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Manchester's Self-Described 'Internet Troll' Jailed For Offensive Web Posts
noob22 writes "According to BBC Online, 'An "internet troll" who posted obscene messages on Facebook sites set up in memory of dead people has been jailed. Colm Coss, of Ardwick, Manchester, posted on a memorial page for Big Brother star Jade Goody and a tribute site to John Paul Massey, a Liverpool boy mauled to death by a dog. The 36-year-old "preyed on bereaved families" for his "own pleasure," Manchester Magistrates Court heard.'" My favorite line: "Unemployed Coss was only caught when he sent residents on his street photos of himself saying he was an internet 'troll.'"
Not at all. If he'd used a megaphone he would have been guilty of Breach of The Peace, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, or some other equally relevent law. This is a case of the law catching up with modern technology ie. applying the same rules of conduct we have in everyday life to that which occurs online. Now you may disagree with the law and thats another situation all together, but its wrong to claim this is anything but an adaptation of current laws. Heck look at the development of the language used - the Telecommunications Act of 1984 sees alternations in the terminology used from "telecommunication system" to "electronic communications network" along with changes in what those mean. This is the evolution of law to adapt to the new challenges of online communication.
The biggest threat to democracy is wilfully uninformed voters.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Even in Europe, you can believe what you want. Publicly denying the holocaust might result in fines. If you do it to instigate hatred, you might do some jail time, too.
So there it is, the guidelines wanted 12 weeks but that was more than doubled by the seriousness of the case and the specific fact-pattern. 8 weeks were then lopped off for making a guilty plea. Bit of math to help the geek cred.
Ethnic cleansing shouldn't be confused with the methods used to achieve it, such as genocide. Ethnic cleansing is the removal of an ethnic group from a certain location by any targetted means, either legal, semi-legal or otherwise. Ethnic cleansing is fairly universally acknowledged as having taken past in Israel in the past:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_exodus
Arguably the creeping borders of the security fencing and steady expansions of Jewish settlements represents a low-intensity ethnic cleansing to this day. How welcome do you think local Arab farmers would feel in buying a house in the new Jewish settlements?
I'm no expert, but it doesn't sound preposterous to call that ethnic cleansing.