Slashdot Mirror
UK Man Arrested For Offensive Joke Posted On Facebook
An anonymous reader writes "A tasteless joke posted on Facebook saw a man arrested in the UK under section 127 of the Communications Act, for sending a public electronic communication which is 'grossly offensive'. Matthew Wood, 20, of Eaves Lane, Chorley, UK will appear before Chorley Magistrates' Court on Monday."
but I would like to point out that April's parents probably had their guts turn inside out upon hearing that remark.
which they probably wouldn't of read/heard. if noone made a big deal about it.
regardless. if he'd posted this on their wall/sent private messages to them regarding this then i could concede that he was harassing them and should be dealt with accordingly. i can't tell if that's the case as it seems difficult to find out much about this case(i haven't looked all that hard) if he had posted this on his own wall however. then fuck you to anyone that believes he should be punished in any way. he's done nothing wrong.
if you were offended by this (what i actually find to be quite clever) joke, then you should probably learn to understand communication. sentences/statements usually do not mean what their literal interpretation would suggest.
e.g. my friends an i often say to eachother that we hate eachother(or similar) in a jovial manner. we know that it's not a literal statement, or some sort of passive aggressive dig, but it means that we are comfortable enough with eachother to fell that we can be jokingly hostile without the other interepreting it wrong.
similarly this style of humour does is not cheering on whatever it is making light of. instead it is made in a manner very close to sarcasm - it's so obvisouly known to be wrong that noones saying this is right - they're merely aknowledging that this is a bad situation in a light hearted way.
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
It's being prosecuted because it is hard to punch someone's nose in for being a fucktard on the Internet. Seems "pro freedom of expression" sometimes is "anti compassion" - are you all suffering from Aspberger's Syndrome?