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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.'"
...they'd start charging all the -1 Trolls on Slashdot. Now that would be progress.
Eeerk, I didn't realise we had laws like that in the UK... I need to step up my "move to sweden" plan.
He got 6 months of his sentence for child pornography charges.
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
Maybe you are not aware, but there is no free speech in Europe, at least not like in the US. It is not uncommon to get in trouble for written text or speech.
If you read the article, it talks about child pornography as well, so I do not say it was unfair in this case.
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.
as if millions of GNAA trolls screamed out in horror then were thrown in prison...
Monstar L
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.'
How did she know that he read slashdot?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
"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"...
Bad submitter, bad!
TFA doesn't say anything about what crime in particular he was jailed for, and his sentence may have been partly or completely due to his having 33 images of child pornography on his computer.
TFA is also very lacking in details, and doesn't say anything about the reason for the search warrant, and the aforementioned lack of explanation for his sentence.
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
If you knew anything about the case in question, you wouldn't have any sympathy period.
Anthony Walker was a nice black kid, waiting at a bus stop with a couple of white friends when a bunch of thugs starting shouting racist abuse at them. After they attempted to walk away from the abuse, the thugs chased then down, and murdered Walker by plunging an ice pick into his head.
It was a shockingly brutal and unprovoked attack that shocked the vast majority of people in the country.
Then less than a week after this happens, this guy anonymously posts on a memorial website that white people should celebrate the murder, that Anthony's family should be burned and made references to slavery and a "banana boat".
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
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.
The UK had hardly any gun control laws prior to about 1920, when the government began to worry about Bolshevik uprisings.
Prior to that, there had actually been a history of private firearm ownership *and legal protection for same*. See an historian's book about UK/US firearm regulation history for details. The Glorious Revolution produced a charter of rights guaranteeing weapons posession (by Protestants only, but that's another issue). This is all well documented but almost forgotten.
(Not to mention that our notions about using force in self-defense come from UK law).
The US may be unusually devoted to free speech, but our reasons come from your own philosopher John Stuart Mill. For one thing, the arguments on the side of good (e.g. cooperation among racial groups) need to be refined and tested against counter-arguments to make sure they will convince people and thus improve society. For another, it's important to know how widespread racism actually is. Driving something underground only gives you the illusion of safety. For another, it's also good speech that can be unpopular. In 1830 you abolished slavery, after decades of abolitionists speaking against the "property rights" of slavers and calling them names. Fortunately the abolitionists were not suppressed for "hate speech".
The US also has a problem that makes regulation of speech dangerous. Some people here are far too quick to label any criticism as being racist. Fallacious scientific research, objections to affirmative action, and references to the Mafia have all drawn allegations of racism. Hernstein and Murray deserve to be exposed as wrong, not to be imprisoned. Affirmative action may not be working the way it's supposed to and that's a subject that needs careful discussion to protect everyone's rights.
Ok. Bush sucks. I say we storm the Whitehouse and hang him. See? Nothing happened I'm stil jus&^)(*&SAJDH*()& ----NO CARRIER----
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.
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.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
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.
The story to read is this one.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
See also Red Herring.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
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.