Slashdot Mirror
Australia Attorney General Proposes New Laws To Stop Twitter Trolls
CuteSteveJobs writes "Australian Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has flagged new laws to end anonymous trolling via Twitter: 'Twitter should reveal the identities of the anonymous trolls who are breaking the law by abusing others online.' The new laws were proposed after trolls attacked Footballer Robbie Farah. Farah was later granted a meeting with the Prime Minister to to discuss social media abuse. Ironically today it was revealed that Farah himself had trolled the Prime Minister telling her to 'Get a Noose' on her 50th birthday."
This isn't going to end well for Roxon.
Really, everyone know's trolls don't really exist! I check under every bridge I cross and I've never found one. Silly people.
Who gets to decide what is, and is not, trolling? Will trolling be a crime, and under what statute? How much will the "troll patrol" cost?
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
The interesting thing that a lot of Australian Internet Users miss is that we (Australians) do not have a provision garanteeing or protecting free speech. All internet posts are pretty much covered under the libel and slander laws.
The MyTh - I am a figment of the Imagination - [Im Probably even not here]
Or will they also go after the shockjocks and the printed media?
bash$
2010 'Won't somebody think about the children!'
2012 'Won't somebody think about the twits!'
But then, being a politician does that to people. Or maybe it's just our dumping ground for people too stupid to do useful work.
A Twitter user or troll found to ''menace, harass or cause offence'' using the social networking medium could be jailed for up to three years.
Yeah, because offence is never a subjective thing used for censorship - such as when cries of "blasphemy!" are hurled around at the first criticism of cherished beliefs.
It's bullshit. Harassment and threats are already taken care of under law, and should be taken seriously. I'm not a fan of twats on the Internet thinking they can issue threats with impunity, but also not seeing a need for yet another fucking law to remove freedom of speech in favour of people who take offence at near enough anything.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Institute compulsory spellchecking?
-- Using the preview button since 2005
no one HAS to use twitter. get a life, or develop rhino hide....
Going by current ideas, anybody who doesn't agree with another persons view is a troll!
Freedom of speech is therefore not supported in Australia. (Australia has no bill of rights or real constitution anyway!)
We have become such a baby minded society.
"MUMMY, someone said something nasty to me and made me CRY!!!!! Booohhooooo!!!!!
Oops!, I'm not allowed to say that, I must be a troll, because I had an opinion!
God forbid if anybody in Australia was to actually think for themselves, be grown up, or have an opinion!
Just make sure people know whatever they say online can be used against them, possibly forever. The very, very least needed is pseudonymity as here on ./. But I guess the raise of the ACs observable recently shows that a lot of people do not even trust that. Chilling effects indeed.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The interesting thing that a lot of Australian Internet Users miss is that we (Australians) do not have a provision garanteeing or protecting free speech. All internet posts are pretty much covered under the libel and slander laws.
The interesting part is that this is a myth.
Speech is one of the five fundamental freedoms that every Australian is entitled to. The other four are Association, Assembly, Movement and Religion. Feel free to have a read.
What we don't have is a US style bill of rights, but just like the US's bill of rights Australia's five fundamental freedoms is only as good as the people who defend it (it's for this reason I believe Oz doesn't need a bill of rights).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The irony is that if Nicola Roxon posted this on twitter it would have had to be removed due to trolling. Because really, how do you draw the line between trolling and comments you dislike or anger you and your fat mother?
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Trolling is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure when Chanology was going on, Scientology would have LOVED a law like this.
I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
Was the famous Michael Atkinson. There was a massive backlash and he was forced to repeal it a rush. I suspect the same might happen here once the public realise the implications of such a law.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/victory-atkinson-loosens-gag/story-e6frea6u-1225826104175
Area51 - We are watching...
The identity of a supposed troll has no legitimate use to the recipient of those identities if not to take legal action.
So if no legal action is taken, revealing identities has no justifiable purpose. Unless the "justification" is vigilante justice.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
one mans troll is another mans philosopher
...I obey the laws of physics....
So you think you have free speech because a government web site says you do? Let's look at that a little deeper:
... ", ..." (which is true, assuming there's a law that says a soldier is allowed to kill someone else, and the "Australian" in question in my sentence happens to be one, and feel like killing an enemy...)
http://www.immi.gov.au/living-in-australia/choose-australia/about-australia/five-freedoms.htm
" Australians are free, within the bounds of the law, to say or write
Sounds good, but you can do anything within the bounds of the law. Here's an equivalent sentence I just made up:-
" Australians are free, within the bounds of the law, to kill anyone they like, at any time
Their quote continues:
" Free speech comes from facts, not rumours "
Which I could legitimately re-write as so:-
" Australia has laws to prevent you from saying anything you cannot prove. You are not free to spread rumours which you suspect but cannot prove because you are missing information (more on that below)." And God helps anyone who gives you that missing information!
And more:
" and the intention must be constructive, not to do harm. "
LOL. You have the right to speak out, so long as you are constructive to your opponents and do not harm them.
Sounding less and less "free" to me...
It continues:
" There are laws to protect a person's good name and integrity against false information. There are laws against saying or writing things to incite hatred against others because of their culture, ethnicity or background. "
At what point do we draw the line and drop the word "Free" entirely I wonder?
And it ends with a doozy:
" Freedom of speech is not an excuse to harm others" (even if they deserve it!)
So basically, you can do anything that's as fucked up and stupid as you like, because nobody is allowed to tell anyone else about it, because it might harm you...
James Ashby who is now facing 10 years in prison: "Mr Slipper's lawyers suggested James Ashby could have breached sections of the Commonwealth Crimes Act, which prohibits public servants from publishing or communicating internal documents without authorisation." Free speech my arse
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/staffer-could-face-10-years-for-sharing-slippers-diary-20120706-21mna.html
Yes it can be another form of bullying, and yes, not being anonymous can discourage bullies. Not being anonymous can also discourage whistleblowing and discussion of other topics where the revealing of the identity of the person would prevent them from contributing useful things. Is discouraging anonymous bullying worth discouraging every type of anonymous contribution, both bad *and* good? For the sake of the hurt feelings of a few public figures, I'd say no. It's not that trolling is considered "such a right on the net", so much as people recognize that there are sometimes good reasons for being anonymous, and they don't want to toss that away merely for the sake of discouraging trolls.
On top of that, whether such an effort would be technically feasible or effective is dubious. So you manage to eliminate anonymous contributions. Do you really think the worst trolls are going to be discouraged by having to register in a forum with a pseudonym and create a bunch of sock puppet accounts? Or registering with someone else's name/identity? Or the many other ways to spoof the system?
We're talking about words here. While bullying can be persistent and psychologically quite harmful in some instances, a lot can be gained by simply recognizing what a troll is and ignoring them, and/or coming up with systems that allow people to suitably downgrade the visibility of troll comments (like slashdot's moderation system). In the normal world, people can still write a bunch of falsehoods on pieces of paper and post them publicly on the local telephone poles without signing their names. Like a lot of things on the internet, the equivalent can now be done easier and cheaper, but what's happening on the internet isn't fundamentally any different from what current libel laws already handle.
My main fear with this type of law is that it could be extended to protect businesses.
Just imagine how many people Microsoft would be able to sue, for causing offence?
Of course, the other concern is the exact interpretation of "causing offense" is not clear. This is bad for Free Speech, as other posters have mentioned.
Yawn.
Try leaving the house. Puts internet politics in perspective.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Trolling is saying something you don't really believe to get a response out of people, like using a plastic lure. It is inherently fraud. Saying things you do believe that you know people will respond to isn't trolling. We have a word for it here: flamebait. But you might also call it provocation. Governments hate provocation, unless they've manufactured it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Interesting that you have already tried and convicted Arby. Considering that article specifically states that the Federal Court has not decided to refer the matter to the AFP.
Also funny how you neglect to mention that the charge is not "saying what he liked" it's a violation of the Commonwealth Crimes Act. From the fine article you posted
Mr Slipper's lawyers suggested the former media adviser could have breached sections of the Commonwealth Crimes Act, which prohibits public servants from publishing or communicating internal documents without authorisation.
So he didn't exercise free speech, he used his position to leak sensitive documents to political rivals. He was given access to senstive information and abused that trust, name me a single nation that wouldn't consider that at least in part, criminal. But nice try to make it all about "TEH FREEDOMS(TM)".
Besides this, he hasn't even been charged and the maximum sentence is two years but we all know he wont even get a slap on the wrist if convicted (he's lost his public service job already though).
This does not inhibit your speech. You can still make false and misleading claims against other people. This clause merely says you can and will be held accountable for what you say.
Really, a "doozy".
So you honestly expect to be able to hurt other people and then hide behind "MAH FREEDOMZ(TM)" when they want to harm you back.
Get real sunshine. Free speech is not here to protect people who abuse it, this is the "fire in a crowded theatre" bit. You can shout "fire" in a crowded theatre but you are responsible for the panic it creates.
Finally, I just love how you left out this part.
Which is key to what is being discussed here.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Troll them back for larfs, maybe?
Or perhaps just understand that there's a difference between something published by a well-credentialed masthead with a long reputation for quality journalism and a throw-away 140-character blurb from @axethetax.
Come on, people. A bit of skill in discrimination when it comes to dots on a screen, please.
Athy, athier, athiest.
Always trying to one-up Mother England. And no, this isn't trolling, or even an opinion, it's a simple statement of fact. Road traffic, privacy, speech, assembly, commerce, think-of-the-children censorship, gambling, personal and domestic defence: Australia leads the "1st world" in suppressing, oppressing and treating its citizens like children who are incapable of fending or thinking for themselves.
Welcome to the future, where all the corners are rounded and running with scissors is a felony.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
>You can say bad things all you want, you just can't be defamatory.
Trouble is if I think you've defamed me I can take you to court and it will cost you your house before a judge gets around to making that decision. Even if you win you will only get some of your costs back from me. It will also tie you up in court for years. They are called SLAPPs Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation and the best way to avoid them is not to say anything bad about anyone no matter what they have done:
http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/SLAPPS.html
http://www.edo.org.au/edonq/images/stories/factsheets/edonq_defamation_factsheet.pdf - HOW TO DUCK DEFAMATION AND SLIP 'SLAPP' SUITS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation
Since your first laws didn't immediately produce a well ordered, polite society of Internet users, maybe realize that you can't legislate taste or manners, and STFU?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
>Finally, I just love how you left out this part.
>> We do not censor the media and may criticise the government without fear of arrest.
>Which is key to what is being discussed here.
Where are you getting your information from? Don't read it off another government web site. Ask a journalist instead. The government doesn't need to censor the media because it self-censors. Journalists are very restricted in what they can report: If they publish or posses a leaked government document they can be arrested and jailed. A lot of information is withheld from them: The Attorney-General blacked out 90% of that web snooping report. If they report something that later turns out not to be true they can end up sued for defamation even if they did every check they could and even if they honestly believed it were true. You can never be sure what someone else tells you is 100% true, so they can't take the chance, and so don't report on it. Journalists are surrounded by lawyers who will not take even a remote risk of breaking Australia's defamation laws, so you the public don't get to find this stuff out. Australia is not like the US. Reality is more complicated than the rosy picture you have been painted.
This was a good series but is no longer available online: http://www.sbs.com.au/documentary/program/554/Law-and-Disorder
Off topic, but here in the UK the Humbrol model paint company now has a poster advertising "Thirty shades of grey". Witty, but try explaining it to a 7 year old. Is that too many?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Grown adults whining and moaning that they're not worshiped as gods. Well fuck them.
Instead of all this rigamarole, why don't they just block all requests for the Twitter domains on their DNS servers? That will solve all these problems.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
I'd like to know what sort of person that Farah was, growing up.
I wouldn't mind betting that I'm like a lot of slashdotters - was physically bullied during high school by athletes such as Farah, to the point that the thought of going to school made me physically ill and I contemplated suicide to escape the (seemingly) never-ending physical and mental abuse.
I'm disgusted by Trolls too, don't get me wrong. But I want to know if Farah is "without sin" (clearly he's not, at least in Gillard's case) before I give him an ounce of sympathy for "being bullied."
The "attourney" is a female.
And females masturbate.
Some with hot grits down their pants.
Be seeing you...
that Australians are Dumb, Drunk and Racist ... so this type of thing is not surprising really.
Bullying has become another bogeyman authorities will use to remove our rights. Yeah, it sucks to get called names, but it sucks worse to go to jail because of something you said. Clearly a government with the power to imprison people based on speech is a greater danger than a bully who talks big. The government itself is the bully you should be worried about, and they don't stop at name calling, they destroy your life.
Reevaluate your priorities, they're fucked to hell. I would rather live in a country where anyone can say anything they want about anyone than one where a single person is taken from their home and family because of something they said. They're just words for fucks sake.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
@SilenceDogood Men are just as guilty as us RT @New-England-Courant Seeking comments on female vices
(insert young Ben Franklin troll face)
And in other news, semi-retarded politician proposes idiotic and unenforceable law to minor problem. And in other news, we talk with King Canute about his upcoming attempt to hold back the tide.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
One of my too-many projects (and making me overall too distractible!) is an idea called "Durable News". The basic idea is to take a dis-satisfied wish such as yours today, file it, then after time passes and said opposition govt does appear, whether they do indeed reverse part/all of said proposals.
What makes such a project tricky is that political cycles are fairly long, while we are moving to a social media culture that can't remember last week, so by the time that answer comes in, the tricky part is remembering to find you for the retrospective redux.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Yes, but not down "his" pants.
Fortunately the estate of Eduard Khil is safe because was not trolling, he was trolololling.
A 2012 edition of the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8CD8PjVmA
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
We're talking a few percent that want to ruin it for the rest of us.
What, you mean the government? Yeah, they typically try to do that. They'll imagine nonexistent/petty threats and say that we must resort to censorship or take away people's freedoms to stop it. This specific case just seems to be them saying, "Someone might hurt other people's feelings on the Internet! I deem their speech useless, so it must be stopped!"
Trolls are the ones trying to get a rise out of people for the sake of causing trouble.
So what if you're offended? What's going to happen? Whatever you let happen. It's not that big of a deal, in my opinion.
I don't think people should go around asking for new draconian laws every time something offends them.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Actually Canute was making the point that he couldn't stop the tide, although the whole thing is probably apocryphal.
Mommy... he's teasing me and he won't stop. Sheesh! All the world over, politicians are kindergarden babies. I'm in the USA and this story could have just as easily happened here, and I believe anywhere. Mommy, he's poking fun of our (Insert whatever here), Make him stop. MAKE HIM STOP. WAAAH, WAAAH.
Unfortunately, we can't just drag politicians out of the restaurant of public discourse and give them a bottle or something.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
On behalf of Australia I'd like to apologise to the rest of The Internet for our politicians' stupidity.
However, in our defence, we are once again only seeking to win the America's Cup equivalent for the 'world's most ridiculous internet-focused legislation'.
We will, of course, be forced to hand it back very shortly after acquiring it.
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
There's been a lot of stuff about twitter in the news here lately, some celebrity was hospitalized due to a couple of tweets (no shit!). She doesn't hide the fact she is spruking an "anti-cyber-bullying charity". Personally I think it's about traditional media beating up on new media the only way it knows how, with a media beat up. Twitter has a mere 200K users in Oz, (I'm not one of 'em), it's bizarre that it gains this much political attention.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It makes NO difference.
For example, here in Canada, a while ago, maybe 8-1 years, the federal Liberal Party published a small 'Red Book' containing their promises for what they would do if elected. They got elected, promptly said "We can't do that, now that we're in power and actually know what's going on". They were even re-elected 4 years later, even with other parties pointing to this 'Red Book'.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Please keep it. We don't want it.
I've noticed lately Australia seems to be reverting to its roots as a penal colony. So sad to see soo many countries go down the route of talking "freedom" while acting to limit speech they don't agree with.
The real measure of freedom is societies ability to tolerate the bullshit of others. A society which believes it is acceptable to act like children and yell mommy everytime someone calls you a fat smelly hobgoblin will get what it deserves.
That's easy: if it questions entrenched political or economic interests, then it is "trolling". Likewise, if it offends people and causes controversy.
That may sound like cynicism, but it's effectively already the law in many European nations: anonymous speech is not protected, and you can be sued for monetary damages or even charged with a crime for insulting political figures or religious leaders. Criticizing religions is also a no-no if it might upset people and cause them to become violence (it doesn't matter whether what you said is reasonable or even true).
Farah is a fucking pussy.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Remember the good old days when we used to laugh at the Thais for jailing people for mocking their royal family?
I agree, we've already had similar stuff here, where one scumbag prime minister created the notion of "core promises" for delivered promises and "non-core promises" for things which were promised, but not going to be delivered. The media does scrutinise, and in that case particularly so, because the media here is quite left wing biased, and he was not a left wing darling (wouldn't call him right wing though, but did lead a conservative government). So bottom line is, politicians lie, it's just a plain fact of life.
We have a way that anyone can say anything to anyone else. What we need to add is:
1. A way to prevent anyone from saying something offensive.
OR
2. A way to allow some people to opt-out of using this form of communication.
If we could figure out how offer one of these solutions, the system would be perfect.