Trolls No Longer Welcome In New Zealand

An anonymous reader writes: Legislation designed to prevent cyber-bullying has passed its final hurdle in the New Zealand Parliament, making it a crime to send harmful messages or put damaging images online. The Harmful Digital Communications Bill passed 116 to 5. The Register reports: "The bill creates a regime under which digital communications causing 'serious emotional distress' are subject to an escalating regime that starts as 'negotiation, mediation or persuasion' but reaches up to creating the offenses of not complying with an order, and 'causing harm by posting digital communication.' The bill covers posts that are racist, sexist, or show religious intolerance, along with hassling people over disability or sexual orientation. There's also a new offense of incitement to suicide (three years' jail).

Comments

Re:Religion is a choice!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does religion get lumped in with race and sex. Religion is a choice and does not deserve to be put next to things that you are.

Because the wisdom of thousands of years of history have taught us that religion is something that needs to be protected. Intolerance of it lead to the slaughter, torture, and deaths of countless millions. Eventually enough people wised up to realize that permitting the free exercise of this practice, and ensuring this practice is protected, would usher in an era of peace.

Now, while not successful the world over, and while there are still clashes in the Free World over it, by and large these slaughters, tortures, and deaths are done away with. This fence we have put in place to protect religion serves a VERY important purpose that cannot be overlooked

To anyone who would think that we have advanced as a species to a point where they think we can do away with this fence, I question your sanity. We haven't advanced at all. At most, all we have done is figure out how to split the atom and treat cancer while remaining the same dumb apes we were in the beginning. To those who would not learn from the lessons of the past, you would doom us all to repeat age old mistakes.

Never pull down a fence without stopping to ask why it was put there in the first place.

It may seem quaint, cool, hip, and wise to tear it down. However, the blood of a thousand generations who lived, fought, died, and sacrificed cries out to us from the ground into which it seeped. This right was hard won. And, although troublesome at times, it has benefited us incalculably. To this end, I question the sanity of any person who proposes that the best way to peace is through a path of LESS freedom and LESS tolerance, not more.

"If we just become a little less tolerant, a little less respectful, and a little less free, we will at last have peace."

Fuck that.

Re:Fee Fees Hurt?

[Karmashock]

Price of over medicating crazy people instead of locking them up which is what every other country does.

Cross reference the mass shootings in the US with lots of fun psychedelic drugs, being seen by some sort of diplomaed witch doctor... and society at large at no point being alerted that someone really needs to be given a life time supply of pudding and jigsaw puzzles.

You'll find a 100 percent correlation.

Where as there are HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of americans that have guns and don't kill anyone.

Now because the media lies about it and people are lazy... most people haven't realized that the least common denominator in this scenario is NOT guns. Its actually really unpredictable drugs that fuck with people's brain in largely poorly understood ways, having some over priced twit talk to you about your feelings... and then not doing anything when the guy starts drawing pictures of dead hookers squirting out of his nose.

And because you won't immediately fall to your knees and thank me for blowing your fucking mind with my divine wisdom... let me further point out that in Switerland they literally give all the men in the society machine guns... and a bag of fucking bullets. All of them.

And how many mass shootings happen there? What? None? Impossible... they were given machine guns which are as assaulty a gun as a gun can be... unless you stapled pissed off rattle snakes to it... RAWR!

Point is... its not guns that kill people... Its crazy that kills people.

I'll leave you with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...