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Three Years in Prison for Posting Hatespeak
Vainglorious Coward writes "In the UK, a man has been sentenced to three years in prison for posting inflammatory messages to a website. Pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred on a site dedicated to the memory of a murdered black teenager, the 30-year old accused stated that he was not racist, and had intended to stir up an argument on the website, but did not believe in what he had written. The defending lawyer described her client as 'isolated and living in a fantasy world, spending hours on his computer in his room where his persona could be as he made it, good or bad.'"
In the former case, some choose to place their faith in the government and legal system, and draw satisfaction at three years incarceration for ignorant speech, at the risk of social fragmentation.
I think the Amish community would have simply shunned such a foul-mouthed fool, without putting money into lawyer's pockets, or wasting real estate on a prison.
Social progress.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
It sounds like the guy needs help. Trolling is one thing, but trolling on website dedicated to the memory of a recently murdered teenager? Combined with the child pornography aspect, it's very worrying indeed.
So how does locking the guy up help anyone? He may have problems but that doesn't mean he's dangerous now; conversely, if he is dangerous now, then he needs psychiatric help, not prison. In either case prison is not the answer.
"Hitler started with an idea, slavery started with an idea, so it is good that this was stopped in time."
*Shudder*
Eerie resemblance to "thoughtcrime"...
Regardless of what you think of hate speech, once the infrastructure for persecuting people on their thoughts/attitudes/opinions is in place it becomes quite trivial to make it encompass your personal/ideological enemies. All you have to do is redefine "hate."
Anti-government speech --> anti-American speech --> hate.
Anti-religion speech --> hate.
Pro-religion speech --> hate. (look at verse X of book Y! so intolerant!)
. . .
Maybe it would would end up being more specific, or more round about, but what matters is that motivating ideology is now on the table as something that can be legislated for/against.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
The UK in recent years has been claiming the right to take away the freedoms of its subjects, despite the fact that it was once on the forefront of individual liberty. First, it banned guns, contradicting at least 400 years of common law, and now it's going after people for free speech. The authoritarians can invent a rationale for their tyranny against the people, but they'll never stop going after one freedom after another.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
There is a crisis as Britain's prisons are full...
Try makeing any untoward comments about your almighty presedent, and how to depose him (violently or otherwise) and then see where your constitution gets you.... Inciting crimes is illegal here (in the UK), as it is in the US. And sedition is a thorny one both side of the pond.
Because you can - or because you should?
Thats fine until one of them is charismatic, and ritch, and the counries in a bit of slump, and theres just been a large increase in imergration, and then bang! what might normal be a preasure rease valve for nut case, becomes the reason your neighbourhood is getting rounded up by death squads.... The worset thing about the second world war, is that it wasn't whitnessed by the whole world. My Grandad's still alive to tell me what it was like to see storm troopers march through a town killing as they went. My street still bares the marks of Nazi bombs. If I lived in America, this wouldn't be the case (or is much less likely). So please take it from me, crushing race hate is worth losing some smaller liberties. I don't mind tastless, unPC jokes even. But inciting violence is bad, is wrong, is more dangerous than your perceived loss of free speech (like I posted just now - you do not have free speech in America!)
Because you can - or because you should?
While I am all for Free Speech, there is a limit when someone starts actually calling for murdering specific persons. According to TFA, the perpetrator posted in response to the killing of Anthony Walker, a black teenager:
That's incitement to murder, hardly a category of protected speech.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Is just one step worse then trying to legislate morals.
.. pretty simple. ( yes, i know , its all about state control of the population, but i dont have to agree with it )
Its my right to hate who ever i want, for any reason i want, AND to tell people about it. You dont like what i say? Then dont read/listen
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We do have a bit of a problem with that in the UK. (This is a general comment, without reference to the particular case under discussion about which I know nothing other than what has been in the news.)
... but we no longer have anywhere else.
Once upon a time people who were unable to lead a normal life in society were locked up in mental hospitals. But we've closed all those and replaced them with "care in the community". This policy, which in fact is implemented as "neglect in the community", has a variety of outcomes for the people concerned.
Some do actually cope with life on the outside (maybe they didn't need to be in the mental hospitals in the first place), with or without any extra support that they are lucky enough to receive. Some don't cope, and end up homeless and living on the streets, maybe dying of drug overdoses or exposure in winter. Some cope fine with keeping themselves alive but end up in prison because their behaviour, which they can't do anything about, is unacceptable to society.
Prison is generally reckoned not to be a suitable place to keep these people locked up, as you say
Of course, many people get -1 Troll because the person doing the moderating is a fanatic with an agenda, so maybe Slashdot's moderation system isn't really all that accurate.
I may not agree with what you say, but to your death I will defend your right to say it
- Voltaire
A quaint idea in todays world.
In the US if you were thinking the wrong thing at the time you commit a crime, your guilty of a hate crime. In France you can be charged with a crime for selling, and or distributing NAZI items. This UK example isn't unique to that isle. The ideal of free speech is being eroded, and nothing shows that more than the self censorship and reaction to the Mohammad cartoons.
It causes myself to ask questions like -
If we do not shun, or speak out against vile (but currently legal) speech, do we eventually loose the right to hear such speech because the state steps in?
Why are we (as a society) so afraid of words and their potential impact? Are we so imature, violent and framented that speech alone will destroy the cohesion of our societey?
While there are aspects of this case that seem to cry out for some attention, on the face of it, this guy committed a thought crime and is being sent to jail for it.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
So please take it from me, crushing race hate is worth losing some smaller liberties.
No! It isn't!
Everybody has a cause for which they believe it is worth the loss of 'smaller' liberties. But for whatever liberties we have (that do not infringe on the liberties of others), they are NEVER worth giving up.
The most important goal in any modern country should be to insure civil liberties. This is so that we can protect ourselves from the government, the entity who has the largest ability to harm us. World War II certainly was catastrophic (over 60 million casualities by some estimations), but it will be nothing compared to the suffering in the future if our population of over 6 billion becomes subject to police states. For each civil liberty that we give up, we get a step closer to that future.
Don't get me wrong, I haven't made up my mind on this particular case; I realize that some speech is considered a direct violation of people's natural rights. However, if a speech fails to rise to that threshold (and it is a very high threshold), than it ought to be free, and no number of casualities past or present should change that.
Be careful what you say; true liberties are NEVER worth giving up.
As found further down the threads re Swedish Laws. Its not what is hate, but what is threat that is judged. And its judged by the courts, not the government. I can say what I like about what I personally think of any given culture or 'race'. But I must not threaten. Threatening bahaviour is elegal. As it incites violence. If I told you in all seriousness the I withed harm to you and your family, IF it were seen as an actual statement of intent, then that would be illegal, here in the UK or in the states. Race need not (and you could argue, should not) come into it. Though due to its escalatory nature, race threats ARE a greater danger to a greater number of people. And so should be treated as such. i.e. Threats of that nature should be prosecuted with harsher enforcement and punishment. Again, many of those who were crrying threatening plackards at rellies, depicted in tabloids, WERE prosecuted! many will still be under surveilance (just as those in the BNP will have been). So it is more even handed than the media makes out.
Because you can - or because you should?
Read some Plato!
Sadly the idealism of pretecting yourself from your government is a long lost cause.... They could destroy your country in a second. But! as long as you don't loose your society, the goverment knows its got something to loose by mistreating you.
Because you can - or because you should?
It's the people who don't inspire any sympathy that wind up as test cases for free speech.
The issue here is not whether people should sympathize with the troll, it's whether people should imprison him for three years. Of course he's contemptible. That can be different from being criminal.
Rubbish. Millions of people, famous and average, have said, openly and freely, that he is a bad president. They were not punished for it. Thousands of people have suggested that he should be impeached, openly and freely, and they have not been punished for it. Some people have even said that he should be murdered, and despite the fact that that would probably get you in trouble if you were talking about someone else, they were not punished for it.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Sadly the idealism of pretecting yourself from your government is a long lost cause
This is a fundamental error that a lot of people make. The "government" isn't a group of aliens or some amorphous blob-like entity which is different from the rest of us. It is us. Its composed of people just like you and me, people who are your neighbours, friends and family. The only real difference is that they have been mandated by the rest of the people to do certain things, like enforce laws, or collect taxes. If you don't want these people to do certain things, the rest of the population needs to tell them that, change their employment contracts. Its when they refuse to listen to the rest of the people that a problem arises.
I think that three years in this case is an excessively long sentence, probably handed down by a judge trying to make an example of this man (am I the only one who feels that lawyers, lawmakers and judges are terrified of the internet for some reason?), but it could have all sorts of knock on consequences for any clown who gets his hackles raised in a flamewar with a troll on the internet, with spurious suits and wasting the time of the courts which could be better spent elsewhere.
Yes, what he said was very wrong and offensive. But three years in jail with rapists, murderers, violent criminals and drug dealers isn't going to make him any better a human being. If he was any way serious about his statements, what it will do is make him a much better connected hate monger. If he wasn't serious about his statements, he most likely will be by the time he makes it out.
The judge in this case could well be accused of knee jerk reactionism, and frankly an abuse of powers.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
This is the key issue here. I feel sorry for the victim and his family, but I don't think what his mother said here makes any sense:
Censorship was one of Hitlers most effective tools, so equating this verdict to "stopping Hitler" is absurd.
"I forgot my mantra."
It is very uncommon to get in trouble for written text or speech. To get in trouble, what you say or write must have the potential to cause violence against minorities.
The reason is of course the Nazi history, which led to a stronger emphasis of the protection of an individual's dignity and safety.
However, there was an interesting verdict in Germany recently, where public display of anti-constitutional symbols (read: the swastika, SS runes or similar) is illegal except for educational or artistic purposes. The owner of a mail-order shop was fined 3600 euros for selling anti-nazi items that contained the swastika (crossed out, thrown in a trash can, etc). The court ruled it was commercial distribution of an anti-constitutional symbol. Reactions to the verdict were between disbelieve and outrage and the Minister of Justice suggested that if the verdict holds, the law would have to be changed.
If you read the article, it talks about child pornography as well, so I do not say it was unfair in this case.
See, and that's quite a similar thing. One could argue child pornography was freedom of expression, at least as long as the children weren't harmed. But luckily, society has agreed on giving the protection of children a higher priority than pedophiles' "right" to look at such material. Similarly, European societies have agreed on giving the protection of minorities a higher priority than racists' "right" to express their hatred against them -- because last time we didn't, it didn't turn out well.
What a society deems acceptable, or what it considers an individual's fundamental right, is based on it's culture and historic experience. Europe's history was very violent, with millions brutally murdered by the Nazis out of hatred against political, religious and racial minorities. That this experience had an effect on its culture can't come as a surprise to anyone. That this is reflected in its laws is only natural, especially since these laws have been written directly after WW II.
Likewise, what US society sees as its fundamental rights, like "unlimited" Free Speech (which really isn't unlimited at all), or the "right" to bear arms, has its roots in the experience of King George's reign. Its strong Christian roots, on the other hand, have resulted in laws against sexual expression which most Europeans would find utterly ridiculous, like that you're not allowed to sell penis shaped vibrators in Texas and that you have to pretend dildos are to educate about proper condom use.
That's incitement to murder, hardly a category of protected speech.
Just calling for violence doesn't automatically exempt speech from protection - SCOTUS ruled in 1969 that "[f]reedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
One can hardly argue that a posting on a web forum is an incitement to imminent lawless action - if he had been speaking at a rally of armed white supremacists who were already whipped into a race-hate frenzy, his ass would be hanging out in the breeze, but in this situation he would be untouched in the US. I doubt there would even be an investigation. One of the few good things left about this country - I don't agree with his beliefs; I find them downright repugnant, but I believe he has every right to express them and certainly don't think he's crossed the line in this case.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
ah, but that's what the purpose of a metamod system is. If an individual truly IS a fanatic with an agenda, he/she will find themselves unable to moderate for much longer. Plus, if mods are browsing at -1 as they should be insightful comments unfairly modded down should be modded back up in short order.
See also Red Herring.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
What do you mean "Experienced"? The US fought in WWII right alongside the allies. The US lost more soldiers than any European country (except for Yugoslavia) during the war. It was an attack on US soil that got them into the war, and it was US bombs that ended it. And after the war was over, it was US dollars that funded the Marshall Plan to rebuild the devastated parts of Europe. So just because the US didn't breed the dictator on its soil, don't say that the US didn't experience him or learn from the catastrophe. The whole fucking world experienced Hitler, including the US - Don't Forget It.
For example I don't think that "overrated" gets meta modded. At least I don't recall seeing it in there. That also, perhaps not coincidentally, is what my posts tend to get moderated most often when they go against the groupthink on Slashdot. I like Windows so I make posts that are unpopular from time to time. So I'll find a post getting moderated up insightful or informative, and down as overrated. Only happens to the posts that go against the groupthink, when I make one propping up OSS, or some that simply deals with another topic I never find it happening.
Basically people are modding it down since they disagree with what I'm saying, and I don't think meta moderation catches them.
Even if it does, that's no guarantee, again because of the whole groupthink thing. If a bunch of metamods decide that they don't like what I said and give props to the overrated mod then nothing happens (supposing it even shows up).
The system isn't bad, but it still has the problem that the quality of moderators is checked by other moderators.
What a society deems acceptable, or what it considers an individual's fundamental right, is based on it's culture and historic experience.
You have to understand that this concept is very hard for Americans to wrap their head around. Americans tend to think in absolutes. It stems from our deeply religious past but also that our founding fathers believed in "natural rights"; there are certain "inalienable" rights that exist independent of our human institutions. This belief motivated the framers of our Constitution to codify these rights in the Bill of Rights.
So when you say something like "well it's up to society to determine what are rights and what should be prohibited" simply does not compute to most Americans. Our rights are our rights by some "divine right" and not to be determined by the whims of society.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
You have to understand that this concept is very hard for Americans to wrap their head around. Americans tend to think in absolutes. It stems from our deeply religious past but also that our founding fathers believed in "natural rights"; there are certain "inalienable" rights that exist independent of our human institutions. This belief motivated the framers of our Constitution to codify these rights in the Bill of Rights.
I don't think we really see it that differently in Europe. It's just that where these rights conflict, like here Freedom of Speech and Human Dignity or the Right to Live, the priorities are different in some rare cases ("Hate Speech" really is the only one I can think of).
So when you say something like "well it's up to society to determine what are rights and what should be prohibited" simply does not compute to most Americans. Our rights are our rights by some "divine right" and not to be determined by the whims of society.
But it seems like society does that all the time. I'd say that with Sex and Drugs, you're generally better off in Europe. In Germany we don't have a general speed limit. We're allowed beer at 16. You can say swear words and show nudity on TV. There are several parties you can vote for to represent you in parliament...
From an outside perspective, it seems there are parts of US society which have a huge influence on what must be considered, if not illegal, then at least political or commercial suicide.
Of course Communism commited genocide. There's no large group of people claiming otherwise. I certainly haven't met any, even among self-proclaimed Marxists. I for one am not going to stand up and defend Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol-Pot and their ilk.
But I will definitely stand up and defend both Socialism and Marxism from being associated with those guys. For the first thing: "Socialism" as a concept and term predates Marx by quite a good amount of time. There is nothing inherently totalitarian about the Workers movement, about government welfare, about socialized health-care or about unions. (Maybe you missed it, but unions were actually banned in Communist countries)
No it is not. That's a stereotyped and oversimplified view of Marxism. "Socialism" in it's broadest meaning is nothing more and nothing less than the opinion that the government should act (to whatever extent) to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. It's also strongly coupled to the Workers' movement, meaning support of demands for labor laws and fair working conditions, etc. In other words, the view that private property rights can sometimes (or always) be overridden in order to promote social fairness. (Now, Marx had his own definition. But anyone holding to that one is per definition a Marxist)
To detail, Social Democracy was born out of Marxism, combined with the conviction that revolution would cause injustice. That socialist goals could be better achived through more moderate means. During the 20th century, they've also successivly abandoned quite a lot of Marxism. Most Soc-Dems don't advocate a fully planned economy anymore. Marx's historic and economic theories have been abandoned in general by Soc-Dems.
Why should I acknowledge such a blatantly false statement? Tell me, which genocides have occured in Social Democrat-ruled countries? I don't see how you can put Tony Blair in the same boat as Stalin. But by all means, if you think you can give an argument on how trade unions and universal health care ipso facto leads to genocide, I suggst you do so.
Now, if you want to say that Communism sucks, that's fine. But if think the examples you cited are somthing advocated by Karl Marx, then you frankly don't have a clue what you're talking about, whatever you may think of his theories. If you want to claim that Marxism inherently leads to totalitarianism regardless, that's fine too - there have been cogent arguments to that effect. (E.g. Popper's Open society and its enemies)
But don't be so utterly stupid as to confuse the whole Socialist movement with its radical factions. Because the extremes of all ideologies lead to totalitarianism. And you need to go look up "Fascism" as well You said it yourself - it's not the beliefs, it's the type of government. Or rather, it's the conviction that you hold an absolute truth.
With exemption for the smaller local fish, such as mayors, etc, I - nor anyone in my social circle - have never personally had dinner with, shook hands with, met, or otherwise associated with somebody whom is or has been in the upper balances of government. Moreover, if I had, said person would be very unlikely to have had any time for me.
Why? Because I'm not rich, famous, influential. I am a normal citizen, possibly about average financially for my age, but by no means wealthy nor powerful. Don't kid yourself that I am other common folk are on the same scale as most politicians in this manner, as most come from wealthy or otherwise heavily influencial and/or powerful families.
The last time I heard of a more common man in government in this continent, it was after the people rose up and overthrew the existing government.
As for making an example of somebody, believe it or not but that is part of what the criminal system does. Not everyone gets a speeding ticket, not everyone gets a prison sentence, but the possibility that one might is supposed to be part of the dissuasive factor in the system. No, jailtime might not make this individual a better person, in fact I'd side with "probably won't", but it may dissuade others with similar notions.