Slashdot Mirror
Chilling Guidelines Issued For UK Communications Act Enforcement
From El Reg comes word that interim guidelines have been issued for prosecutions under the UK Communications Act that have landed a few folks in jail for offensive speech: "Keir Starmer QC published this morning his interim guidelines for crown prosecutors that demanded a more measured approach to tackling trolling on the Internet. ... 'A prosecution is unlikely to be in the public interest if the communication is swiftly removed, blocked, not intended for a wide audience or not obviously beyond what could conceivably be tolerable or acceptable in a diverse society which upholds and respects freedom of expression. The interim guidelines thus protect the individual from threats or targeted harassment while protecting the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, or banter or humour, even if distasteful to some and painful to those subjected to it.'"
The guidelines are that people should be a bit more liberal in what they accept - not the scariest thing that the UK government has ever proposed.
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These guidelines are not chilling: they are the opposite. Following the introduction of these guidelines, many knee-jerk prosecutions will not take place, whereas previously they would have taken place.
Whoever wrote the Slashdot headline is entirely wrong.
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe
Nope, these are only guidelines. The state reserves the right to punish whomever it wants. The law still says all those completely harmless things are still illegal.
If anything the intent appears to be to reduce the chilling effect of the existing guidelines. It might not go far enough, but it still seems like a step in the right direction.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is exactly what we wanted - a common sense approach to Twitter messages. Though I am not a twitterer myself, the fact a guy can have his life ruined by posting a joke tweet is exactly what this is about, NOT being knee-jerk, as they have been in the past. In other words his is a *good thing*. 'Measured' in this context means to apply more common sense to these situations.
It's chilling in that, rather than repeal or rewrite the Communications Decency Act, which basically criminalises anything said online if it causes offense to anyone else in any way, they're just saying "We won't bother prosecuting unless enough people kick up a fuss about it."
Say something offensive to a celebrity, or make a comment that would upset grieving parents that have been in the tabloids that week, or burn a poppy while being the wrong skin-colour, or get an offensive tweet noticed and retweeted enough by Twitter celebrities, and you'll still get prosecuted. Nothing has changed, just the enforcement of a stupid law is going to get a bit more selective (i.e. it will be even more arbritrarily enforced). That's what's chilling.
It's "chilling" that the actual law goes so much further than this, and that these guidelines that appear sensible to /.ers need to be made explicit to law enforcement.
Nope, these are only guidelines. The state reserves the right to punish whomever it wants.
The parent post has it spot on.
Most countries actually have two parallel legal systems.
The first: The laws and legal precedents that we can all go to the library and read
The second: Unpublished guidelines, policies, and training manuals that shape how the laws are actually applied.
It doesn't actually matter what the law says, if the bureaucrats, police, prosecutors, and judges have already agreed on how to interpret it.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If you say something that offends someone it's the prosecutor's discretion whether or not you're charged,but if he does bring them you'll still be convicted because the law still stands. You're granted permission to say unpopular things by the government, and a government official decides what's unpopular, and he can get convictions for ridiculous things.
The prosecutor is only asked to consider whether it's "likely to be in the public interest" to bring charges. Thank God prosecutors in western nations have no history of bringing politically-motivated charges, charging disfavored people on whim or request or for political advantage with trumped-up offenses, otherwise this setup would be an open invitation to the worst kinds of abuse.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
and there you have your dilemma.
one of the consequences of free speech is that you get arses like the Westboro church.
speaking as UK citizen, I envy the ability of the USA legal system to say 'we hate what they're saying, but there is a bigger principle at stake here'.
the only other alternative is for someone somewhere to be in charge of deciding when the line has been crossed.
-westboro 'god hates gays'
-pro life 'murderer' signs outside abortion clinics
-islamist 'death to those who insult Islam'
-atheist 'islam is stupid'
-some guy 'some celebrity is fat and ugly'
for any place that you are willing to draw the line, I'll find some offensive speech that sits just above or below your line. The next person in the room won't quite agree with you on where the line has to go.
who decides which person goes to jail?
the Westboro baptist church, is actually something to be proud of. Not because it is hateful, but because it is allowed to be hateful.
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