Author Topic: ...WITH POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA GROWING, POLICE NOW MONITORING... (Read 1409 times)

White Stripes · « **on:** January 08, 2015, 01:42:37 am »

WITH POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA GROWING, POLICE NOW MONITORING AND CRIMINALIZING ONLINE SPEECH

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/06/police-increasingly-monitoring-criminalizing-online-speech/

Quote

On March 6, 2012, six British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan by a roadside explosive device, and a national ritual of mourning and rage ensued. Prime Minister David Cameron called it a “desperately sad day for our country.” A British teenager, Azhar Ahmed, observed the reaction for two days and then went to Facebook to angrily object that the innocent Afghans killed by British soldiers receive almost no attention from British media. He opined that the UK’s soldiers in Afghanistan are guilty, their deaths deserved, and are therefore going to hell:

.....

The following day, Ahmed was arrested and “charged with a racially aggravated public order offense.” The police spokesman explained that “he didn’t make his point very well and that is why he has landed himself in bother.” The state proceeded to prosecute him, and in October of that year, he was convicted “of sending a grossly offensive communication,” fined and sentenced to 240 hours of community service.

...an interesting read to say the least...

silicon_toad2000 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 08, 2015, 03:00:52 am »

grossly offensive communication? is that really a thing.
grossly offensive is the default method of communication for a lot of people...

GhostShip · « **Reply #2 on:** January 08, 2015, 03:53:16 am »

Unfortunately the law has many of these kinds of offences in both civil and criminal legislation and they all depend on the interpretation of both the wording used and the situation and context of their usage, for instance if I said that this site supports copyright infringement I would expect a savvy RIAA lawyer to contact the site operators within a short space of time, I would expect to be contacted personally if I made segregatory or discriminatory statements regarding race, gender or ethnicity, perhaps even age

There is a little used valid legal defence of being stupid that covers many if not all of these "intent" style offences but few folks seem willing to put forth such a defence, despite the fact that a criminal court has to "find" that the accused has either committed the offence or was going to do so & knew is was wrong or knew it might be wrong, not knowing something is wrong means you cannot have broken the law because there is no intent involved, thus being stupid or ignorant is self defending, amazingly it is also possible in this way to break the law even if what you did was legal if you thought it was wrong

As regards this particular guy he expressed an opinion, perhaps poorly and someone was offended, and that my friends can be all it takes, his valid points where lost in what followed in his post, he became a bad lad only when he spoke in a discriminatory manner towards English troops, I personally think this is a bit over the top as most English folks accept that tempers get hot online, how much better to let off some steam online than have old-style fist fights in the streets but it seems in our modern world of super sensitive folks a line has to be drawn for those easily offended and this guys crossed that line in the eyes of the complainant, and that really is all there is to this.

Speed reading through "the intecepts" own langauge used in this article it seems they are not above ascribing a judges comments and elevating them to "govt opinion" status, hardly fair or honest when reporting on an emotive subject.