They surely generate enough money to employ a full-time moderating staff to oversee the flagged comments. It's not as if these high-profile ones are particularly hard to spot, otherwise they wouldn't be in the hands of the Police. And I'm still not sure they have to co-operate with the unreasonable demands of UK police when the comments are on US servers, do they? Let me know in the morning or whenever you feel less knackered.
In theory five in a hundred users of a site could leave potentially contreversial comments, so you would need one Mod per hundred comments, so if that site had say twenty million users then they would needa **** load of Mods. But as I stated, as long as they are seen to be attempting to make the effort, they have the excuse 'we try'. On the other hand, if they are seen as contributers or instigators, then they may be in trouble.
See this is the problem in a nut shell. I'll use homophobia this time. Following statements(words only) from person A to person B "You queer ***. I'm going to exterminate you." Fairly straight forward, actual threat of violence, impinging on persons rights to life & freedom of movement. With homophobic basis. "You queer ****. Queers should be exterminated." Again slightly fuzzier but could still be seen as an impingement of rights with homophobic basis. "You queer **** I hope you die." getting fuzzier. Is that a threat? Homophobic intent, abuse yes but threat? Said once no, said over and over yes??? "queer ****" homophobic only if taken as insult. Could be statement of fact as terminology is used within community. "I believe that homosexuals are an abomination and will go to hell" homophobic or right of religious practice? "I believe that homosexuality is a genetic malfunction within the species of man" biologically speaking a valid hypothesis but still homophobic because you will offend members of the community or because society has moved beyond all genetic differences? Starts off straight forward doesn't it? But then the interpretation of intent vs belief of offense caused makes the issue more & more complicated. Any of these could be deemed incitement to hate if written as they stand alone on twitter. But context is important & that is why you have a problem comparing it to other crimes: 31mph to car limit is all breaking the 30mph limit; no context or interpretation needed just willingness to enforce the law. Misusing an incitement law on the above is clumsy at best. Other existing laws cover the first two sentences and the rest should be dealt with socially within the context & situation that the statements are made. This is why incitement laws are crude & ineffectual instruments of social engineering.
Damn; must sleep. Hopefully this thread doesn't descend into farce as its good to see adult discussion rather than abuse of serious issues! 'night
just to take the discussion in a different direction, imagine you have a dog, and you continualy poke the dog with a stick, one day the dog turns around and bites you. It's the same with some of the trolls, maybe there parents did not afford them enough affection, they may have led a tough life. They may have been abused, they may be autistic or schitzoprenic, or dependant on drugs or alcohol. Most of these people are quite special in there own way. but in a sane world, you can feel sorry for them, but they need to be sectioned from us or you would have complete choas, you will always have anarchists againsts law, but without law, society would crumble.
How can this ever PROVE his innocence? It might have been to done to SUGGEST to others he is innocent. Massive difference. If I slag or defame someone and then I say to others that I am not going to speak to that person ever again because I am not at fault, does this PROVE I am innocent? Regarding the original post, we have to factor in INTENT. Was the intent to incite others to unlawful actions? Like to riot? Was the intent to hurt feelings? All of those are unlawful and should/would lead to prosecution. The hurt feelings one is contentious because some people say it is a soft one. The question is why should someone accept being denigrated for the colour of their skin? Having said all that I think he should have had some punishment but it was TOO harsh.
Personally I think the whole jail time for this teenager is a joke. I was reading in the paper yesterday that a bloke with one of the largest stash of child porn ever seized was given a 12 month suspensed sentence and was being forced to have his addiction treated. WTF This young lad was pissed by all accounts and posted some ill judged comments and gets time in jail ? Potentially ruining his career / future job prospects etc. This is exactly what is wrong with todays society even judges are jumping on the media bandwagon - if this lad had posted this about his next door neighbour rather than Fabrice Muamba do you still think there would have been the same police and legal interest ? To me it all stinks of Big Brother is weatching you. What's next the 'thought police' ? As for Suarez - I won't be drawn into it again however I will say it's impossible to 'prove' either way his guilt or innocence.
I do think this country is a bit to strict on racism, mainly because I think the people who make the laws and give the punishments are scared of it. I think a lot of people these days dont understand what racism is. I remember a TV investigation where some guy, who was white, was made up to look black, and went around asking people to describe him, and people were avoiding saying he's black. I think for the thing mentioned in this thread a life time ban from Twitter, a fine and possible some kind of check on his internet activity from time to time would do fine.
There's a difference between holding racist views and inciting racial hatred. However ignorant people's racist views are and however much I may personally disagree with them, they are entitled to them and should be allowed to express them if they wish. That's the point of free speech, and it's the price we pay. But calling somebody a n***** or p*** isn't expressing a view, it's inciting hatred based on race and that should rightly be stamped out. I'm glad that bell-end on facebook got screwed for his comments, it sets a precedent to others. As soon as you add a race element to an insult, even if you just stick 'black' or 'white' in front of calling somebody a bastard, I reckon you've crossed the line. Adding that racial element to it isn't acceptable. As for Facebook and Twitter, to a certain extent I don't believe it's their responsibility to control what people post (free speech), but they should at least have a clear policy stating that racial hatred will not be tolerated and users will be banned and reported to the police (maybe they do have this already? I've managed to avoid Shwitter and Twatbook so far). But in the end the police should do the policing, not FaceTwat. Maybe the police should be the ones to set what constitutes racial hatred and instruct TwitterFace to make it part of their policy. A general thought; this country has serious problems with what constitutes being racist and it's all got a bit arse about face. It doesn't help that you have misinformed people going too much the other way, for example by turning on anybody who even mentions the word 'immigrant' even if said person has a legitimate point they want to make. A good example; some people who I work with avoid using the word black to describe people as they're scared people will jump on them. Case in point; a woman describing to somebody else who they needed to see to sort an issue out, which happened to be a black dude on the floor below me at work, probably the only black guy on the floor. The description included his haircut, what shirt he was wearing, etc., but not the fact he's black. I chipped in with 'the black guy' and got a bit of a weird look from the woman, to which I responded to by saying that I'm pretty sure he would describe himself as black and calling him so isn't being racist. This woman might have been trying to do what she felt was the right, but it just goes to show what a grey area this can be. And seriously, that Chet Walken guy somebody posted a link to earlier is a fooking lunatic. Always amuses me when people bang on about religious lunatics in the middle east etc., when the country we have that wonderful 'special relationship' with have a load of nutters like this.
in the end no matter what people think... there are four points. 1. if you are not making offensive racist or abusive comments you've nothing to worry baout have you? 2. if you are a racist or abusive etc then you get what you deserve. 3. this is the LAW. if you don't llike it go campaign to get it changed. 4. the owners of this site can say what they like, but the stuff that is said REGULARLY on this site leaves it wide open to offical censure if someone makes a complaint to the police. I undersatnd the police have on one occasion turned up on his doorstep.. thats a rumour i heard, not sure about it. I can name several users of this site who could fall foul of this law and if this site doesn't show it does everything possible to eliminate the bahavious it can be found responsible for it.
Wooah Baz: uncalled for. Clearly stated I was going to bed, hence delay. I used the Homophobic argument so it didn't sound like I was harping on about race all night & to highlight these laws cover more than race & continue to be broadened. The danger I point to in previous posts. Nowhere in my post was I supporting any of the Hypothetical statements, I was pointing out the difficulty of interpretation under a very vague legal definition. As for the "if your not saying or writing , you've nothing to worry about" it works in argument against hiding your identify behind an avatar as well but does not need resources half as much as if the police were to treat each case under the existing law equally. Another flaw to the law I've highlighted. I do not hold bigoted beliefs or at least I don't believe I do, I'm sure someone would be offended if I looked long & hard enough. I do not agree with this set of laws & believe they are socially divisive but while they remain law, like others I disagree with I will obey them. Easier in this case because I don't hold any of the "illegal" views. Hopefully you just misread mate rather than intentionally added a dark motive that wasn't there.
I suppose it was inevitable that this thread would focus upon racism. It is to the credit of all those who have commented that the issues so far have been aired in mature way - so thank you (that doesn't get said often enough here). If I remember correctly, the original question was really about the right of free speech and it's ability to cause offence. Now I haven't woken up with any blinding revelation but we all have the right to be offended. If that is the case then I suppose that society has to try and manage that right democratically. My right to free speech being moderated by the degree of offence and the number of people who are actually offended. One of the things that really bugs me is the calculation of the size of offence. The BBC will apologise for something shown or said when a number of people complain. In reality the number who took the time and effort to complain are far outweighed by the total number of viewers/listeners who did not complain. Does this mean that the majority found the broadcast acceptable?; were just too lazy to complain?; were unsure if their opinions mattered? I bring that point up only because of the Reina ad non-issue a few weeks back. There, a pressure group tried to make an issue of his appearance in an ad that wasn't even intended for broadcast in this country. Is that an abuse of the system?
I see where you are coming from. Howver, the BIG difference is that as far as I know there is no law against incitement to homosexual hatred. Whereas there is a specific law for race. You can read all sorts of things like the above (even on these boards) without anybody batting an eyelid. However, if you replace the word "queer" with any racial group in any of the sentences you've written, you will be breaking the law and you will be punished and the site owner will be in trouble too.
Good thread. I've only come onto it this morning but have read through and a lot of good points have been made. Too many to address in one post so I'll just make a general observation. Our legal system has evolved over many centuries, the advent of widespread internet communication has left the law trying to catch up. New laws are being made and old ones reinterpreted in an attempt to impose some measure of socially acceptable behaviour in what appears at times to be an almost lawless territory. It's like a World Wide Wild West at the moment, many people seem to think they can do/say anything they like without fear of consequence and attempts to police it are random and often clumsy. I expect it will settle down with time but at the moment we're going through a bit of chaos caused by a relatively new, high-impact technology. New technology always causes social change, but I suppose it's never happened on this scale and at this speed in the past.
