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UK Man Arrested Over "Offensive" Tweet
mooterSkooter writes A 19-year-old Uk man has been arrested over an "offensive" tweet about an accident in which six people died. From the article: "The tweet, which has since been deleted along with the account that posted it, joked about the tragedy, in which the driver lost control of the vehicle and drove on the pavement, hitting Christmas shoppers 'like pinballs.' The tweet said: 'So a bin lorry has apparently driven in 100 people in Glasgow eh, probably the most trash it's picked up in one day.'"
It's like the damn island hasn't heard of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. "Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,"
Mario Balotelli, a black football player with a Jewish mother is suspended a game and fined 25k pounds for posting an anti-racist picture about a multicultural Super Mario.
Luis Suarez was essentially forced out of England for using the word negrito while speaking Spanish because it happened to sound like nigger. (While John Terry was given a sentence of half the time for using the word nigger in English.)
Crazy arse porn rules.
A man is threatened with life in jail for swearing too much.
And what the fuck is an Anti-Social Behavior Order?
How can the nation that brought us Locke also be bringing us this?
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
We have our problems, but at least we still have some of the best freedom of speech protection in the world. I'd hate to live in a country where I could't make a joke, even if it were in poor taste.
The irony here is the timing. As poor taste as the comment was if you fast forward a year and let a comedian say the same thing or let Eminem rap about it and it'll be just fine. I guess I'm glad freedom of speech is still protected here in the States... unless you want to assault someone while also making rude comments in which case then its called a hate crime.
Was the tweet offensive? Yes.
Did it warrant an arrest? If it did, then every late-night TV host and stand-up comic would be in jail.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Well, as they say, the tree of liberty needs to occasionally be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots. It appears that their tree is in need of some watering.
Besides that, top gear's Stephen Fry:
“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
And from Salman Rushdie:
“Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read.
If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people.
I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it.
To read a 600-page novel and then say that it has deeply offended you: well, you have done a lot of work to be offended.”
I don't read AC A human right
the reasons were sound
We all cope in different ways. Whether or not that is what this person was doing is irrelevant. I don't want to end up incarcerated because my particular method of coping with loss is deemed "inappropriate".
The UK is really reigning in on the content of speech. That's worrying enough for their citizens, but also troubling for how they may impact the rest of the world. What caught my eye is he turned himself in. Was he getting death threats? Or does it say something a bit scary about the UK that someone would tweet an offensive joke, erase it, and then turn themselves into the police?
.. to know how people feel.
We, as members of society, need information when we choose who to befriend, who to do business with, and who to avoid. If people are not free to express themselves, we cannot make good choices.
If you're the type to avoid humor in bad taste, and you find this person offensive, you should be fighting this. Otherwise, at some point, you may find yourself emotionally attached to someone who feels this way, only to find out after the fact. When people bare their soul in a public forum, without fear of repercussion, you can observe and make decisions on how you want to interact with them in private. You can decide ahead of time.
If speaking one's mind is potentially illegal, much important information becomes unavailable as people will be unwilling to speak their minds. You cannot know someone is a racist, or someone is opposed to religious influence, or someone is against liberal governance, or someone has a problem with war. You can't know if they're neo-nazis, and you can't know if they believe politicians should be hanged for war crimes.
You may enter into relationships with these people only to find out much later that they feel a certain way.
The more deeply offended you are by speech, the more you should fight for it to be open and free.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
First they came for the rude and annoying, and I did not speak out—
Then they came for the offensive and off-color, and I did not speak out—
Then they came for the opinionated and observational, and I did not speak out—
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak (or Tweet) for me.
Apologies to Martin Niemöller
And, seriously, UK, WTF? It's unlawful to simply be rude?
Thank God your Empire is over.
(He said, understanding the full irony of speaking as a citizen of the United States.)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
'Murica
Wait what?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Any of you who haven't yet twigged to this, don't bother to try to refute
my claim. You are idiots and I do not engage in debate with your sort.
- George Bernard Shaw, dead but still paying attention
Does that mean that you should be arrested for saying something unpleasant? What if you don't consider what you're saying to be worthy of arrest but society (whatever that is) does and the costume-wearing class comes a-knocking? I suspect you'd change your tune.
No. Like real life, the internet should be a place where people can speak their minds without a bunch of pantywaists shutting down their free speech rights out of insecurity. Of course, in the west, we have a growing problem where these people are gaining political power and using it to censor speech they don't like. No one should be arrested for a fucking internet post...at least not in a free country.
We Americans see the British as our cultural brethren, owing to the long intertwined history of our two nations. As England goes, so too shall America go. Thus we mourn for the Brits' loss of the freedoms that inspired our own. So too do we fear that our own regime may follow the UK down the path to open tyranny.
It's not like the police have anything else to investigate, like, perhaps anything from institutionalized paedophilia to common burglaries, is it?
This is all about taking people's attention away from the documented failings of the police.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Even tough it's an insensitive tweet, it is ridiculous if he's actually arrested for that... What the hell happened to 'free' speech?
- Let's start with the effing muslims. They are not British.
Three points for single-handedly making the anti-censorship side almost as unpalatable as the government's actions.
If England is ever going to be accepted as a state they'll have to learn to respect the first amendment rights of citizens. Oh, and while we're at it, they should be citizens not subjects. Drop the monarch.
So you think you have the right to say anything you like, even if you intend it to be harmful? Or do you have the right to do anything harmful, so long as the harm isn't both physical and permanent?
Learn to love Alaska
Please. You're either British not only by birth but also by mentality or you're not. Full stop. The effing muslims have created a PC situation in the UK what with their effing religious laws, halal demands, you name it. No. Go home. This is England. England is a shell of her former self.
I didn't say anything about intending harm, that's all you. A direct, credible threat of violence is a very different thing than an off-color joke. The OP suggested that people should get their "head caved in" for saying something disagreeable. The point I was attempting to make is that just because someone is offended by something you say that doesn't mean that they should be criminalized.
Does that mean that you should be arrested for saying something unpleasant?
I didn't say anything about intending harm, that's all you.
Oh, so "intending harm" isn't "unpleasant"? Sounds like you said something so general as to be wrong, and when I called you on it, you changed what you said. That's the great thing, I can look back and see that you implied that saying "something unpleasant" shouldn't be arrestable. But never is there a "I misspoke, I meant..." statement, but asserting that I mis-read your plain and direct statement.
The OP suggested that people should get their "head caved in" for saying something disagreeable.
I didn't read it that way. I read it as you should expect to get your head caved in, not that you "should" have that result and it's justified, but that you should expect it.
Funny how those who read the worst, speak the worst, and think it's always everyone else's fault for communicating poorly.
Go read the OP again. Did he say it was justified to get your head caved in, or that you should expect it? Did you imply that someone shouldn't be arrested for saying something "unpleasant"? Is a direct death threat of credible violence "unpleasant"?
The point I was attempting to make is that just because someone is offended by something you say that doesn't mean that they should be criminalized.
I'd assert that's not what you said, even if it was what you were attempting, and that's what I was pointing out.
Learn to love Alaska
Remember that Glasgow is also the place where if you botch a terror act on an airport you get a kicking from some guy whose cigarette break you disturbed. Even though you're already on fire.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Is Glasgow filled with some sort of protected class? Lot of Africans, or Muslims? Was the joke meant to be racist? Or just anti-life?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
For more of these tweets?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Pretty sure it's a troll. But not positive. Someone get me a picture of Fry squinting.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
We're not classful, we're stateless.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Oblig/meta: Orwell was an optimist
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No one has the "right to not be offended." Being offended is subjective. It has everything to do with you as an individual, or as part of a collective, or a group, or a society, or a community; it varies due to your moral conditioning, your religious beliefs, your upbringing, your education; what offends one person or group (collective, society, community) may not offend another; and in the final analysis, it requires one person to attempt to read the mind of other persons they do not know in order to anticipate whether a specific action will cause offense in the mind of another. And no, codifying an action in law is not in any way sufficient... it is well established that not even lawyers can know the law well enough to anticipate what is legal, and what is not. Sane law relies on the basic idea that we try not to risk or cause harm to the bodies, finances and reputations of others without them consenting and being aware of the risks. Law that bans something based upon the idea that some group simply finds the behavior objectionable is the very worst kind of law, utterly devoid of consideration or others, while absolutely permeated in self-indulgence.
Conversely, when people are truly harmed (not just offended) without their informed consent (and legitimate defense is not the cause), then the matter is one that should arguably be considered for law. Otherwise, no.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It's one thing walking into a memorial service in Glasgow and telling a joke on this, but I'm happy to tell jokes on this topic to my friends.
Jokes should never be censored.
No one is exempt from criticism. Not the UK, and not the US.
We're not classful, we're stateless.
Personally I haven't made it to stateless yet. People still address me as CDIR, but your point still remains.
but the reasons were sound
No, they weren't.
Funnily enough, we see it the other way round.
We never really had McCarthyism but I'm sure we'll get our version of the Patriot Act soon enough.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Lots of people offend me, but I recognize that I can't stop them from being offensive.
Though I do get a disproportionate joy from making them confront their own hypocrisies.
For that of comment said to someone's face in Scotland you wouldn't get arrested. You'd wake up in a hospital if you are lucky.
There's nothing wrong with defending free speech. However, as all the Americans (who know deep in their heart that "free speech" is not a right that they have in practice) will tell you, speech isn't free of consequences. If that kind of speech leads to some time in a cell, or to loss of teeth, or to a face being smashed in, nobody in Scotland will feel one bit bad about it.
He added some of the responses to the tweet - including insults and threats - could also be an offence under the same act.
That sounds vaguely threatening. I think he should arrest himself.
People will not let you criticize the Emperor (democracy, multiculturalism, welfare, consumerism) because to do so is to suggest that all of us are wasting our time on a civilization that is heading toward collapse.
#GamerGate, #metalgate and many other scandals show us that anything related to inequality, whether racial or sexual or sexual preference, causes government and media to immediately explode and go after you, as will lots of Useful Idiots (UIs... sorry, SJWs) out there who want to crucify you.
All because they are afraid the criticism might be true and, if it is, the stakes are MUCH higher than anyone has thought.
Futurist Traditionalism
the Sex Pistols. God you are a miserable fucking country.
As far as freedom of speech goes the US is better off than the UK. Some Americans still understand that being offended is a defect of the listener and not the speaker. In America we have the right to be mortified and embarrassed beyond all sanity. After all, just why should we be concerned with what others think or say about us? Are we so weak that we can not function without standing in some social group? Being independant really does mean not having to be concerned with the beliefs of others and we have no obligation to avoid insulting people.
> But as an athiest, my very existence is 'offensive' to muslims.
I'm an atheist as well. And I am aware that some Muslims proactively take offense because of my lack of belief.
However, you should be aware that of the five pillars of Islam, none say or imply one word about "hating atheists." That's just crap out of the Koran, which is a mish-mosh of uncorrelated and unordered quotes. Only fanatics take the violent sections of the Koran seriously. Not that there aren't enough fanatics to go around, of course.
> Are you suggesting that I should commit suicide to appease the Muslims?
Not in the least. I wasn't suggesting anyone should commit suicide, or in any way alter who or what they are. These are not things that give offense. You have not chosen to be atheist in order to give offense, have you? I presume you're atheist because you find that to be a comfortable state of mind, one that correlates well with what you observe of the world around you. Nothing to do with giving offense at all. I'm not wrong, am I? If I am, please let me know... that's a whole 'nuther bag of wolverines.
Simply being (existing as) atheist is not giving offense. That is the same as the case where someone is simply "being atheist" or "being Christian" or "being Muslim" or "being a rock collector."
When such provokes an "offended" response, we are merely seeing examples of the common practice by muddy thinkers of taking offense for any, or no, sane reason...
> Go Fuck Yourself ...Just as you have here. Brilliant to have so cleverly put yourself in exactly the same unreasonable club with those nasty, hateful, offended Islamists, isn't it? :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
... very bad taste, indeed, but it was a sad day when Britain voted for a "Taste Police".
I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.