> Except that the judge said specifically that he was sentencing him as a deterrence to show other people. Right, that's precisely the statement from the judge that I was paraphrasing as "I'm sentencing you in accordance with the law so that people will see that if they break the law they will be sentenced in accordance with the law." The judge is not saying "you didn't do this" or "you don't deserve this." The judge…

> but it's just plain ludicrous to say the judge isn't sentencing based on the merits of the case

I think precisely the opposite, and I think we're using different definitions of the word "sentencing."

He committed a crime by the text of the law. Yes, we agree on that. No one is questioning that. But all you've argued so far is that the judge came to the correct verdict.

The sentencing, in the other hand, is completely out of proportion to the crime, and is not mandated by law. The judge himself said that he is sentencing him harshly as an example. That means her was motivated to set an example, and is not simply giving him this ludicrous sentence on the merits of the case alone.

The comment at top you were responding to was arguing about the injustice of this exact thing.

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

#374

Post by _-david-_ » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 1:55 AM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #259

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, milk?

These are just pranks made by 4chan and their ilk. The circle of life on this sort of thing, I think, goes something like: Come up with a contrived reason milk could be considered racist, film a video or whatever about chugging milk while making a racist screed, get criticized for being a weirdo, and then some reactionary clickbait site can have the headline "Internet user called 'racist' for drinking milk." It is du…

Didn't 4chan also create the OK hand sign racist as well? Now there are people who genuinely believe the OK sign is racist.

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

#375

Post by throwawaylinux » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 2:02 AM UTC

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #345

xboxnolifes wrote: post #121

I 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.

Yea. Go onto certain 4chan boards and you inevitably see more offensive content within 30 seconds. I’m always surprised that people in the UK put up with so many of these authoritarian nanny state and “think of the children” laws.

They have always been a subservient people who look up to authority figures -- their betters -- to take care of them and to tell them how they should go about their lives. And it's not "think of the children", it's "think of me".

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

#376

Post by dane-pgp » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 2:08 AM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #260

radford-neal wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last sentence seems to itself refute the point it is trying to make. You refer to "marriage equality", not "same-sex marriage". So you presumably think that the justification for allowing same-sex marriage is not some consideration of whether recognizing same-sex marriages in particular is beneficial, but rather that the justification is that they must be allowed for "equality". That justification easily general…

Marriage equality is generally implied (if not expressly stated) that it is about humans. Functionally speaking, there's no evidence to show that people who like people of the same sex might move on to toasters. The movement was always about people. The lack of specificity was because the context was obvious, not because it was nebulous.

The next point along the slippery slope would more likely be forcing states to accept polygamous marriages of more than 2 people. Another point on the slope might be allowing siblings to marry (especially if they are the same sex so there is no danger of inbreeding).

Perhaps the reason why marrying toasters is unlikely to be anywhere on the slope is that, from the government's perspective, a marriage is a legal contract entered into by the parties. It's not clear what a one-sided legal contract with a toaster would look like, beyond the mere recognition of property ownership.

One possible extension, though, could be marrying a corporation, since they have legal personhood. Perhaps that right will be moot once polygamy becomes legal, or alternatively someone will try to make polygamy legal by attempting to marry a corporation owned by their two intended spouses.

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

#377

Post by roenxi » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 2:09 AM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #120

roenxi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've established - quite clearly - that in an emergency the government can lock everything down for 2 years and that lip service to liberty or human rights means nothing. Emergencies happen every 2-3 years. Why won't we see similar anti-liberty measures again in the next 20 years? 'We' 'know' it 'works'. It isn't even clear that we'll be spared another pandemic through that timeframe, the world is quite small these…

> Emergencies happen every 2-3 years. The last time a pandemic of this scale happened was a century ago. True, with the destruction of animal habitats and climate change ( which feeds into the former), we'll probably see more epidemics from now on. And yes, the restrictions worked against that type of emergency - an airborne virus of pandemic proportions. It's a fallacy to claim that now that we know all that and the…

> The last time a pandemic of this scale happened was a century ago.

Past performance isn't an indicator of future performance. International travel is more common and faster these days. Plus whether or not you buy the idea that COVID in particular came from a lab, the fact that it reasonably could have is enough to predict that viruses will in the near future. That wasn't as big a risk over the last century.

We literally need 1 lab, anywhere in the world, to combine lax standards with dangerous research. That isn't going to be a once-per-century event, it'll be relatively common. The world is a big place.

> and the laws have expired

So I'll readily admit that I haven't paid any attention to laws in the UK which is what we're discussing today. But "oh they've all expired" is an optomistic take. A lot of laws and policies can go through a parliament in a 2 year emergency where mass lockdowns are an option on the table.

So I'm not pointing to a specific example but I'm not backing away from the claim yet either. It is likely that many of the changes made haven't been rolled back, and that a lot of new powers still exist ready to be used in the next emergency. Sure they aren't locking down right now, great. But they've opened a lot of Pandora's boxes about how much power a government is expected to wield as a routine matter. What just happened in the west was some sort of bizzaro story from the tales out of the USSR or China. It isn't a the prologue to a series of great government policies, it is a dark cloud of what might be coming. We can't afford for these ideas to take root; freedom pretty much alawys outperforms in the medium term and I'd rather live free with some risk than watch people be imprisoned for their own good.

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

#378

Post by lambertsimnel » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 2:11 AM UTC

farmerstan wrote: post #152

paxys wrote: post #126

Crickets 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.

What on earth would make you say this? There are plenty of people upset over this including myself and others that believe in free speech. This is unfortunately in the UK which doesn’t have the same protections as the US. This person would not have been found guilty in the US but the UK doesn’t have the same level of freedoms.

I read the grand-parent comment as about the misrepresentation of free-speech in the media. Of course there are sincere and consistent free-speech supporters, but their cause is disproportionately used in the British media to favour opponents of other liberal/libertarian causes.

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

#379

Post by IncRnd » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 2:11 AM UTC

Pyramus wrote: post #233

IncRnd wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> E.g. the US has speed limits on highways, but Germany hasn't. A speed limit is a censure not a censor by any means whatsoever. > "censoring" or restricting the rights of individuals to some extent. Censorship is not any restriction but restrictions on books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc.

Agree with your definition of censorship. > A speed limit is a censure not a censor by any means whatsoever. My point is there is a reason every single Western democracy has restrictions to free speech. And these restriction come from the same rationale as a speed limit, say, that is to balance the rights of individuals with the rights of all other members of society.

That is an excellent point. Thank you for the clarification.

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

#380

Post by porknubbins » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 2:24 AM UTC

teawrecks wrote: post #337

standardUser wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire concept of "setting an example" seems like a bit of fascism that has snuck its way into liberal democracy.

IANAL but it seems like "setting an example" is synonymous with "setting a precedent", which is a concept that seems fundamental to any legal system, even for civil cases. Companies press charges against every slight infringement on their trademarks because if they don't, they're implicitly setting a precedent that the behavior is ok. If you aren't actively setting precedents, then legally it's the same as saying, "w…

Precedent in common law systems applies more or less only to determining what the law is and is not really related to sentencing more strictly or leiniently (ie making an example of someone), so I don’t think they are synonymous.