In UK, Twitter, Facebook rants land some in jail

http://www.chron.com/business/technology/article/In-UK-Twitter-Facebook-rants-land-some-in-jail-4039078.php

by denzil_correa • 14 years ago

31 65 14 years ago

chron.com

shadyabhi• 14 years ago

Something similar in India: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-22353...

darwinGod• 14 years ago

One of them got arrested for the unpardonable offense of "liking" the post of the other.

aufreak3• 14 years ago

At least in this case, a former Supreme Court judge thinks the arrests not only violate constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, but are "criminal" to boot ... and he's not arrested for posting his criticism on his blog.

http://justicekatju.blogspot.in/2012/11/a-letter-to-maharash...

csense8• 14 years ago

This is a reminder that even First World nations don't always live up to US standards with respect to freedom of speech.

I think I've heard that video games that feature Nazis -- even if they're strictly enemies -- can't be sold in France and Germany.

It really makes you appreciate how powerful the US Constitution is. Maybe the Tea Party was on to something...

chunkyslink• 14 years ago

> This is a reminder that even First World nations don't always live up to US standards with respect to freedom of speech.

Seems Bradley Manning was as naive as you. You are of course joking right? I'd like to draw your attention to this if you think that freedom of speech in the USA is any better than anywhere else.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/...

csense8• 14 years ago

The Manning case is a little different than this. He systematically leaked tons of classified information that he had access to as part of his job.

I'm not going to take the discussion off topic by taking a position either way on whether his actions were right or wrong. I just want to point out that it wouldn't be logically inconsistent to believe that Manning's treatment was justified, but also believe that criminalization of the burning poppy and "die and go to hell" comment discussed in the article goes too far.

(Interestingly, "criminalization" isn't a word in my browser's spellcheck dictionary, but "decriminalization" is. I'm running Chromium 20.0.1132.47 (the latest in the main repos as of this writing) on Linux Mint 13.)

tomflack4• 14 years ago

> This is a reminder that even First World nations don't always live up to US standards with respect to freedom of speech.

That made me cringe. A lot. My first-world western country doesn't live up to your "standards" of freedom of speech because we have different standards. We value speech differently.

CamperBob211• 14 years ago

Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.

Whatever else you can say about the US, our First Amendment is rightfully the envy of the world.

csense8• 14 years ago

> We value speech differently.

Yes, we do.

Even ideas that most of us find distasteful should be spoken freely. Yes, this means that we can't jail fringe nutcases who bombard the rest of us with speech that is tasteless, racist, homophobic, obscene, dogmatic, or un-patriotic. (But no law requires anyone to be friends with such people, either.)

But occasionally, the fringe loonies are right. Today most people will agree: Women should have the right to vote. The color of your skin shouldn't decide your destiny in life. Slavery did need to end. If valuable ideas like these can't be suppressed by the government, they can spread throughout our society and eventually change things for the better.

And we can criticize our government openly. As an American, I can say that the war in Afghanistan needs to end, the war in Iraq never should have begun, Obamacare is stupid, President Obama is stupid, taxes are too high, my Senator's incompetent...(I don't actually believe all of these things; they're just random examples of criticisms of government.) This is perhaps the most important part of free speech, and according to the article, the UK lacks these protections.

Free speech protections in the UK aren't as good as the US, but I fully realize that it's nowhere near as bad as a lot of places. In many countries, openly criticizing one's rulers like this would lead to jailing, execution or "disappearance" -- not just of the person, but possibly their family and known associates as well, regardless of their guilt or innocence. (I'm speaking of moral guilt. In authoritarian regimes, when a person's arrested, it virtually guarantees they'll be guilty as far as that country's laws are concerned.)

arrrg4• 14 years ago

No, there are countries that do not agree with the moral evaluation of freedom of speech that the US constitution and the Supreme Court made and make.

There is nothing to live up to. It’s not an issue of progress, it’s on issue of a different moral worldview.

Americans taking freedom of speech on top of everything else as axiomatic are ridiculous and arrogant. I think freedom of speech is important and I do think what happens in the UK is overreach, but I personally prefer putting human dignity above freedom of speech.

CamperBob211• 14 years ago

No, there are countries that do not agree with the moral evaluation of freedom of speech that the US constitution and the Supreme Court made and make.

That's not quite the right way to look at it. The right way to look at it is to understand that the authors of the US constitution didn't believe that any state-sanctioned approval of its citizens' speech was "moral." (Whether their intent has been faithfully upheld by later jurists and legislators is a different question.)

I think freedom of speech is important and I do think what happens in the UK is overreach, but I personally prefer putting human dignity above freedom of speech.

Keep thinking the issue through. You will eventually find yourself wondering how it can be moral for you (to say nothing of "dignified") to use violence to keep your fellow citizens or subjects from saying original but forbidden things.

Tichy3• 14 years ago

Not supporting freedom of speech has a lot of consequences, so I think a moral case could be made. Also, not everybody living in a particular country necessarily agrees with government actions. For starters, the UK citizens who went to jail for twittering probably don't agree with their government on this issue.

tommi• 14 years ago

> This is a reminder that even First World nations don't always live up to US standards with respect to freedom of speech.

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

There is still lot to improve in most of the countries.

kevinprince2• 14 years ago

RE Nazis:

In Germany it is ilegal to display the Swastika and deny that the holocaust happened.

Call of Duty sold very well in Germany, the enemies just didnt have Swastika's on and had green blood.

glomph• 14 years ago

Can you imagine if there was a comment like this in response to every article about how terrible the United States is in terms of Human Rights Issues saying 'We have to remember that the United States doesn't really live up to First World Standards with respect to [list omitted for brevity]'

http://www.hrw.org/united-states/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/region/usa/report-2012

kevinprince2• 14 years ago

Firstly good to see that while the UK was asleep the first amendement was busy at work.

The UK regardless of what is being stated here has excellent standards of free speech. I can protest government policies (see student protests of 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-15646709), I can write what I want and talk about what I want with some clear rules for example:

- Defamation (Publicly making statements about another individual which are false and derogatory)

- Official Secrets Act (Revealing information covered by the act. Everyone is bound by regardless if you signed a copy or not)

- Make threats direct at individuals or places

We also have a ton of rules to protect rape victims, on-going prosecutions and children.

The twitter / facebook cases are already causing serious issues for prosecutors here and the Crown Prosecution Service is already writing guidance to limit the number of prosecutions.

The UK just like the US has a good legal system in place with separate police, prosecution service and judiciary (non of which are elected!) in the Robin Hood Airport case the high court ruled it was a bad prosecution and this will stand as case law for the future.

If you have not seen what's been going on in the UK in regards to a wholesale bbq'ing of the press, police and government by the Leveson Inquiry and the three on-going related police investigations take a look. It is a good example of a working democracy cleaning house.

Free speech means sometimes you get offended by me saying X politician is stupid but it should not be used as an excuse for threatening, bigoted or racist behaviour.

cmsj• 14 years ago

Let's not forget that the first amendment isn't as absolute as some of these comments would suggest. Courts have placed limits on it. Also try threatening the life of your president, see how that works out for you!

namank• 14 years ago

And I thought the Indian cases were isolated, wow.

In UK, Twitter, Facebook rants land some in jail

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