Censorship

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Cruyff's Turn said:
Oblivious is one way of looking at it.The other way is refusing to be cowed by the establishment.I bet that sort of thing was being said in the 1930's when certain elements were drawing attention to the dangers of Nazi Germany.If we had the current legislation in force back then you would have been scared of getting dragged before the beak for being beastly to Herr Hitler.
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Let's play nice now. There's a theory that once an internet discussion has descended into Nazism-comparisons it is no longer worth bothering with.
 
Cruyff's Turn said:
Oblivious is one way of looking at it.The other way is refusing to be cowed by the establishment.I bet that sort of thing was being said in the 1930's when certain elements were drawing attention to the dangers of Nazi Germany.If we had the current legislation in force back then you would have been scared of getting dragged before the beak for being beastly to Herr Hitler.
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Ok CT I guess we have agree to disagree on this one.

I think a thread where people are saying that all muslims should be killed and calling all muslims names is abhorrent. If you think that it's ok then fine, I think this is not the place for it on a football discussion forum personally.

It's not about being "anti or pro establishment" It's about knowing it is plain wrong to say some of the things that were said on the other thread.
 
DHCanary said:
Ok, evening (or morning when most of you read this) all.

As this is primarily a football forum, none of us three moderators are entirely sure on how best to proceed with the thread in question, so we're seeking advice from above. As such I wouldn't expect us to make a decision on whether the thread is reopened, left closed, or completely deleted right away. Apologies for that, but we're working as fast as we can.

However, I've tried to do some digging into the legality of some of the posts that appeared on the closed thread. From what I can make out, under Section 127 of the Communications Act of 2003, some of those comments could open the members responsible, and possibly the forum, to prosecution. (Incidentally, if Rob or anyone else with a legal background would like to help clarify, that'd be appreciated, it's not normally something I'd want to be reading into). From what I've read, this law has been used to prosecute people making similar comments over twitter, and other forms of social media.
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Not my area at all, but, the simply answer is yes, both the poster and the forum could be prosecuted. One or two of the comments m,ay well fall into the category of "grossly offensive" and could also be categorised as "menacing". If found guilty, technically the poster could be sent to prison, but given the nature of the posts I imagine they would simply get a caution, or at worst a fine.

I think the important thing to note, though, is that the website will get fined. Given that this website is free and probably doesn't have much money, anyone posting these sorts of comments is essentially risking everyone else's enjoyment of the site. Technically, the site closing the threads and removing the posts is indeed censorship, but I think that's acceptable given the consequences to the site if found guilty. Anyone upset about "censorship" should be complaining about the law behind it (for which you can petition the government) rather than the site itself.

I hope therefore that all those posters DO NOT leave this site, because all their opinions are valuable and so I think it would be a real pity if they go in a huff because the site is obliged to take action in order to avoid prosecution.

To be fair to the relevant posters: (a) they have not done anything wrong unless found guilty in court; and (b) they are entitled to their opinion so long as it does not risk the existence of this site. Therefore, the deletion of posts that they have made, DOES NOT mean that they were definitely illegal nor that the site owners/forum administrators disagree with their opinions or are trying to clamp down on them. It simply means that these sorts of opinions are close to the line.
 
Kemp8094 said:
Ok CT I guess we have agree to disagree on this one.

I think a thread where people are saying that all muslims should be killed and calling all muslims names is abhorrent. If you think that it's ok then fine, I think this is not the place for it on a football discussion forum personally.

It's not about being "anti or pro establishment" It's about knowing it is plain wrong to say some of the things that were said on the other thread.
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Cold blooded murder of an innocent person, in a free democracy where we generally welcome diversity of all race's and creed's, in the name of religion is abhorrent to most right minded people! I find your attempt at trying to put a positive spin on this quite disgusting. We have these Muslim cleric's preaching hatred of our own people on our own street's while the police stand by and watch!! They then cite their human right's when we try to get them deported, ask the person's family who's just been murdered about his and their human rights! This is why most people have extremely strong opinions on the matter. Any religion where it is deemed to be the correct thing to murder and maim people just because they believe in something different is what get's most people angry.

REDRUTH, you are to valuable a member on this forum, I understand the way you feel on this subject, I feel the same, but your views on football are always balanced and readable. I have felt like just leaving myself in the past as I seemed to be targeted by a few loose brains, but this is a discussion forum and we should be able to discuss without persecution, I got through it you can as well my friend!
 
ilovedelia said:
Cold blooded murder of an innocent person, in a free democracy where we generally welcome diversity of all race's and creed's, in the name of religion is abhorrent to most right minded people! I find your attempt at trying to put a positive spin on this quite disgusting. We have these Muslim cleric's preaching hatred of our own people on our own street's while the police stand by and watch!! They then cite their human right's when we try to get them deported, ask the person's family who's just been murdered about his and their human rights! This is why most people have extremely strong opinions on the matter. Any religion where it is deemed to be the correct thing to murder and maim people just because they believe in something different is what get's most people angry.

REDRUTH, you are to valuable a member on this forum, I understand the way you feel on this subject, I feel the same, but your views on football are always balanced and readable. I have felt like just leaving myself in the past as I seemed to be targeted by a few loose brains, but this is a discussion forum and we should be able to discuss without persecution, I got through it you can as well my friend!
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So you agree then? You think all muslims should be killed? You think they are just plain bad and that's it?

I'm getting to like this ignore button.
 
I'm not in any way supporting what happened and I think it is disgusting but to turn around and say that because of it all muslims should be killed or kicked out of country is just extreme.
 
Canary Rob said:
Not my area at all, but, the simply answer is yes, both the poster and the forum could be prosecuted. One or two of the comments m,ay well fall into the category of "grossly offensive" and could also be categorised as "menacing". If found guilty, technically the poster could be sent to prison, but given the nature of the posts I imagine they would simply get a caution, or at worst a fine.

I think the important thing to note, though, is that the website will get fined. Given that this website is free and probably doesn't have much money, anyone posting these sorts of comments is essentially risking everyone else's enjoyment of the site. Technically, the site closing the threads and removing the posts is indeed censorship, but I think that's acceptable given the consequences to the site if found guilty. Anyone upset about "censorship" should be complaining about the law behind it (for which you can petition the government) rather than the site itself.

I hope therefore that all those posters DO NOT leave this site, because all their opinions are valuable and so I think it would be a real pity if they go in a huff because the site is obliged to take action in order to avoid prosecution.

To be fair to the relevant posters: (a) they have not done anything wrong unless found guilty in court; and (b) they are entitled to their opinion so long as it does not risk the existence of this site. Therefore, the deletion of posts that they have made, DOES NOT mean that they were definitely illegal nor that the site owners/forum administrators disagree with their opinions or are trying to clamp down on them. It simply means that these sorts of opinions are close to the line.
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It is a shame that censorship is necessary but as said above this forum is at risk by this on going debate. I see the comments again are escallating and soon this one will have to be locked too.
No religion preaches murder or death just a few select nut cases misinterpret or justify atrocities in its name.(The crusades for one) I am not religious and can see positives and negatives in it. But it would be no different to condemning all Italians as murderous psycopaths because the italian mob has/had a panchant for murder, torture and concrete boots. That was just for money not their supposed eternal soul.

Bah!
 
General Melchett said:
It is a shame that censorship is necessary but as said above this forum is at risk by this on going debate. I see the comments again are escallating and soon this one will have to be locked too.
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Completely agree here, and I'm slightly ashamed of myself for not resisting the temptation to get involved.
 
hmm, there are a hell of a lot of racist people on here – are you really any better than the fundamentalists? ok, you may not have killed on a street corner in cold blood but you are effectively preaching the same generalisations about millions of innocent human beings. every religion has it's nutjobs.

the saddest part is that i'm not surprised by the reaction of some people. thankfully kemp, longsight and a few others still have their brains engaged.
 
JKCanary said:
Completely agree here, and I'm slightly ashamed of myself for not resisting the temptation to get involved.
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You shouldn't be ashamed about speaking against blatant racism. Some of the generalisations made on this forum over the last day or so have been absolutely disgusting. Also, it makes my blood boil that when people condemn racism they are deemed to be sympathetic towards the actions carried out yesterday. The acts were abhorrent and no one is in disagreement with that.
 
I have to say I am slightly surprised by some of the views but I appreciate it is a very sensitive topic and I am sure that for some people this is more personally particularily if they have served in the military or have family in the military.

I cant help but feel (in my opinion) that generalisations about a religion or its followers are exactly the kind of reaction the 2 people would have wanted before carry out the discusting act that they did.

I beleive that its bad people who do bad things and to try and pidgeon hole these people into certain groups is not that straight forward.

There are a lot of people on this forum who I feel are very clever and intellectual (sometimes I feel I am not so in comparison) and losing anyone from this forum would be very sad and as mentioned above would be a very small victory for any form of terrorism.

There is no justifying what happened but as a country we shouldnt change our moral fibre - if we do that then a lot of the good things about our country will be lost in an instant. I know our country isnt perfect but I genuinely believe we try and make it better.
 
Thanks to all those who've posted links, it was particularly pleasant to find something interesting on vice.com! I'm sure that's a first.

And thanks to Rob for helping to clarify the legal position of this kind of thing. I'm sorry if it comes across as censorship, we're not trying to censor peoples views, we're trying to stop the occasions where people have gone OTT risking a fine for the forum. I believe the owner runs (or at least did run) at a loss for running this site, so if he's got fines coming his way then pulling the plug would be a very easy decision for him.

If people want to continue discussing things fine, but I'd ask it's done in a calm manner, as to everyone's credit this second thread generally has been.
 
danary said:
Godwin's Law
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Yeah, I think it states something like the longer an internet discussion goes on, the probability of a comparison to the Nazi's tends to 1. I believe some forums use reaching that point as a sign to lock the thread as it's a sign nothing constructive is likely to come from it any more. We've noticed a similar relationship on the F1 forum, where the longer things go on, the more likely a reference to Schumacher's acts at Adelaide 1994 becomes. On the Norwich board it would probably be the probability of an Ipswich fan talking about history tending to 1.
 
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