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Irish Legislator Proposes Law That Would Make Annoying People Online a Crime
An anonymous reader sends this report from TechDirt: Is Ireland looking to pass a law that would "outlaw ebooks and jail people for annoying others?" Well, no, not really, but that's the sort of unintended consequences that follow when laws are updated for the 21st century using little more than a word swap. Ireland has had long-standing laws against harassment via snail mail, telephones and (as of 2007) SMS messages. A 2014 report by the government's somewhat troublingly-named "Internet Content Governance Advisory Group" recommended updating this section of the law to cover email, social media and other internet-related transmissions. ... The broad language -- if read literally -- could make emailing an ebook to someone a criminal offense. Works of fiction are, by definition, false. ... It's the vestigial language from previous iterations of the law -- words meant to target scam artists and aggressive telemarketers -- that is problematic. Simply appending the words "electronic communications" to an old law doesn't address the perceived problem (cyberbullying is cited in the governance group's report). It just creates new problems.
The problem with our legal system are the things that often start with "There ought to be a law".
No, there shouldn't be a law, because laws that can be abused, will be abused, and the law will not actually stop anyone from anything.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Really ? You think any government wouldn't love a law that lets them persecute people for their speech ?
Be willing to bet this law passes. It's a big blunt club that can be used by a government to hit people with, and too many people will think it will only hit people they don't like.
Were it not for the first amendment, there's no doubt in my mind that the people yelling "triggering!" at Christina Hoff Sommers at Oberlin would have sought her prosecution under a law like this. There is a not so fine line that many ignore between opposing cyberbullying and coddling pathetic little weaklings who simply cannot stomach the idea that there are people who hold different, maybe even offensive, views. My view as a free speech partisan is that "safe spaces" need to be smashed as aggressively as the concept of "free speech zones." If someone simply will not leave you alone, that's harassment and warrants a basic sanction under the law. However, no one has a right to not be annoyed or hear things upsetting to them. We as a society should be utterly intolerant of people who expect to be protected from such things. It should be a mark of scorn and shame to be that thin-skinned and publicly notorious for being so.
Ireland is risking a very serious mistake that will hollow out much of its claim to being an open and democratic society if this is passed.
This is an excellent point and I'd like to extend it a little further. The law doesn't even say what the summary or linked article says it does. If it did, sending a paperback through the mail would have already been against the low. First, notice that the part about sending false messages isn't by itself, but a sub section of the part about "for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another". So just sending a work of fiction doesn't count. If I send you a story about how your wife is cheating on you with me when she actually isn't, then I could be fined. Or if I send you hundreds ebooks to annoy you and fill up your inbox, then I could be fined.