Racist Twitter user jailed for 56 days

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17515992

by DanBC • 14 years ago

32 96 14 years ago

bbc.co.uk

p4lto3• 14 years ago

I don't know how the laws are in the UK but damn, jail-time for racists comments? I'm 100% against prejudice but being sent to jail for saying something controversial seems like a bit much.

I don't know much about the government there or what people have rights to, any clarity would be much appreciated.

Argorak3• 14 years ago

How is racism controversial? That would imply that its a heavily debatable topic. The point is that he insulted a severely ill person personally in one of the worst ways possible and doing so through a mass medium doesn't help. I don't see a lot of space for a debate here.

I am a bit surprised that this can be enforced without the person in question actually taking action. (hes still in the hospital in critical condition, so I suspect he didn't)

What I am missing in the article is what he actually said.

All in all, the height of the sentence surprises me as well.

rlpb3• 14 years ago

> I am a bit surprised that this can be enforced without the person in question actually taking action.

This is a fundamental tenet of criminal law. Crimes are taken to be against society, not just against the victim, because it is in the interests of everyone to stop criminality, not just the victim. The state prosecutes, not the person in question.

> All in all, the height of the sentence surprises me as well.

Race-related crimes are taken more seriously here (as opposed to the equivalent crimes without a race-hate component).

p4lto3• 14 years ago

I say controversial because racism is still openly expressed in certain circumstances, for example Westboro Baptist Church, though that's the U.S. Most racism, in my opinion, comes from fundamentalists or those associated but of course they aren't the only ones.

I'm probably using out of context example here but WBC protests at dead soldiers funerals regularly, everyone knows that, and they're not touched. Though I suppose protest and direct prejudicial comments aren't in the same ballpark entirely.

It's all circumstantial I guess.

batista• 14 years ago

How is racism controversial? That would imply that its a heavily debatable topic.

Well, it's not clear cut. What can constitute "racism" or not is quite open to interpretation.

Even statements of fact or plain arguments can be interpreted as racist.

For example, if you are against illegal immigration in my country (and many others) you are labeled as "racist", even if the reasons you are against it have nothing to do with race, but say, with border control, lack of supporting infrastructure for too many immigrants, possible use of minorities as a political weapon from surrounding countries, etc.

rlpb3• 14 years ago

"Inciting racial hatred" is illegal here. I think that's quite a bit more specific than "saying something controversial".

I don't see that this is any different from the US First Amendment. It has exceptions too (eg. shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre). "Inciting racial hatred" is an equivalent restriction. You may disagree on this law specifically, but I don't see how this affects anything fundamental like freedom of speech or anything like that.

Argorak3• 14 years ago

As far as I see the article, the attacks were also personal, which is illegal in most countries around the globe.

SamReidHughes• 14 years ago

They aren't equivalent restrictions at all. One is an expression of ideas, the other is an incitement of panic.

p4lto3• 14 years ago

Understood, I should know better than to put everything on one distinct level. Thanks.

pfedor• 14 years ago

The metaphor of "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" was actually used in a Supreme Court ruling in Schenck v. United States, which justified putting a guy in prison for speaking (distributing leaflets) against the military draft. This decision was later overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969. (Source: wikipedia)

GFKjunior• 14 years ago

I disagree, he was simply posting comments about a professional athlete on his own twitter account, it's not like he was yelling it on the street or putting up billboards. Anyone can unfollow or even block his twitter, if you were even able to see it in the first place.

It is a freedom of speech issue because we should be allowed to write what we want on our personal social networks. I think it is absurd that mommy government can read your tweets (whats next? blogs, emails?) and give you jail time for the 'naughty' things you say.

I think what bothers me most is that the person he made fun of is a pro-athlete, part of the job is to take abuse from haters and rival fans. European soccer is notoriously rowdy, fans shout any and everything they can from the stands. It's part of the game.

Locke16899• 14 years ago

You seem to misunderstand US law. The only comparative speech which is banned in the US is "fighting words," which must meet the much more strenuous requirement of "those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."

If the words themselves do not cause an imminent and immediate threat of violence they are protected.

jdminhbg• 14 years ago

I wouldn't support jail time for racist comments, but has anyone seen evidence that he actually made racist comments? The only tweet I've seen reproduced is "Fuck Muamba, he's dead," which is highly assholish but not so far as I can tell racist. At the same time, news reports all seem to reference "tweets" plural, so I may be missing more.

streptomycin• 14 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA5v2eZ5ZZE

Offensive? Rude? Sure. But it doesn't seem like anything too out of the ordinary. If they had microphones in bars, they'd arrest millions for similar utterances.

icebraining3• 14 years ago

Here: http://chirpstory.com/li/5261

nextstep• 14 years ago

What exactly did he say? I don't understand why this garnered so much attention. There are a lot of racist tweets on Twitter.

AkThhhpppt11• 14 years ago

Yes, but they're not directed at a public figure who was critical in hospital at the time. Some people responded by calling him on his racism, he apparently doubled down, and someone made a complaint to the police.

icebraining3• 14 years ago

http://chirpstory.com/li/5261

mindslight• 14 years ago

Maybe someone familiar with the UK could clarify for us: when exactly during that 56 days does he get the rats on his face?

philhippus• 14 years ago

Not necessarily rats - just whatever is his worst fear, and it'll start on the 2nd day, over on the 55th. Ignorance is Strength.

revscat• 14 years ago

Given that the UK recently extradited a UK citizen for breaking an American law, does this mean that racist Americans could be extradited to the UK for posting a tweet which incites racial hatred?

Somehow I doubt it, although the logic is superficially sound.

ajross7• 14 years ago

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

AkThhhpppt11• 14 years ago

Similar clauses in other countries' laws haven't prevented extradition the other way.

freehunter6• 14 years ago

Except hate speech is not covered under that amendment, neither is incitement of violence. These restrictions come from Supreme Court rulings interpreting the Constitution.

rokhayakebe• 14 years ago

For those wondering what he said: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/03/27/liam-stacey-racis...

billpg• 14 years ago

Will the people working at the huffington post's UK offices now be jailed?

arnoldwh• 14 years ago

I don't feel any pity for this guy from a personal point of view, and I can only hope he learns a lesson because of this instead of going down a darker path of more hate.

However, I still have real issues and concerns with him being jailed for making a racist comment. This seems an awful lot like a slippery slope that we don't want to go down. Any law that restricts what we can say or think scares me when information continues to become easier to pass along into the "public domain."

EnderMB• 14 years ago

If I remember rightly the reason this guy was jailed was not because he made racist commands AT Muamba, rather than about. I don't know for sure, but I would imagine that there is a huge difference between making racist comments about someone and making racist comments to them.

noodly2• 14 years ago

It's not surprising, if you think about UK as orwellian state (or wannabe).

"It was not the football world who was praying for [Muamba].... everybody was praying for his life."

What a bullshit - I don't even know who he is and I don't care. I stopped reading here.

why-el2• 14 years ago

Read: everybody who knew him outside the field. And do you have any evidence that the UK is become an Orwellian state? I am really surprised at the cheer amount of irresponsible comments in HN lately.

noodly2• 14 years ago

Orwellian aspects of UK:

1. Extradition of their citizen to US, for creating link aggregator [1][2]

2. Jail for downloading a file [3]

3. Politicaly correct brainwashing in schools [4][5]

4. Sites blocking [6]

5. Jail for posting dumb messages on twitter [7]

These're few things I did remember. When I hear about new case, I don't bookmark it, that's why this list is short.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/03/copyright-wa...

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/13/piracy-student-los...

[3] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/police-downl...

[4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223738/Nursery-chil...

[5] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103175/Boy-7-brande...

[6] http://www.freshtechweb.com/after-uk-high-court-ruling-the-p...

[7] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17515992

DanBC• 14 years ago

Fabrice Muamba is a soccer / football player who collapsed on the pitch during a game. He's been big news in the UK.

Liam Stacey posted racist tweets soon after Muamba collapsed.

Here's a Youtube video which claims to be screengrabs of the tweets. (I have no idea if it is or not.)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA5v2eZ5ZZE)

Huffpo has a screenshot, but it's been blurred to the point of incomprehensibility.

In England most offences are treated more severely if there's a racial motivation.

I post this here because I'm pleased that no-one is saying (as far as I can tell) that Twitter should be responsible for what its users post. No one is calling for Twitter to have more oversight or to control their users. People have been happy for the existing laws to take its course.

Karunamon2• 14 years ago

This boggles my mind, as a citizen of the USA who is used to having freedom of speech.

1) It's a tweet (of all things)..

2) Which incites nothing, and is an expression of opinion

And the guy gets hauled off to jail for 2 months because of it? This is the kind of behavior I'd expect from China, not an ostensibly first world nation!

*edit

I meant that literally, too. My mind simply ceases processing the circumstances under which a completely harmless tweet, in a place like Great Britain, can be grounds for legal action. I thought (mistakenly) that freedom of speech was recognized a bit more with the US's allies.

AkThhhpppt11• 14 years ago

The right to free speech is a negative right under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Why incitement to racial hatred might be an issue in the UK?

The usual figure given is 1 in 10 people living in the UK is an immigrant. This does NOT count descendants of immigrants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brixton_riots

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Nationalist_Party

Karunamon2• 14 years ago

  >Why incitement to racial hatred might be an issue in the UK?

I don't particularly understand the utility of such hate crime laws. For instance (and this is a bit out of scope of this article), how is:

"Let's go roam around and beat up some old people, clockwork orange style!"

any different from

"Let's go roam around and beat up some old black people, clockwork orange style!"

Both are conspiracy to commit a crime, both are likely to involve someone being injured to the point of near death, yet one is somehow worse and will lead to harsher sentencing because it's motivated by a different kind of hatred?

I am legitimately ignorant on this matter, could someone enlighten me?

freehunter6• 14 years ago

Even in the US, you can be sued civilly for hateful comments and jailed for comments that could be construed as inviting or inciting violence.

I don't know the full story, the tweets are gone and the BBC didn't reproduce them.

Locke16899• 14 years ago

Do you have a source for your comments on civil law? As far as I know you can be sued for defamation and harassment, but neither of those are simply "hateful comments."

Also, "fighting words" is not simply inviting or inciting violence, it's "those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."

reddit_clone3• 14 years ago

Weren't a couple of British tourists hauled in and deported because they tweeted something inappropriate (according to TSA standards) a few weeks back?

Happens everywhere.

J3L24042• 14 years ago

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

J3L24042• 14 years ago

The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (c. 1) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which creates an offence in England and Wales of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion. The Act was the Labour Government's third attempt to bring in this offence: provisions were originally included as part of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill in 2001, but were dropped after objections from the House of Lords. The measure was again brought forward as part of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill in 2004-5, but was again dropped in order to get the body of that Bill passed before the 2005 general election.

jack-r-abbit• 14 years ago

hmmmm... I've said many times before "Good thing its not against the law to be an asshole". Turns out it IS against the law. Sure this guy is the lead candidate for Twat of The Year... but 56 days in jail for being an ignorant douche-bag is a dangerous trend to set. If we locked up every ignorant douche-bag we'd have to build A LOT more jails here in the US.

Racist Twitter user jailed for 56 days

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