Slashdot Mirror
UK Men Arrested For Anti-Semitic Tweets After Football Game
magic maverick writes "Reuters reports that three men were arrested for posting anti-Semitic comments on Twitter following the English Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United in October, police said on Friday. 'Two men, aged 22 and 24, were arrested on Thursday in London and in Wiltshire, while a 48-year-old man was arrested at his home in Canning Town in London last week on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. The investigation following the match on October 6 was triggered by complaints about tweets that referred to Hitler and the gas chambers.'
I guess it goes to show, you'd be stupid to use your real name or identifying details on Twitter. Perhaps the British should also work on reforming their laws on free speech (or lack thereof)."
Maybe people should be free to speak their mind without being arrested. I'd rather live in a world where someone can call me a name and not be locked up than any alternative.
Wtf did they say exactly?
It appears Britain is trying to legislate a polite and sterile society rather than a free society. People need thicker skins, not laws to protect their feelings from being hurt.
Making "racism" illegal is no different that declaring thought crime. When the state can govern your speech and your thought, alls well, as long as you agree with the state. Once you don't, you're fucked. I've always argued, you can easily determine if a law is a good one by the simple thought experiment: "Once we inevitably elect the next tyrant, will this law help or hurt his ascent to power?" What do you think Hitler would have done with such a law? I think it's rather clear.
Perhaps every unthinking idiot who proclaims free speech to be 'mindless' should be reminded that this sort of power is always abused ultimately. It won't be just used to curtail racist speech, but any speech that the authorities dislike. Yet another right that once given away, will have to have much blood spilled to regain.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
This! It's always the racist Republicans in the USA that whine constantly about free speech.
But where do you draw the line? If the government has the authority to arrest someone for hating Jews, then why can't they also arrest you for hating Republicans?
Who gets decide what is racist?
You, sir and or madame, are the worst kind of imbecile. Because as soon as you accept the notion that speech should be censored, you put someone else in the position of deciding which speech is to be censored.
Yes, that does mean you have to put up with all sort of racists, anti-semites, and plain old lunatics spewing anything they feel like. That's far better than ceding your rights.
Easy. You don't. Because the people never gave YOU the right to draw lines for them. And if you think, well, this one time I'll delegate line-drawing authority on this subject, to these people... you just set the precedent and people you never expected will inherit powers to draw lines you never wanted.
THL phish sticks
Perhaps the British should also work on reforming their laws on free speech (or lack thereof)."
You could be arrested for the same activity in the US under the 18 USC 245 -- Federally protected activities, act. There is the first amendment, but there is some separation between constitutional theory, and law enforcement fact. You might or might not ultimately prevail incourt.
Making "racism" illegal is no different that declaring thought crime. When the state can govern your speech and your thought, alls well, as long as you agree with the state.
Europe has some rather strict hate crime laws because of a certain incident that happened during the 30s and 40s.
It'd be nice if they had strong free speech laws, but their history has led them down a different path.
This was the offending tweet
Spurs are on their way to auschwitz
Hitler's gonna gas em again
We can't stop them
The yids from tottenham
The yids from white hart lane
There's also some other related tweets, but they link to pictures that are now gone.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
My racial hatred is confined to family gathering where I can blame it on my own blood and the alcohol provided.
'The People' of course.. For example, north korea is a 'People's Republic'!
The way I would prefer to make sure that nothing like the Holocaust ever happens again is to publically ridicule the neo-Nazis, not send the police after them. The entire country pointing and saying "You people are crazy and dangerous" is a better safeguard than throwing some folks in jail. (Hitler got thrown in jail too, and look what happened to him...)
You cannot ban your way into removing things from society.
Someone who would put someone else in a cage for being rude or for having a different point of view deserves no civility.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
In the United States, Antisemitism overwhelmingly comes from the political left, both the Occupy Wall Street crowd and the victimhood identity politics left that regard Islamists and Palestinians as protected species.
There are also significant amounts of Antisemitism among liberal black politicians. Indeed, Jesse Jackson seems to have lost no political influence after calling new York City Hymietown.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Perhaps the British should also work on reforming their laws on free speech (or lack thereof).
The British (and the Europeans) have perfectly adequate laws against hate-speech, which is what these comments were likely caught by. Just because you don't know what those laws are, understand how or why they came about, or how their application works, doesn't mean they necessarily need to be reformed.
isn't it a bit pretentious for somebody not a citizen or residing within a given country to tell them they need to work at making their laws more like your own?
I don't think so. Criticizing someone when you think they're doing something wrong is perfectly acceptable to me. A country isn't immune from criticism just because you don't live in it.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Because the "right" would have had absolutely no issues with the men for tweeting anti-"Arab" messages.
Those "raghead" jokes will always be popular, but woe betide the dumb bastard who ever criticizes Jews or Israel.
It's with enormous regret that I can say this as both a Jew and an Israeli.
Somewhere, sometime we lost whatever tolerance and sense of humor we may once have possessed.
(Yes, I know: Someone will instantly reply "In Auschwitz and Dachau." How astute of you.)
They are not common - been there many times and never met one. They only appear on foreign telly.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
That is why the law of most civilized countries do not let people randomly punch other people in the face. Saying things you don't want to hear has nothing to do with your nose, though.
well we can't legalize gay marriage because then we have to legalize marriage to dead people and marriage to dogs
and we can't legalize marijuana because then we have to legalize methamphetamine and heroin
i'm being sarcastic in both statements: those statements, and you, are relying on what is called the slippery slope, which is a logical fallacy
it's also kind of strange to see people using it when arguing against what they perceive as hysteria and fear, since the slippery slope is basically hysteria and fear instead of logic
we draw lines, and we can draw lines, and it's not a big deal
because we think
the slippery slope argument depends upon people not thinking and not being able tell the difference between different topics
if you believe that about people, you might as well give up entirely on reason, law, morality, and civilization too
i understand why the laws exist, as defined within a narrow scope. and i don't believe that scope will change, because i have faith in people's ability to think
look: it's easy for americans to grandstand and showboat on this issue, because they didn't have something happen in the usa within 80 years ago which consumed the lives of millions of people because of a hateful, racist ideology. if that happened in the usa, i'd expect us to have the same laws. i'm glad we don't, but i'm not going to hold it against europeans, because i understand the reason for them having this law
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I agree with you. I get quite irritated when people in the UK tell me we should emulate them in gun control laws, healthcare laws, or their habit of dropping random 'u's in words where they clearly don't belong. Courtesy requires I refrain from telling the UK how they ought pattern their free speech laws on our First Amendment.
It is enough to say that I am pleased to live where I do, and that I believe the evils of generally-unregulated free speech are far far outweighed by the good.
Europe has some rather strict hate crime laws because of a certain incident that happened during the 30s and 40s.
It'd be nice if they had strong free speech laws, but their history has led them down a different path.
why do american "news" people say "n-word" ?
Rich
In America, how much blood will need to be spilled in order to gain back the ability to scream "fire" in a theater, or to slander someone and harming his profession? None at all, because there's nothing to gain and much to lose from that kind of freedom. And who gets to draw a line between free speech and putting public safety at risk? It is commonly accepted on /. that screaming "fire" in a theater is unacceptable behavior, but what if someone screams "smoke" instead of "fire", or if he does that in a public square instead of a theater? A judge will get to decide, as is the case for every other supposed misbehavior.
Here in Europe, we have the *very* concrete problem that it is possible to convince people of the fact that a certain subset of them, or someone coming from the outside, is responsible for all of their problems, and thereafter get elected into positions of power with a mandate to suppress that "enemy". We have constitutions in place to prevent that, but large majorities have the power to alter them. This has already happened historically (for instance my country had 10% of its population killed because of this during WWII) and it tends to happen again every time people are experiencing economic difficulties.
Just yesterday I've heard a "leader" of a massive protest movement in my country declare to the press that "we are the slaves of Jew bankers". Hearing that on the TV, hundreds of thousands of people, with a right to vote, will be convinced of that.
Hate is the defamation of a group.
For example, I hate those who defame blacks by proclaiming blacks to have a higher crime rate than whites.
I hate those who defame Jews by proclaiming Jews to have disproportionate influence relative to their numbers.
I hate those who defame the poor by proclaiming the poor to have lesser capabilities than the rich.
I hate those who defame the rich by proclaiming the rich to have engaged in unfairly acquired their wealth.
I hate those who say that ugly people are ugly.
I hate those who say criminals are criminal.
Hate is Great!
Seastead this.
I find it remarkable that the world we live today, especially those in the West, people are trying to outdo each others in the "I am the best counter-racist there is" competition.
Who is *NOT* a racist ?
Who *DARE* to say that he or she is absolutely 100% free of racism ?
I am not here saying that racism is a good thing, but to point out that RACE is something that is deeply ingrained into what we are.
It's in our psyche, it's in the genes, man.
And regarding "Hate Speech" ... this bastard child of the Political Correct movement is DOING MORE HARM than good in the society.
What actually constitutes a "Hate Speech" ?
If you call a black a "nigger" is it a hate speech ?
Then what if a black person calls another black person a "nigger", is that a hate speech too ??
How about calling a Chinese a "chink", is that a hate speech ?
As a Chinese, (I can only speak for myself) I've met people who tend to describe me with many kinds of very very creative adjectives, and whenever that happen, you know what I do ?
I say "Thank you".
I thank them for letting me know how they feel about me.
It's better that I know how they feel about me up front, than to have someone who keep their grudges hidden and then backstab me at any given chance they get.
Furthermore, I respect their human rights - including their rights to say whatever they want, with their mouths.
Let me put it this way ...
I am born with a mouth, a mouth that is belonged to me. Ever since I was born, I have had the veto power over my own mouth, which includes each and every single words that I've spoken.
And as I do not wish to have other people having the veto power over my own mouth, I do not want to have the same veto power to control other people's mouths.
For me, this "Hate Speech" thing by itself is hateful.
It's a tool used by hateful people to limit other people's rights.
It's a tool to propagate hate, to make the society more hateful.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
if you know anything of history you'll realize it's the Democrats who are the party of hate and bigotry.
Quick history lesson.
Up to the 1960s, the southern Democrats (the Dixiecrats), were the party that supported the Confederacy, Jim Crow, discrimination, etc. The northern Democrats were completely opposed, and they had big fights in the nominating conventions. The Republicans were also opposed.
When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which started us on the way to ending discrimination, he said that it would probably cost the Democratic Party the South.
He was right. Nixon adopted the "Southern Strategy" for the Republican party, which was to appeal to the racist southern whites. It was successful. They won elections, and racist Democrats went over to the Republican Party.
So the Democrats were the party of Southern racism. They are (imperfectly) not today. When they reformed, the Republicans eagerly took their place as the party of Southern racism, which is where they are today.
Because it would cause a backlash with their viewers. It certainly wouldnt get them arrested, though it might get them fired.
Surely you see the difference between the two?
look: it's easy for americans to grandstand and showboat on this issue, because they didn't have something happen in the usa within 80 years ago which consumed the lives of millions of people because of a hateful, racist ideology.
Ever think the reason we didn't have that happen is because of freedom of expression? That the worst that's happened here never got to those proportions because people were free to talk about it both to blow off steam and to have their hate publicly refuted?
The one thing that the US does better than any European state is cultural integration. Freedom of expression is a big part of that, we air our dirty laundry right out there in public for all to see, to duke it out in the marketplace of ideas. It ain't pretty at all, but there is no pretty solution, only varying degrees of effectiveness and they are all ugly. We let those assholes have public freak-outs so that the people on the fence can hear the response from the sane ones.
When you censor speech it doesn't go away, it only goes underground where there is no voice of reason to point out the flaws. The cure for bad speech is good speech, not silence.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Nah. If they're ordered to shut up they'll just decide it's because they were telling some sort of uncomfortable truth and then they'll play on the whole oppression thing.
Which is ironic, when you consider that measuring where people's nose begins is part of the problem.
sweet geebus: a clueless authoritarian nerd in full-libertard mode...
if you are not free to make mistakes, in fact, if you are not free to do wrong, YOU ARE NOT FREE...
fucking idiot, take your authoritarian 'civility' that is used as a cudgel, and shove it up your ass...
you WILL NOT see how you are promoting the VERY TACTICS that the authoritarian state/society uses to punish and expel ANY and ALL dissenters...
'civility' my ass, the only thing you are interested in is control...
These kinds of laws would make sense if the problem in Nazi Germany had been that individuals were racist and committing crimes against each other while the German government was powerless to intervene. But that's not what happened.
What happened in Nazi Germany was that an overly powerful German government was passing laws restricting free speech, restricting political protests, restricting the right to bear arms, taking away property from minorities, and exercising its power to commit genocide on minorities. Nazi Germany happened because the state had too much power over the people, not too little.
If government power in Germany had been limited to the protection of individual rights (life, liberty, property, free speech, political participation), the genocide could not have happened because the genocide was something that required the German state and government as an essential component.
Europe is on the same path it has always been; it just has been temporarily shamed into electing less murderous leaders. Don't count on that lasting.
to the educated, informed and intelligent, yes.
but most people don't fit that classification.
if what you said was true, we would have not race or culture-inspired wars. and yet, we did and still do.
if you let racists speak, they WILL find a following. not everyone will point and laugh at them, as much as we'd like it to be so.
you give humanity too much credit.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Once upon a time, there was a distinction made between:
"The Holocaust was a good idea"
which is abhorrent but is opinion protected under free speech, and:
"The Holocaust is a hoax"
which is a fraudulent statement of fact which is almost never said out of genuine ignorance, but with a malicious and anti-social - i.e. criminal - intent.
Society has a duty to respond to the latter. The only catch is that there is almost never proof of hateful intent sufficient for a court of law.
Sadly, anti-hate laws degenerated into yet another way for weak-willed politicians to create unequal rights for a particular identifiable minority.
While I'm not in favor of banning racist speech, I should say that unlike some here I'm not blind to the consequences. I appreciate that you have the best of intentions and you may even believe what you're saying, but not every moral position can be backed up by a practical argument - in the end, we have to decide what kind of society we want to live in, and whether we wish to live our values even if, on occasion, there are negative consequences.
Racism can and does have deadly consequences, and the free, unchecked, expression of racism can, does, and will in the future, allow those who'd otherwise avoid going down certain roads knowing social ostrification follows, to follow a path that leads to discrimination, violence and death, directly or indirectly. The rise of Hitler, or conversely the enforcement of the constitution against the south, did not have zero effect on the amount of non-state-sanctioned racial violence.
As a basic example, over the last 12 years I've seen an alarming increase in the amount of anti-Muslim hate speech. This has translated into acts of violence and even terrorism against ordinary, non-violent, Muslims (or people idiots think are Muslims like Sikhs...) It's hard to believe that without a body of people claiming that most Muslims are anti-American terrorists, shored up with a litany of often dubious, and frequently irrelevant, attacks on Islam, that this degree of violence would be occurring.
Should those who promote Anti-Muslim hatred be jailed? Of course not. That would be to undermine our values and what we stand for. But our values are successfully abused by evil people, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise, and invent bogus "practical" arguments to defend our values, which have always been moral, and moral alone.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"The right to offend is more important than the right to not be offended".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You, sir and or madame, are the worst kind of imbecile. Because as soon as you accept the notion that speech should be censored, you put someone else in the position of deciding which speech is to be censored.
Just about everyone accepts the notion some speech should be censored, I think. From Wiki : "In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, as with libel, slander, obscenity, sedition (including, for example inciting ethnic hatred), copyright violation, revelation of information that is classified or otherwise."
Also, conspiring to commit a crime is a restriction on free speech. Planning and organising a murder (without doing any of the killing) is a restriction on free speech. Most people do believe that this should probably remain illegal.
No country has anywhere close to absolute free speech... claiming they do is wrong.
By the way, totally irrelevant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism
"The history of antisemitism - defined as hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group - goes back many centuries"
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That RT article is bogus. This shows that Islam rose 2% from 3% to 5% - in the same period, "no religion" rose 10% from 15% to 25%. Islam is still a tiny religion in the UK. The increase in non-UK born Christians was larger than the _total_ increase of Muslims. The decrease in UK born Christians is almost entirely because of the rise in "no religion".
I agree with yo. I get qite irritated when people in the K tell me we shold emlate them in gn control laws, healthcare laws, or their habit of dropping random 'u's in words where they clearly don't belong. Cortesy reqires I refrain from telling the K how they oght pattern their free speech laws on or First Amendment.
FTFY. Also, as a UK citizen, can I just recommend you cite some statistics about gun control laws and their effects in the UK... in the 5 years following the hand gun ban in 1997, crimes committed using hand guns approximately doubled. Freedom of speech was almost as unrestricted (though not as explicitly enshrined) in the UK as the US, until the "incitement to racial hatred" and "incitement to religious hatred" laws were passed. That being said, I much prefer our healthcare system and spelling, but each to their own.
ps. I do hate Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and encourage others to too.... breaking the law again ;).
Clearly you are not an american. I feel sorry for you as you have been taught that you are not free to say what you believe. The last time people were not free to speak what they believed was when the church was in control of everything. Remember the inquisition? Question the lord, get murdered. someone says you questioned the lord? get murdered.
what you are advocating is another inquisition.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
that has nothing to do with anything. I sure as hell can tell my new boss he is gross and not expect a knock on the door from the cops
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same