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Twitter Jokes: Free Speech On Trial
An anonymous reader writes "On 6 January 2010, Paul Chambers typed a flippant tweet that would turn his life upside-down for the next two and a half years. As the courts repeatedly showed a lack of common sense and an ignorance of technology, for a long time it looked as though the right to free speech in the UK was under very real threat. Now that it's over, we can step back and take a detailed look at how such an insane case even came to trial. This article delves deep into the the Twitter Joke Trial: how it happened, what it means, and the epic struggle to balance civility and civil liberties."
...because here it would have gone all the way to SCOTUS and the conviction would of been upheld.
Even countries that don't have explicit free speech now have more free speech than the U.S.
(and I know that the EU has explicit free speech in their charter but how often does that really get upheld?)
There is no right to free speech in the United Kingdom. They do not have a Declaration of Independence. There is no comparable document. Check your facts.
If you say "I'm going to kill you if you do that again" should you go to jail?
Just because it is a bit buried in TFA.
Now, I'm not going to side with the government here(who would?), but the assertion that free speech was in jeopardy is real mistake. All sorts of things that are speech are not legal, and if you flagrantly slander someone, or make threats that imply risk of harm to others, or have a youtube channel that promotes terrorism, governments have shown more than enough willingness to let their beliefs about criminality override the core ideal of free speech.
And that's what free-speech is, an ideal, a goal, not an impossible-to-violate core component of society. There are no perfect guardians of that ideal. Not the citizenry, not the elected official, not the courts, and not the police. All you can do is try to make judgements about how and when you can defend your ideals, and do so the best of your abilities.
> it is similar to shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.
No it's not. Not even close.
What always annoys me about this example is that it ignores the possibility of there actually being a fire. Or the perception of a fire. Or something misheard as "fire". Sure, prosecute the liar, but what about good-faith attempts to save lives?
By going after someone for a silly twitter comment, you can put on a big show of pretending to do your job with no personal risk at all.
It is very hard for police or prosecution to ever back down. It's embarassing to them. Their culture doesn't allow it, and those on the political side would lose face. Once the legal action has been initiated, it cannot be stopped until a conclusion is reached. This is true in the UK as much as in the US. It's a very good reason to stay away from the police: A single mistake on their part can easily bloom into a years-long life-ruining legal struggle.
The saddest part of this story is that it could've been stopped before it began: the manager who discovered the tweet, the airport police, the police, none of them thought there was a credible threat but rather than assume responsibility they decided to pass the buck to someone else effectively pushing the case further and further up the chain.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
The final verdict was that not only was he not guilty but that he shouldn't have even been brought to trial.
It sets a precident for future trials, and so is a very good thing.
Of course it's a huge failure for the person involved, but the result did work out well.
I see no reason why this tweet should be protected free speech, it is similar to shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.
Really, jackass? The reason it's illegal to yell 'fire' in a crowded place is because of the direct harm to life and limb that will occur when the crowd panics and begins stampeding out.
Who got hurt because of this tweet? Who died? Not a damn soul.
Whether a joke or not, it looked sufficiently realistic a threat and the sender should've known this.
Bullshit. Straight up, unadulterated bullshit. This isn't some known terrorist organization making threats, it was a gaddamn accountant bitching about his flight being delayed. Anyone who actually believed this guy was going to do anything other than deal with the flight delay is a fucking imbecile who should be sterilized for the good of the species. That includes you, AC.
Though not enough for years of imprisonment, this is certainly to persecute him and scare the shit out of him to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Right, 'cause the entire purpose of the legal system is to intimidate those who can't afford protracted legal battles into being good, submissive little serfs, right?
Fuck you, fuck the prosecutors who brought this case, and fuck the authoritarian regimes who push such bullshit policies.
I swear I don't know which is worse: The elitist fucks who are working their damnedest to set up permanent police states, or the loser apologists who expect the rest of us to drop trou and grab ankles as readily as themselves.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Anyone who knows this airport knows it was a joke. I'm not joking when I say that it's small...... huge runway but as an airport it's very quiet.
The issue, as it has always been with the internet, missing infliction..
I'm all for free speech, but threatening to blow up an airport is definitely a good way to get in trouble. Guy is a complete idiot.
No it doesn't, the source of the phrase is "the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic". Seems pretty clear there is no problem if you have no intent to cause harm.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
prosecute the liar
Prosecute the people who cause damage (the people who hurt others trying to save their own skin). Kick the guy interrupting the movie out.
That said, yelling fire in a theater is nothing like telling a joke a website. I hope AC was trolling.
Whether a joke or not, it looked sufficiently realistic a threat and the sender should've known this.
I totally disagree. It's an ordinary expression of frustration, not a credible threat.
We've all said similar things, and many people write similar things in our modern informal online media.
No one could have expected this guy to anticipate the overreaction.
He should have said that he meant he was offering oral sex - you know "blowing".
Now, I know that a horny boy behind a keyboard has trouble differentiating between civilized and uncivilized comments, and I think many of us who have been there would agree, but that is why we have private tweets. Of course for some of u narcissism, horniness, voyeurism, and bravado intersect and we end up in trouble. Like when we try to impress a girl while drunk at a bar and end up hitting a police officer. Not our fault, just bad luck.
The lesson is that tweets that are not semi-private are very public and can be misconstrued. Also, cooperating with the police is often not the best course when one is innocent, while the best way to be proven guilty is to not have a highly competent solicitor/lawyer/abogado.
If someone threatened to blow up my house if I did not fix it I would take that as a serious, though non credible, threat. I do not go through airports threatening to blow them up, even when it was in fashion. I do make fun of the police even though of my friends did. It is not that I did know I the write to do so, it was simply that I had other means of venting and expressing my frustrations.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Here is his tweet:
"Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!"
Yeah, that's pretty bad. It will take cases like this for people to realize that anything they say online is instantly public and viewable by the entire world.
Speech has consequences. If you threaten to blow up airports, you will probably be prosecuted.
...that they didn't shot him 7 times in the head:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes
As with all crimes, one of the issues in finding guilt AND in sentencing is intent. While uttering threats should be illegal, whether or not a charge is even brought or the extent of the penalty if found guilty is dependent on the context and intent.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
it is similar to shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre
Where have I heard that expression before...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
Palm trees and 8
>> missing infliction
I think you meant "inflection".
(Feel free to add any infliction/inflection to my comment as you see fit.)
I find this to be more a comment on the media driven nature of government officials then on free speech. This is the story of a man's life ruined by government officials who did not have the common sense nor decency to tell the media that there is no story here and that they should bugger off. Instead these morons put a man on trial for his sense of humor. I have said similar things in the past with no intent of committing any actual act of violence. I have heard or read a great many such comments made (admittedly generally by young men). Any one of my friends could be up on charges right now if a journalist had decided to take interest due to a slow news day, and then applied pressure to get more information. So, who is more guilty; the journalist who ignored his public responsibility to find real news stories and used the power of the press inappropriately, or the officers who knew darn well that this man was not a threat to the public, but charged him anyways due to the pressure applied by bored journalists. You decide. The second to the last sentence is a horrible run-on, but an English major I will never be.
"European Convention on Human Rights to which the UK is a signatory includes the right to free speech."
Article 9 states (bold is mine): "Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."
Public order? Morals? That's a whole set up loopholes you could drive a fleet of trucks through.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
You should really read the full article. I know a whole 5 pages wahhh, but seriously it is well written and a very scary tale of someone being railroaded by the legal system. It was only through the charity of some celebrities and twitterers that he was able to appeal and get it overturned. Most of us would just be screwed and have to live with it. In the end he still had to go through losing his job and the ordeal of being a convicted criminal. Sad.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I see no reason why this tweet should be protected free speech, it is similar to shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre.
Really, jackass? The reason it's illegal to yell 'fire' in a crowded place is because of the direct harm to life and limb that will occur when the crowd panics and begins stampeding out.
whine whine whine
By your test, nothing is a threat unless it is actually carried out (everyone knew the identity of the person tweeting with such confidence? Like accountants can't kill people?) I suggest you look up what the term threat means, since your expectations are very unrealistic. We typically don't wait for someone to die before deciding that exceedingly risky behavior should be discouraged by way of law.
You are clearly very passionate about free speech, which is a good thing. You are also clearly very naive when it comes to what is required of a civilized society to not break down under the weight of trying to preserve every idiot's right to it. There is give and take.
THIS is why I continually question the way "free speech" (it really isn't) is implemented in the UK. You people are completely crackers and and have NO IDEA why its so important.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Blame the apologists. They are the enablers. Without them no dictatorship can ever survive. They are the ones who execute the orders and pull the trigger.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Or "I'm going to kill you if you say 'I'm going to kill you if you do that again' again".
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Thank you for the correction. :)
We typically don't wait for someone to die before deciding that exceedingly risky behavior should be discouraged by way of law.
I'd much rather risk someone's death than overreact to everything, take everything out of context, and harass people who intended no harm.
Paranoia is how we get useless organizations like the TSA who violate everyone's rights.
You are clearly very passionate about free speech, which is a good thing.
You don't seem to act like it is.
You are also clearly very naive when it comes to what is required of a civilized society to not break down under the weight of trying to preserve every idiot's right to it.
By no means would society break down by not overreacting to what I believe was clearly not an actual threat. But of course, such a society doesn't have much free speech, anyway.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
We typically don't wait for someone to die before deciding that exceedingly risky behavior should be discouraged by way of law.
Oh, let me try! Posting a tweet is obviously "very risky behavior," and so we should prevent users from posting anything which might be considered a "threat"! Did I do good?
You are also clearly very naive when it comes to what is required of a civilized society to not break down under the weight of trying to preserve every idiot's right to it.
Can I can try this one, too? A "civilized" society ought to be aggressive in preventing idiots from making threats, so as to not disrupt society. Thus, it was right for society to bring down this mild-mannered accountant for expressing his frustration at the delay!
Captcha: blunders
There is give and take.
There totally is: thought police for life!
uttering threats should be illegal
That's the worst idea I've heard today. I'll leave the ad absurdum argument as an exercise for the reader.
Good thing he didn't tweet that he was going to Legitimately rape anyone!
We typically don't wait for someone to die before deciding that exceedingly risky behavior should be discouraged by way of law.
I'd much rather risk someone's death than overreact to everything, take everything out of context, and harass people who intended no harm.
Paranoia is how we get useless organizations like the TSA who violate everyone's rights.
You are clearly very passionate about free speech, which is a good thing.
You don't seem to act like it is.
You are also clearly very naive when it comes to what is required of a civilized society to not break down under the weight of trying to preserve every idiot's right to it.
By no means would society break down by not overreacting to what I believe was clearly not an actual threat. But of course, such a society doesn't have much free speech, anyway.
Good thing we have you on hand to tell us what is and isn't an actual threat. Next time you see some hijackers getting on to some planes, are you going to wink, or nod, or both?
Great Britain to me has become a regime of politically correct tyranny and is not a country I will ever visit for any reason.
Which is sad, because I've always gotten along quite well with Brits, but their laws and they're willingness to abide by rule of hyper-sensitive sissy boys and have the government be their nanny is quite deplorable.
Lay down and be calm while your wife and children are raped and murdered -- the PC-person willnbevthere shortly.
Do not say anything that might ever hurt the feelings of someone or you'll go to jail
Smile for the camera! Can't have enough surveillance let's add a million more cameras!
Don't say or do anything that might run contrary to American law or American interest, you will be extradited even if your actions are perfectly legal here
Fuck britain
Please note that US law does not hold in the UK. In particular, the UK has not constitution (or separation of powers for that matter) so protection of the right to freedom of speech is not as such a defense. Whatever is passed by 50% + 1 of the Parliament and then signed by the Queen becomes law and cannot really be disputed.
Let me repeat myself: "Paranoia is how we get useless organizations like the TSA who violate everyone's rights."
I don't believe you're helping in this regard. You will never be perfectly safe, and the solution is to not overreact. If it appears to be a joke, then there is nothing that can be done.
I'd tell you to stop worrying about nearly nonexistent threats, but I think that just isn't going to happen.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Actually, I think this case stopped having anything to do with guilt or innocence a while ago.
Once this case got blown out of proportion, the government changed tack. What they then wanted from this case is for ordinary people to say "hell, I'm not telling a joke about acts of terror, remember that guy they screwed over?" Nobody's going to remember the verdict, but we'll all remember the two years of crap this guy got.
Sure, the twitterverse is temporarily full of stupid people reposting this twat's tweet. But that will quickly die down now that the circus is over. So they'll happily settle for the chilling effect of their Orwellian response, and not have to deal with so many of these boors in the future.
John
It was easy upon inspection.
Your post would be alot easier to read if you didn't resort to ad-hominem attacks and swearing. I didn't bother reading it all because I'm not going to reward someone who can't have a reasonable discussion without resulting to insults by allowing their post to become part of the discussion.
Ve have always told you zat ze Britisch have no humour! At all! Ha-Ha!
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
More generally, I wonder if there is some theory about what should be exempted from "free speech"? To me, it seems very arbitrary in many western countries: threats is the big one, harassment, "yelling fire", copyright, trade secrets, circumvention devices, military secrets, privacy laws. I realise that it's not possible to derive a legal system from basic axioms, but it always seems a bit hypocritical when someone complains about some "decency" law in a backwards country. How do we know that prohibiting threats is good for society?
By your test, nothing is a threat unless it is actually carried out (everyone knew the identity of the person tweeting with such confidence? Like accountants can't kill people?) I suggest you look up what the term threat means, since your expectations are very unrealistic. We typically don't wait for someone to die before deciding that exceedingly risky behavior should be discouraged by way of law.
Uh, no, you're just continuing your original line of jackassery. Ever hear of a little process called 'police work?' it goes like this:
1) person makes potentially threatening statement
2) the authorities do their fucking jobs by investigating the person who made the statement, and determining whether it's a legitimate threat, or if it's just some pissed off citizen venting
3) if, and only if, the evidence supports arrest (i.e., the person who made the statement has a history of violent conduct, or is known to be affiliated with terrorist groups, or any of a thousand legitimate reasons to fuck with someone), then the police can and should issue a warrant.
You are also clearly very naive when it comes to what is required of a civilized society to not break down under the weight of trying to preserve every idiot's right to it.
No, I don't take well to morons who, obviously incapable of anything even resembling cogent thought processes, think of the world in all-or-nothing, black-and-white terms.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I fully agree w/ your request for more sexual activity among people belonging to such different social groups. This however w/ one exception - authoritarian governments. There are two reasons why. Firstly, I really do not think that most of us would enjoy it except maybe small masochistic minority among us. Secondly, I think to suggest that this case is a proof UK gov is authoritarian on base of this case is silly - they let him go after all and to go this far was really caused by ignorance and sign of major cockup in local police and crown prosecution. There are many other reasons that justify calling them silly & going in authoritarian direction, this case is not one of them.
Outstanding. Very good rant. Lewis Black would be proud. :)
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
By your test, nothing is a threat unless it is actually carried out (everyone knew the identity of the person tweeting with such confidence? Like accountants can't kill people?) I suggest you look up what the term threat means, since your expectations are very unrealistic. We typically don't wait for someone to die before deciding that exceedingly risky behavior should be discouraged by way of law.
I do have to wonder -- did you read the article? All six pages? This was, in fact, one of the things talked about by the judges who ultimately reversed his conviction. The police themselves did not take his threat seriously, until someone suddenly decided that he needed to be made an example of. The fact that they didn't take the threat seriously indicated to the judges that the threat did not 'menace' anyone, as required by the law he was convicted under -- they stated that in order for there to be 'menace', someone actually has to be afraid. Since he wasn't actually doing anything, and there is no evidence or testimony that anyone was really afraid that he was going to, the court ruled that his tweet did not qualify as "menacing" under the statute.
If there had been real fear -- e.g., if the airport could have produced any evidence that anyone contacted them saying, "I think this guy's going to try to blow your airport up" -- then the statute would have applied. This seems to me like a reasonable standard, so long as the law considers the threshold to be what a "reasonable person" would consider threatening. Outlawing all threats, regardless of how much they might lack any credibility, leads to things like we see happening in the US right now, where elementary school students have been arrested for making "terroristic threats" for angrily saying they wanted to kill their teachers.
It was obvious he shouldn't have limited his opinion to just the airport, but the whole of Doncaster.
Waiting for an amusing sig.
The main worry then is who gets to determine what constitutes "intent to cause harm" -- the original case was about handing out an anti-draft flier during World War I. Speaking out against government war policy was an intent to cause harm (to the government's policies). It was later overturned, but still a good cautionary tale regarding censorship.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Ugh, your mothers should have used contraception.
Actually, the thing is the example DOES provide it, the problem is too many people butcher the shit out of the quote and leave the important points in the example out, and as a result all we have is a discombobulated mess.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
One thing that people who keep referring to that example keep forgetting is the original context in which it was used. To remind, this was Schenck v. United States, a Supreme Court case where they found that it was legal for the government to prosecute people who published propaganda against military draft during WW1. The specific slogans that he was indicted for included "Do not submit to intimidation" and "Assert your rights".
So, whenever someone brings that example up, be sure to check whether it does indeed have as much in common with the actual situation at hand as the original instance in which it was (ab)used.
How do we know that prohibiting threats is good for society?
Stopping people from getting hurt is good for society. Stopping threats? Not so much. Investigate the person who issued the threat (provided it doesn't look like an obvious joke) and if you find evidence that he or she was going to go through with the threat, then do something about it.
Laws against yelling fire are just silly. Kick them out of the theater, yeah, but arrest them? No. If anyone causes damage, they should have to pay for it. And by that I mean people scrambling out of the theater trying to save their own lives from a nonexistent threat because they're incredibly credulous.
No one seems to have brought up Brandon Ruub. US Vet held for Facebook Post. He posted on facebook and was locked up. The scary part was the judge that gave the release found no grounds for the hold. Glad the US and UK are so in step with trying to lock people up.
Naw, it's all about the area you are in.
While that's a great internet meme video, in a lot of areas, it's actually better just to be a "little guy". It's when you get all fancy "upholding your rights" that you'll get in trouble, because so help you if you mess up one line of your "script" the grumpy officer will then go ballistic on you.
This is all made difficult because each town has about three "moods" depending on which set of officers is on shift, times the number of towns in an area. But I've done far better with "Yes Officer, my license is a week expired, but see, this is Route 28, I'm on my way to the DMV 20 miles up that way to go fix it. There's a new section on the form that asks for 'any license number you ever had in the last 10 years' that took me a week to figure out."
That's usually all it takes to get a Warning. If you get all fancy like "I don't have to talk to you", they get pissed, then they unload on you.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Why are you focusing on irrelevancies instead of the actual arguments that he made?
Your post would be alot easier to read if you didn't resort to ad-hominem attacks and swearing.
It's incredibly easy to read. Why is it that you have trouble reading it? Even the attacks and swearing are easy to read. Nothing is wrong with swearing, anyway. I don't think so, anyway, but I'm not the kind of person who would stop reading someone's comment just because a string of letters that I don't like showed up in it.
Maybe. Sometimes.
Are you holding a knife when you say it?
Do you have that look in your eyes when you say it?
Does the other person really believe you mean it?
Reading the article, seems that pretty much nobody took the "threat" seriously. Had it been "sufficiently realistic", I'd assume people would take it a bit more seriously.
In capitalist USA corporations control the government.
Paranoia is how we get useless organizations like the TSA who violate everyone's rights.
The fact that the TSA is "useless" to you does not imply that it isn't extremely useful to the people that established and perpetuate it.