Slashdot Mirror
In UK, Twitter, Facebook Rants Land Some In Jail
concealment writes with this excerpt from an Associated Press story, as carried by the Houston Chronicle:"In Britain, hundreds of people are prosecuted each year for posts, tweets, texts and emails deemed menacing, indecent, offensive or obscene, and the number is growing as our online lives expand. 'Fifty years ago someone would have made a really offensive comment in a public space and it would have been heard by relatively few people,' said Mike Harris of free-speech group Index on Censorship. People take it upon themselves to report this offensive material to police, and suddenly you've got the criminalization of offensive speech. Figures obtained by The Associated Press through a freedom of information request show a steadily rising tally of prosecutions in Britain for electronic communications — phone calls, emails and social media posts — that are grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character — from 1,263 in 2009 to 1,843 in 2011. Justice Igor Judge said in his judgment that the law should not prevent 'satirical or iconoclastic or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humor, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it.'"
Good!
Fewer obese, ignorant and close minded Yanks coming here -- Result !!!
Really? I think we should round up all the commenters on the Daily Kos, not necessarily for re-education, but rather for a good ol-fashioned hippie beat-down. I think they're offensive and therefore by your logic I should be able to violate their liberty. Why not?
A judge? Gotcha. Ever seen a judge make a bad decision? It's not like we don't hear about 'em day in and day out on this site. How about this instead. How about we let free people decide for themselves whether a comment is offensive or not and if it's offensive, they can choose not to read it.
And Tourette fucking Syndrome is spelled with two "t"s and an "ou". Fucking limey moron. Surprised with all the pointless "u"s you're always adding to words you didn't already know that.