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UK Police Arrest 12 Over Facebook Use Inciting Riots
An anonymous reader writes "Scotland Yard vowed to track down and arrest protesters who posted 'really inflammatory, inaccurate' messages on Facebook, but it didn't stop at just two people. While two teenagers were arrested earlier this week in connection with messages posted on Facebook allegedly encouraging people to start rioting, 10 more have now joined them."
If you're going to bust everyone who posts THOSE on Facebook, you're going to need a helluva lot more cops.
But, then, I never realized that posting inaccurate information was a jailable offense in the UK. But then, I guess if you piss off the powerful people in any given country, just about anything is a jailable offense, isn't it?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
They shot and killed an armed drug dealer. It may not have been justified, but he was not "innocent".
The riots weren't about protesting that even. They were just an excuse to destroy and steal.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
At the moment, it isn't the rich and powerful, it's middle class shopkeepers who have seen their livelihoods go up in flames as gangs of hooligans loot, pillage and destroy. If the police can gain of evidence of incitement from their Facebook pages, all the power to them. Freedom, online or off, does not mean you get to organize riots and I hope they throw the book at these vile anti-social bastards.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Methinks you're romanticizing the "rebels" here. The riots aren't about ideology or protests. "Everyone else is getting free stuff and having a good time burning stuff! Want!" is not a movement inspired by martyrs, unless you do it in a really heavy handed way. If they broadcast a webcam of these people being beaten to death by police, maybe.
Taking down people for organizing some store-burning though, no. Many of the rioters seem to be cowards who were only smashing and stealing because they assumed they could get away with it, or they were going with the crowd. I suspect a few arrests will send most of the rioters to cover.
If they forcibly break up peaceful marches and demonstrations, then sure. There are of course real issues and legitimate anger there, and the government would be wise to avoid taking a hard line with protesters who know they are doing nothing wrong. Taking a hard line against people just looking to steal TVs though will be effective. If there are similar riots here in the US with similar people involved in it, part of me hopes the police bring out the rubber bullets.
V for Vendetta had a point - and that point wasn't mindless looting and rioting, which is what is going on at the moment.
There is nothing politically orientated about the UK riots, its literally just idiots doing whatever they think they can get away with. So yeah, take these ten, and the ten after that, and the next ten - until they get the message that this kind of behaviour in the UK is not acceptable. We are already a democracy, we already have a say in our governance - think rioting is going to improve anything...?
I don't know what they posted, but inciting a riot is a crime in the US too. Whether that's an infraction on Freedom of Speech or not is another debate. This is different because instead of doing it in person, they're doing it "over the Internet" and because there could be doubt over whether they actually intended to incite a riot or whether they actually had any influence over the riot starting (doubtful). Although if encouraging violence over the Internet is going to be punished, then a lot of people are in big trouble - And please go set fire to anyone who disagrees with that statement.
Of course... It's not hard to find people in the US that have been jailed for encouraging violence on-line, but it's typically very specific violence toward a very specific target, with confidence that it will be carried out.
Yes it seems like they're overstepping here, but complete freedom to say whatever you want isn't something we're in danger of losing - It's something that we've already given up.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Not too long ago I remember some other governments going after protesters that organized on facebook. How is this any different?
This wasn't a protest. It was a riot. There was no purpose for any of it beyond breaking, burning and stealing.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
They've basically had magistrates working graveyard shifts to process arrested rioters. The government is already doing a lot. The initial failure, at least in London, was the Met basically taking the kindly modern-day tactic of letting the rioters do whatever they want within a contained area. Of course, at some point the people who lived in the Tottenham district kind of lost patience with this containment tactic, as did Britons in general, and after the riots spread and similar police tactics were used elsewhere, basically the public wants the government to untie the hands of the police so they can do a proper job of saving property and lives.
The Facebook arrests appear to be over incitement, an illegal activity. If these stupid assholes were just bullshitting on the Internet, well, I suppose they might be able to convince a judge, but I suspect the courts, who will see it as their duty to make sure that any kind of incitement, even by big-mouthed fucktards, gets duly punished, will do thusly to them.
Here's a hint. When there are riots going on, buildings burned, people being killed, you have to a special kind of idiot to post messages of incitement on Facebook. I say throw the book at 'em.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I can post, "EVERYONE GO RIOT NOW" all day long without hurting a soul.
Absolutely, and I can shout "get him Rover, kill kill!" without causing any damage at all or I can spend all day saying "I will give you $100,000 if you kill my wife" without any consequence but if I do either of those things as a way of actually getting someone killed as opposed to, for example, rehearsing my lines in a play then I should be locked up. Get it?
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
One man's protest is another man's riot. I'm pretty sure, Gaddafi called his protesters rioters too.
Actually no, that's not true. I don't think anyone at all who knows anything about this believes it was a protest. Including the rioters. Let's be clear on this because it seems a lot of (non-British?) commenters seem to think that there was some political motivation behind the riots. There was none. None. There was a protest regarding the shooting of Mark Duggan by the police. Following on from that was a riot that lasted until morning by people not involved in the protest. The next night there was another riot. The next night there were riots in a few other cities on top of London. The first used the protest as an excuse to riot but had no connection to it, the subsequent riots had no pretence whatsoever.
TLDR:
Nobody was saying "Let's go out and show what we can do unless our voices are heard!". They were saying "Lots of people on the street, let's destroy some shit and loot what we can while the police are occupied".
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Unless you own a bank and you loot a nation.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If by demonstration of force you mean the way they ransacked a good chunk of London, set buildings on fire, stole from defenceless individuals, left people homeless, terrified neighbourhoods, caused millions' worth of property damage, disrupted the lives of millions of people, etc... then you got that right, those are the mechanics of opression.
If you're talking about the Police, who treated the rioters with kid gloves then you got it hopelessly wrong.
A police spokesperson stated that given the heightened level of fear and the continued threat of violence what was considered "reasonable" use of force (the amount of force you're legally allowed to use in self-defence) would also be increased. Which I took to mean: If you have a gang of 5-10 youths trying to kick your door in, or break in through your window and you ding a couple with your cricket bat, you're more likely to get off than you would under normal circumstances.