I wouldn't say it's the beginning. There's nothing new about it. Apparently the police have recorded over 100000 incidents of 'non-crime hate crimes'.
I like Andrew Doyle quote on this:
> In this new woke era, our law enforcement agencies are not content to police crime, but also non-crime. This is a huge relief, because for a long while now too many citizens have been not breaking the law and getting away with it.
I just think it's worth rebutting, that the police are not combing twitter for anything borderline.
These are complaints that the public are making to the police. There is a relevant law about malicious comms, so the police are obliged to open a case.
> this new woke era
Give me a break. Members of the public are taxed to provide a police service. If they feel like they're a victim of malicious communications, they're allowed to go to the police. Nothing to do with being "content to police non-crime" or being "woke".
>These are complaints that the public are making to the police. There is a relevant law about malicious comms, so the police are obliged to open a case.
>Give me a break. Members of the public are taxed to provide a police service. If they feel like they're a victim of malicious communications, they're allowed to go to the police. Nothing to do with being "content to police non-crime" or being "woke".
And you act as though that's a good thing?
100k people going through the work of reporting what is likely mostly unfunny boomer memes and thinly veiled trolling is a much stronger indictment of the current state of affairs than 100k instances of bored cops going looking for violations of some broad law from the comfort of their desks.
You don't know that at all. For all you know, 99% are legitimate targeted harassment or part of a larger course of offending behaviour. It's snap uninformed judgements like yours that are the problem, imo
Police were already enforcing non-crime for a long time. They get called when there are black and brown people in spaces that makes the neighbors nervous. I don’t think police being used as an enforcement mechanism for non-crimes should be critiqued as if it’s a new phenomenon. It’s old and it sucks and it should be critiqued on that.
Touché. Would that not mean in acceptance of the tyranny? I think a large segment of the American public sees that something is wrong, and that the creep has become too much. If anything that might be our saving grace, so I hope we are not trapped in an Overton window.
You know, it was only a few decades ago that promoting gay rights was considered obscene speech and illegal. Remember that the laws used to arrest meme posters can also be used to arrest civil rights activists.
The problem in this case is that the people it's radicalizing are transphobic assholes. I wish someone who didn't suck was responsible for poking at this terrible law.
I don't know if radicalization is the right word or the process that should be happening, but there is something important to note here:
The radicalization that happens in circles like the one that image comes from, in addition to or instead of the one (I hope) you mean, is not one against undemocratic practices, abuse of power etc. It is one against people who are trans (or queer in general).
And that radicalization does harm. It leads to shame and discrimination. It leads to violence. And yes, it _kills_.
Please make sure you (and others) know what radicalization you mean, and make sure that the one that is happening is correct.
Partially true, but this kind of police overreaction is definitely giving the Alex Jones' of the world ammo. When those characters go on about the thought police of the new world order or whatever, it's not without a little truth.
One of the Nazi propaganda moves was to align Jewish people with pedophiles.
"Well obviously pedophiles are bad. You wouldn't defend a pedophile! Unless.. you are a pedophile?"
Of course you are going to label your opponent in unfavorable terms. But here's the thing - why do you need to?
If your opponent is actually a murderer, you don't need to talk them up as a Sig Heiling murderer who hates gay people. You can just be truthful and call them a murderer.
If the only offense you have is to slander your opponent... you might be making up the outrage.
I think you are saying it is bad to equate some undesireable behavior with nazism, because its equivalent to he nazi's equating Jews with Pedophiles, then labeling people as pedophiles to push an agenda. If that's right I think its also relevant in this case the person's tweet was of an actual swastika.
Context is key to understanding complex thoughts, even ugly bigoted ones, I'm concerned that you aren't including it. Lawrence Fox is not an LGBT ally in any way, and his tweet and the retweet of this news story were not funny, they were attacks.
'Haha so funny, it's not pro-Nazi, it's just saying other people are Nazis.'
They are equating something they do not agree with to Nazism. That is why they posted a swastika. People are in turn labeling the person posting the tweet as the Nazi because they seem to "act like a Nazi". The tactic they are using... in your own words is a Nazi tactic.
I thought all those cameras were supposed to curb that kind of crime?
Even on the short walk from my hotel to $CUSTOMER in Southampton (hardly a metropolis), I counted more than forty surveillance cameras - and those were only the ones I could casually spot during a ten-minute walk...
I think thieves quickly realised that public CCTVs do not actually prevent them from stealing and don't really increase their chance of being caught, either...
In many (most?) cases public CCTVs are scarecrows.
We've had this stuff for decades; the law is a 2003 one based on a 1988 one. People have been jailed under the relevant law for tasteless jokes about murder victims, fined for sharing a pictures of a police officer with a penis drawn on his head and held in cells overnight for sharing material offending the memory of dead soldiers.
The difference is this time the person indirectly insulted gay people, so people get to shoehorn "anti-woke" talking points into it.
Im my experience most people that complain about free speech are, like the guy in the article, wanting to use it to be an asshole. As such, it’s hard to have much sympathy for them. I’m certainly not going to stand up for his right to share homophobic nazi propaganda.
2. Cancel culture is mostly concerned with giving a voice and power to the set of marginalized groups that the Nazis despised. The Nazis could not have cared less about pronouns and would have murdered trans people on sight, and they were anything but politically correct for the time, which is why the world went to war against them.
Meanwhile, they would easily have retweeted a meme (in other words, engaged in propaganda) meant to disparage and slander homosexuals, although obviously they wouldn't not have associated homosexuality with Nazism or used the Swastika, as they considered homosexuality to be abhorrent. They most likely would have used a Star of David or other Jewish symbol instead.
The nazis were control freaks. All information channels (not just electronic, but also behavioral) were policed, and any information passing through those channels had to be authorized by the authorities.
Memes become popular through a bottom-up process. An image resonates with you and you share it with your network.
The LGBT movement (an entity separate from homosexuality itself) is not currently a bottom-up phenomenon. It’s subsidized and utilized by the world’s largest corporations, the largest media, the largest non-profits and nearly all western governments to push all kinds of agendas that appear to a great many of us as authoritarian and dangerous.
so much of the ways that nazis justified their evil acts were by making the jews out to be their oppressors, and the secret controllers of 'woke' politics of the time. it was a reactionary ideology then, and it's a reactionary ideology now.
when you cast yourself as 'the real victim' and use it as an excuse to mistreat a historically oppressed segment of society... yeah man, I see a lot in common with the nazis there, particularly in the realm of a group of people united by what they believe, fighting to hurt a group of people united by who they are.
The nazis policed behavior. Modern critics of LGBT aren’t trying to police behavior, we’re pointing out that the entity LGBT (and all the corporations/governments behind interested in propagating it) is obviously connected to the policing of behavior.
There’s a very clear dividing line here. You support free speech (including what you don’t like or consider dangerous) or you don’t. One of those positions is a lot closer to the nazis than it’s proponents understand.
The only reason we should have free speech is protect speech people don't like. If everyone only said speech everybody else agreed with there would be no reason to have free speech protections.
What happens if in the future your opinion on something is considered as bad as homophobia or Nazism?
The right to free speech is a right to speech that someome might disagree with, because speech that nobody disagrees with needs no protection whatsoever.
notavalleyman, who has trolled this thread several times, is implying through sarcasm that jscipione is explicitly saying there is a First Amendment in the UK.
While it is good he was released, the police never should have been there in the first place. There was no reason to question a person over a tweet like that.
Its an offense under the Mal Comms laws (which are daft).
If there's a report, they have a duty to go interview the person, and usually its closed as NFA.
In this case, he arranged for a voluntary interview (which would have leas to NFA), then reneged, which creates the conditions under PACE that necessitate an arrest so interview can be done quickly.
All of which would have been explained to him.
He wanted to get arrested, or had a room temperature IQ. Or both.
Are you suggesting that the police have an obligation to interview every person accused of hate speech? If that is the case can I report a person of hate speech every day they speak or make a post and the police would be required to interview them every time?
As for him wanting to be arrested. So what? He was trying to prove a point that the trans ideology is authoritarian and the police obliged.
The fact that he was arrested over a ham sandwich is even worse.
It's funny because on one side the UK is the birthplace of most of how democracies work today, and the oldest continuously running democratic parliament. So it has fairly good credentials.
But on the other hand this system is so dangerous, there is only really one chamber (the other one has no power), no counterpower, no constitution (the precendents thing is a joke, given that they are free to make up their own precedents on the fly), it is free to basically vote whatever it wants with a 50% and 1 vote majority, and that includes wiping out any civil liberty they feel like.
Again hard to call "unstable" a system that has shown to be so stable for so long, but it feels that it is not stable by design.
Canada's legal system is heavily inspired by the British one (at least outside of Quebec) and even they wouldn't touch this sort of thing with a ten-foot pole.
This sort of policing of offensive content on social media among democracies is basically just the UK + the middle east.
I can't think of any other non-despotic countries dumb enough to do this?
A more accurate comparison would be a man being visited by the police for possessing ham that may have been illegally imported, or was stolen, or that he was prohibited by law from possessing for one reason or another. The police were there to investigate a potential violation of the law. The fact that some people find the behavior the law prohibits to be morally questionable doesn't seem relevant.
That's not accurate at all because stealing is a physical action. The police were there to investigate feelings. It's literally in the title: 'causing anxiety'.
So they wanted him for an interview (which would end up being NFA'd).
They went over by arrangement with him for a voluntary interview, the guy decided to be an arse about it, which created the conditions under PACE (Policing and Crime Act) that necessitate arrest.
Arrest occurs, mans fucking shocked.
Play stupid games...
Now I will say, the Mal Comms laws are a disaster. But Jesus Christ the Mirror misrepresents this by a mile.
>They went over by arrangement with him for a voluntary interview, the guy decided to be an arse about it,
Voluntary interview doesn't seem so voluntary if you can't refuse it (or, rescind the voluntary acceptance of interview) without the refusal becoming a condition for a non-voluntary interview.
Voluntary interview in the UK is basically an interview under caution where they aren't arresting you first.
They could arrest you to interview, but its agreed they won't.
If you decide to not bother doing the voluntary interview, arrest becomes necessary, and you get arrested.
Arrests can show up on enhanced DBS checks, and are a real pain in the hole to explain to employers down the line. Hence there being a non arrest option.
There are some cases where you can be invited for a voluntary interview where they haven't established enough for arrest if you refuse.
Its a somewhat confusing term, but that's what they call it.
Usually its made clear to you at the time which of those cases its going to be.
"Look, you can come in for an interview at a time that suits both of us, or we will have to go and get you at a time that suits us. Either way, you will be interviewed."
I'm pretty confident that nibbleshifter meant/was implying "potentially committed an offense", which under the law necessitated the investigation, and thus means that the correct procedure was followed (separate from whether or not the law or procedure is just).
Surely they could have looked at the tweet instead of interviewing him? Once they viewed the tweet they would have discovered that it is not grossly offensive or indecent and they could have avoided this whole thing.
If interviewing is required then what is to stop somebody from reporting somebody everyday and requiring the police to go out consistently?
For me this is just as ridiculous as everything else being discussed.. why can anyone ever find out about an arrest that leads nowhere? Why all this dancing around? Because not even the police databases are secure! No one has trustworthy computers or communication technology and it is causing waaay too much drama.
I think that overall process is reasonable from a policing standpoint, but calling it "voluntary"... well, I don't think that word means what the police thinks it means. If you are required to do something, or else you will get arrested, that thing is not voluntary.
shouldn't it be called involuntary interview to reflect the truth of the matter? Government sure does have a way of naming things like it's opposite day everyday.
I don't know if "misrepresentation" is the word, when the whole scenario was engineered by a pro-hate-speech activist specifically to be reported on by outlets like The Mirror.
Laws on controversial topics often have awkward corner cases, and one strategy to fight them is to force those corner cases to the surface in a way that wouldn't have happened naturally, so that they can be highlighted for discussion in sympathetic media circles.
Edit: Tangentially related, from Lawrence v Texas with another somewhat manufactured situation:
"The gay rights advocates from Lambda Legal litigating the case convinced Lawrence and Garner not to contest the charges and to plead no contest instead.[29] On November 20, Lawrence and Garner pleaded no contest to the charges and waived their right to a trial. Justice of the Peace Mike Parrott found them guilty and imposed a $100 fine and court costs of $41.25 on each defendant. When the defense attorneys realized that the fine was below the minimum required to permit them to appeal the convictions, they asked the judge to impose a higher penalty. Parrott, well aware that the attorneys intended to use the case to raise a constitutional challenge, increased it to $125 with the agreement of the prosecutor.[30]"
I have a sneaking suspicion a huge portion of the U.S. population would back police arresting people over social media posts that disagree with their values.
Major threads on Reddit typically have ~5-10% of comments removed. Anything political and it goes to ~25% [1].
When pushback gets [removed], not just downvoted, you start to think certain topics have unquestioned support. So it's easy to forget that what's mainstream or controversial on Reddit and Twitter can be very different than real life.
> The First Amendment is pretty unpopular with progressives in the US these days
Based off of what? There's ample evidence of elected representatives on the rights passing laws that aim to reduce freedom of religion, speech, the press, and assembly. While on the left, the examples are always some rando on the internet saying something stupid which the reader decides is somehow a shared belief amongst millions of people.
It's also unpopular with regressive conservatives as well, or hadn't you noticed. Moderates are the only ones tell people to take a step back and calm down. Conservatives have become synonymous with MAGA since they are no longer even making an attempt to fight against it's hateful, autocratic tendencies.
In the Anglosphere, it feels that many of our institutions have been captured by activists. A small minority who push an agenda and are able to silence (consciously or subconsciously) mainstream thinking.
Tyranny of the minority. It's all over society, not just in politics. A group with a small but strong preference for a choice will force the masses into that choice, even if it's worse for the majority. It's not necessarily a bad thing.
Examples: you're not allowed peanuts on a plane if someone has an allergy; almost all meat on sale is halal etc.
"It's okay when we do it" is so rampant on political forums. They instinctively react against anyone bringing up 'Whataboutisms' and 'slippery slope', like they are taboo arguments.
People are far too willing to take significant risks just to get emotional gratification and appease their own outrage. Usually it's delivered with a blind trust in the system (the sort of trust you'd normally never hear re the police), that it will somehow be used mostly for good, the scope won't expand indefinitely, and the false positives are just a cost of doing business.
The far left "progressive" movement does have control over and the ears of a lot of these large corps. They are probably less than 10% but are great at organizing. Yet one more reason to split up the megacorps in silicon valley, some other regions and more moderate parts of the US can gain some traction. This is coming from a progressive, but a progressive who also balks at controlling free speech when it isn't calling for specific violence. I also support the right of corps to kick hatemongers off their platform.
He should base his defense on having posted merely a regime-approved flag, and make them argue that the putative offense is constituted by displaying it in apposition to itself.
Unfortunately, HN users tend not to care about the quality of news sources when it comes to "culture war" issues. This'll just turn into a platform for people to air grievances and repeat their ideological stance. If it makes you feel better, most people won't actually read the article.
This thread has several different people commenting that the source is questionable, posting other sources, explaining why this source isn't great, etc. Which is what I see, quite often, in posts that have questionable sources.
Your view of "HN users" (excluding yourself from that group, presumably?) doesn't seem to align with my experiences.
>Unfortunately, HN users tend not to care about the quality of news sources when it comes to "culture war" issues.
I challenge you to come up with a source, any source, which hasn't done the same thing many times over when it comes to "culture war" issues. Please show me what a quality source looks like here...
Is there something here that they reported that was incorrect? Wernher von Braun was a Nazi during the war, but was also head of various rocket programs in the USA after the war. A "thing" can have two purposes and still be useful
1. The Mirror should not be trusted. There are few trashier newspapers in the country. It’s is definitely not the sort of “source” that should be getting any airtime on HN.
Worth pointing out that the mildest bit of research would show that this incident isn't even particularly unusual, that the UK College of Policing has recently issued updated guidance on the issue, and that it is a major point of discussion during the Tory leadership race.
The more worrying underlying problem is that western governments feel increasingly emboldened to pick and enforce ideologies again- and that's a problem regardless of the ideology. The 20st century is filled with examples of what happens when governments extend beyond their administrative mandates.
I'm more worried about how easily media spins stories that have a smidge of sense into a scandal by cutting out details and making the headline sensational. While the police overstepped in this case, the article clearly wanted this specific take to be posted to spur discussion and clicks. And we all keep falling for it.
That's not what I said. The overstepping should be dealt with, decisively. But that doesn't excuse the fact that The Mirror is a deplorable rag and absolutely does not belong on HN, considering how paltry their journalistic standards are.
A law exists in the UK about using public communications networks to send grossly offensive or indecent communications.
Somebody complained to the police that this chap had maybe broken that law, and from the embedded video, it sounds like he wasn't willing to come voluntarily to the interview room.
So what do the police do? Tell the complainant, sorry, you feel like you're a victim of crime but the alleged offender wasn't willing to be arrested?
Nobody is picking ideologies to enforce. I don't see how the content of the supposed offensive tweet, is relevant to the decision to interview this chap under caution.
One purpose of government in the UK is law writing, so the Communications Act 2003 is absolutely their business.
As to why the behaviour needs legislating: because the British social contract required it, because in British society they're willing to trade the right to say grossly offensive things to people, for protection against hearing grossly offensive things. Lots of reasons, it's fine for them, you don't often hear clamour to repeal the law, they don't have the same issue with it that you do. So who are you to tell Brits that they shouldn't have a law?
The question was - why is (this legislated behaviour) any of the government's business? That's not an opinion.
Ultimately it's a question of consent and the social contract. My answer, which you're critical of here, is that ultimately the government have consent of the people to enforce this law and therefore it's the government's business. It's consented by the Brits, there is not democratic clamour to rewrite that law, and it's not for other countries to impose their values here. I hope you don't think I'm being pedantic, I'm just trying to answer the question that was put to me; why, in the UK, is this a regulated behaviour
> because in British society they're willing to trade the right to say grossly offensive things to people, for protection against hearing grossly offensive things
I doubt it represents British society's desire. It's more likely a case of "when you're a hammer everything looks like a nail". MPs feel that their job is to always legislate. Let's not forget that since the 90s raves have been illegal in the UK.
> For the same reason that it's the governments business if you are grossly offensive or indecent in person.
Ok, so why is it the government's business if you are grossly offensive or indecent in person? Why can't the normal tools people always use in social interaction handle this?
> Shouting abuse at someone in public
Is not what the person who was arrested in this case was doing. His tweet was not directed at any particular person.
The law does recognize assault as a crime, and shouting abuse at someone in public can rise to the level of assault if the person being shouted at could reasonably believe that the shouter was threatening actual harm. But the crime in this case is not speech; the shouting isn't a crime because it is expressing an offensive opinion. It's a crime because it's a threat of actual harm.
Isn't the government through law and police the entity that encodes and enforces the current set of moral values of a society? When same-sex relations were deemed imoral in less refined times the police would arrest people for that. Now we understand as a society that we can't tolerate repressive ideologies like fascism and so it falls upon the government the burden of repressing and regulating the use of symbols in the context of promoting such ideologies.
What other institution would do this instead of the government? Because having no form of regulation is in my opinion not viable.
Just think of it for a second. No regulation is a double edge knife. Yes, maybe it would make for a less repressive society, but you would be opening ways for any sort of expression, not only those that don't bother you directly but also those that do. So lacking a better option, the government fills this gap.
If that is not acceptable to you, you should come up with alternatives other than unlimited freedom.
> Yes, maybe it would make for a less repressive society, but you would be opening ways for any sort of expression, not only those that don't bother you directly but also those that do.
Yep, I get all kinds of really mean things said to me. Sometimes I even get upset by them.
I don't feel a need to arrest and jail the people saying those mean things.
You should start reading parent threads before writing nonsense. If you read my original comment you would see I was talking about general ideas, not this specific case.
> we can't tolerate repressive ideologies like fascism and so it falls upon the government the burden of repressing and regulating the use of symbols in the context of promoting such ideologies.
So we don't like repression, so we use repression? That doesn't make sense.
The way to counter speech that promotes ideologies you think are bad is with more speech that explains why those ideologies are bad ones. Or even just reminds people that those ideologies are bad ones. It isn't to adopt the same techniques that those bad ideologies use.
> What other institution would do this instead of the government?
The obvious other way of regulating speech that some people find offensive or indecent is people's freedom of choice in social interaction. Don't interact with people who say things you find offensive or indecent. If the offensive or indecent things are in tweets, don't follow them on Twitter.
> having no form of regulation is in my opinion not viable.
There is no such thing as "no form of regulation". People already regulate their social interactions with other people. Adding government micromanagement on top of that does not really add any value. It just adds more ways for the government to mess with people.
The idea underlying government regulation of speech seems to be that people should be protected from things that they might find offensive or indecent, because people are delicate snowflakes that can be damaged by such things and they aren't capable of just dealing with them using the normal tools of social interaction. For mature adults that idea is laughable. Part of being a mature adult is understanding that there are lots of things in the world that are not the way you would like them to be and dealing with it, and not invoking Higher Authority every time you don't like something.
> So we don't like repression, so we use repression? That doesn't make sense.
Why doesn't it? I can see the irony of course but that doesn't automatically explain it. If the boundaries of a tolerant society are clearly defined, any form of repression towards emergent intolerant ideologies outside the scope of such society are valid and won't jeopardize it because of such scope.
> The way to counter speech that promotes ideologies you think are bad is with more speech that explains why those ideologies are bad ones.
That process is viable long term but not enough to protect people that might be in iminent danger, today, from groups like neo-nazis, racists or anti-lgbtq+. Society must account for that and protect those in iminent danger.
> Don't interact with people who say things you find offensive or indecent.
What about persecution? People that you try to get away from but will go out of their way to hurt you? That is again not enough, and if government resorts only to that it will expose vulnerable groups to hazard.
> There is no such thing as "no form of regulation". People already regulate their social interactions with other people. Adding government micromanagement on top of that does not really add any value. It just adds more ways for the government to mess with people.
That works on a micro-social scale, but not on a global scale, which is the kind of isonomy that is required for a functioning society. Government individuals can and have abused power, but I think those are two different issues, one being the scope of government action and the second power misuse and mismanagement. The later can happen even without a wider form of the former through corrupt operations. That is, even if we limit the scope of operation, if we don't elect good officials, they can still abuse power beyond this limited scope of action.
> damaged by such things and they aren't capable of just dealing with them using the normal tools of social interaction. For mature adults that idea is laughable.
That is a superiority fallacy that only distracts from the issue. Is *everyone* complaining about this a snowflake? Isn't there a slight possibility they might have some form os substance to their claims? If there is a small chance somebody is in distress we have to make sure we take this seriously. Sure you understand as a mature adult like yourself we are not talking about isolated incidents but actions that can be taken by society as a whole.
> If the boundaries of a tolerant society are clearly defined
Our system of common law already does that. As I noted in response to another poster downthread, assault is already a crime, and shouting abuse at a particular person is assault if that person can reasonably believe that they are in danger of actual harm from the shouter. But that is not what the person who was arrested in the subject article was doing. He was not threatening, or even talking to, any particular person.
> people that might be in iminent danger, today, from groups like neo-nazis, racists or anti-lgbtq+
Whatever "imminent danger" exists is not from tweets. And conflating a tweet with the kind of "imminent danger" that actually harms people is exactly the kind of muddying of the "boundaries of a tolerant society" that makes the problem worse, not better.
> What about persecution?
The man who got arrested in the subject article was not persecuting anybody.
> Government individuals can and have abused power, but I think those are two different issues, one being the scope of government action and the second power misuse and mismanagement.
Expanding the scope of government power also expands the scope of possible misuse and mismanagement. So the two are connected.
> Isn't there a slight possibility they might have some form os substance to their claims?
Saying that you are offended by someone's tweet is one thing; of course you can and should say that. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm advocating for--combating offensive speech with more speech.
But calling the police because you are offended by someone's tweet is very different. Now you're not fighting speech with more speech; you're fighting speech with persecution. Which is exactly the sort of thing you claim to be against.
> we are not talking about isolated incidents but actions that can be taken by society as a whole.
Um, what? The tweet that got this man arrested was an isolated incident. He's not "society as a whole". He's just one person who tweeted something.
In fact, what "society as a whole" does, on your preferred model, is far more like persecution and "imminent danger" than what this man did. The guy tweets something you find offensive, so you bring down the massive power of the government on him? For a tweet? Where is your sense of proportion? Why can't you just say "that was offensive" and leave it at that, and save the massive power of the government for the cases where there is actual harm? Wasting all that power on a guy that just tweets something makes it harder to focus that power on the cases where people actually are harmed, which is where you say it needs to be used.
The specific arrest case blinds any sensible attempt to have a mature conversation over this subject.
In my honest opinion, the bloke who is obviously not a snowflake, that posted a frigging swastika made from lbgtq+ flags should just suck it as a real man and just go to jail without complaining like a wimp, otherwise he would be himself a snowflake and wouldn't be posting that. (Or have I got that wrong? I am not quite sure anymore).
In any case, adults should be behaving more like adults and realise their actions have consequences other than not having Christmas presents.
Have you got complaints? Good, we live in a democratic society. Just vote better next time. Just enjoy it while it lasts because that is the very thing that is just gone the moment that so called minor tweet repost swastika gets in effect.
And sorry for any inconvenience. Hope I didn't upset you.
> the bloke who is obviously not a snowflake, that posted a frigging swastika made from lbgtq+ flags should just suck it as a real man and just go to jail without complaining like a wimp
In other words, you're perfectly ok with persecuting some people, so it's not persecution you have a problem with, just persecution of people you feel shouldn't be persecuted. Got it.
> adults should be behaving more like adults and realise their actions have consequences other than not having Christmas presents.
Certainly. I have already said, multiple times now in this thread (though not all in response to you), that this bloke should certainly expect consequences such as other people saying how much of an asshole he is. But that doesn't mean he should go to jail.
> Just enjoy it while it lasts because that is the very thing that is just gone the moment that so called minor tweet repost swastika gets in effect.
So you honestly think that if this guy isn't arrested and jailed for his tweet, it's the start of a slippery slope to a new Nazi society? You appear to be ignorant of how the actual Nazis came to power. Hint: it wasn't by saying things that were offensive and having people just shrug and go about their business and not arresting them.
I would be surprised by this head in the sand denial of the obvious patterns in how laws are selectively enforced, but people seeing nothing about the world other than the filter bubble that funnels to their screens means there will always be willfully ignorant apologists for tyranny.
If the way you determine what fits this description is by knowing it when you see it, you're enforcing ideology. There is no way that you need to interview a person to figure out whether a communication is illegal. You're interviewing the person to see if the person is illegal.
I and many other believe that the government should not have the power to interview, detain, or do anything else to a person based on the contents of "offensive tweets".
Just because something is codified in law doesn't make it right.
I'm generally on the side that the side that this kind of stuff is generally nonsense, but I also think that you're being a bit narrow minded in your interpretation of "offensive tweets".
Can you honestly not think of any "offensive" tweets that you think would constitute harrassment and benefit from someone telling you to get your shit together? (edit: by which I mean police attention).
e.g. "I hope your {{family member}} gets {{offensive act}}'d"
Replace with favourite family member, and most offensive act you can think of.
At that point I believe it would be more beneficial to just have them banned from the site or block them if it's continuous harassment not police intervention. If they go further, then it's not an offensive tweet that would become threats, which is a completely different topic from offensive tweets. I don't like the idea of being put into jail because of what someone else finds offensive. Being banned from Twitter won't make it harder to get jobs and live your life, like jail time / a record will. Saying I hope something happens to someone is nowhere near as bad in my opinion as saying you're planning to do something and giving a detailed layout of someones house and daily plan.
> A law exists in the UK about using public communications networks to send grossly offensive or indecent communications.
Such a law used to exist in the U.S. as well. It was ruled unconstitutional, because the U.S. actually has meaningful protections for free speech (or 'freeze peach', as it's also sometimes known). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act : "...[I]t attempted to regulate both indecency (when available to children) and obscenity in cyberspace".
The point is that in that particular case the police could simply have looked at the tweet to decide whether an offense had likely been committed. They didn't need to visit the person, and they certainly didn't need to arrest him.
I believe that the original tweet by Laurence Fox did not receive a police response, and neither did the likely thousands of retweets.
The police grossly overreacted. Even their PCC criticised them and everyone seems to agree that no crime was committed (well, apart from a fringe who were the actual target of the original tweet).
> the police could simply have looked at the tweet to decide whether an offense had likely been committed
The receiver is also important here. The same text can be innocuous in adult to adult communication but worrying if sent to a minor, specially if spammed repeatedly to somebody living at the same street.
I can see several cases in what the interview would be a reasonable first approach.
In any case it feels like the societies are slowly waking-up to the dangers of ciberwar; and that the age of puppet masters being allowed to roam free, brainwash and destroy the lives of people online is dying for good.
... in your opinion. In many (most?) places Police has the right to ask informally anybody when investigating a situation of concern. People have a different way to interact with Police in Europe than in US when the excuse to "lie to the police" can't be used as mass destruction weapon against you. (If he was really arrested) he had to behave like a moron to escalate the situation to the point of being arrested.
And what he was expecting? Police are really motivated to investigate anything related with hate crime online now, after seeing in the last years how efficient became the pupetry. We only need to remind how the Qanon movement started (and ended), or how very young and very naive adolescents in the western countries had been radicalized to join the Islamic State.
Considering that the arrest caused an outrage, that no charges were brought, and that even the force's Commissioner criticised the action, I think that it is established.
You and I are UK citizens for the moment. I assert that your comment here is grossly indecent and offensive to me. Will the UK government summon you for mandatory interrogation due to my complaint, or will they dismiss me out of hand?
Obviously the latter, therefore the content itself is held to some standard. Show me that standard, and I'll show you an ideology.
Then British citizens should be absolutely terrified of their government, because they've given their government the power to arrest them for literally no reason at all.
The idea that the police can have the authority to detain someone because they have a reasonable belief that they hurt someone else's feelings is... well, if y'all don't see the obvious problem with that, I'm not sure how else to explain it.
> should be absolutely terrified of their government, because they've given their government the power to arrest them for literally no reason at all
Would this opinion change if you learned that in the UK people are generally trusted to make correct and true police crime reports?
Say you lived in a place where actually 100% of reports to the police, were truly people who felt like a crime had taken place. In that case, wouldn't we be fine with cops following up all reports?
So if people in the UK generally trust each other to be making true reports when they feel like a crime has taken place....why wouldn't brits empower the police to follow up on serious reports?
> Would this opinion change if you learned that in the UK people are generally trusted to make correct and true police crime reports?
No, not at all, because "generally trusted" is not "100% of the time people will do things in good faith". And I don't agree with your assessment in any case; the article in question is a clear counter-example. And another comment somewhere here claims that the UK deals with quite a large amount of these sorts of reports where the police investigate and decide there's nothing to pursue.
> Say you lived in a place where actually 100% of reports to the police, were truly people who felt like a crime had taken place. In that case, wouldn't we be fine with cops following up all reports?
That depends on what you mean by "following-up". If tweeting something that made someone "anxious" means that you can expect the police to show up at your door and demand to interview you (or else you will be arrested), I think that's incredibly heavy-handed. In this case, the police should have been able to look at the tweet in question, think "hmm, well, that's a shitty thing to post, but I don't see anything criminal here", and leave it at that.
> So if people in the UK generally trust each other to be making true reports when they feel like a crime has taken place....why wouldn't brits empower the police to follow up on serious reports?
I've already pointed out that I don't believe this is true in general, but there's more to it than that. People change. Governments change. The law often does not. If you give one government the power to do something, because you believe that government is good and will not abuse it, you must consider that the next government may not be one that you trust as much, but will also get to have that power.
I express many unpopular opinions online, including right here on Hackernews. If offending people online is a criminal offense, then my freedom and standing in law-abiding society are at risk. Your posts are genuinely and seriously offensive to me because you are defending something which poses a direct material threat against me personally, as a hypothetical UK citizen.
Is it conceivable that the UK government would actually interview you to protect me against itself?
Imagine for a moment that the situation was reversed. An LGBT activist would retweet a meme comparing the Catholic church to the devil. A conservative churchgoer would get offended and would report the tweet. Do you think, the police response would be 100% identical?
Selective enforcement of unenforceable rules is a century-old trick. Here's a relevant quote from Atlas Shrugged:
You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to
rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well,
when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it
becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens?
What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced
nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt.
"Opposite" being opposite groups, not opposite action...being left/'woke'/social tweeting about something like the catholic church, and getting arrested for it.
edit: Assuming the parent means that they think 'left' offensive tweets would equally dealt with by the Police.
I'm from the UK (Scotland) and I cant remember a 'pro left' offensive tweeter getting arrested, but then again the number of arrests for social media posts is pretty damn small in the first place, so not exactly something I think ANYONE can reliably draw inferences from.
What? UK is like the poster child for arresting leftist people on no ground at all. Started in the 80s (it might have been even earlier). I mean, France isn't far behind, but at least we dissolve far right groups too (well, after they kill people, whereas no far left group has killed anyone yet).
I think the most recent was Toby Child (Correction, Toby Shone), but there was a Walker something arrested for owning "the Anarchist cookbook" in the last 10 years, and more recently multiple members of extinction Rebellion were arrested juuust before an authorized protest, on no ground, for no particular reason, which -what a surprise- prevented them to assist the protest (This is actually a French tactic, good job implementing it UK police).
It really picked in the 90s against "ecoterrorists", but arresting lefties is like 50% of your counterterrorist police job, because they smoke pot and like to trespass a lot, which give ground to search their home and arrest them for cannabis possession (or fuck with them, just because) and way less dangerous than going against real terrorists with guns and explosives.
What i find really weird is people complaining "It's always against my camp", forgetting that most of the time, it's actually not.
I get that UK law is different from US law, and that they actually have hate speech laws (while, in the US, hate speech is protected by the first amendment). But it's really bad that governments have this sort of power, where they can persecute people based on speech they don't like.
It seems you must either think that it's correct to arrest people who compare the Catholic Church to the devil or that you think this is a bad law and law enforcement. If you think the former I must warn you that that would cause me anxiety and I will report you to your local thought police.
It's a law against offensive speech. If more people in the UK are offended by trolling gays than by trolling Catholics, you don't need a conspiracy theory to explain why one gets you in more trouble than the other.
To clarify, I don't agree with the law - I think offensive speech should be legal - but this Ayn Rand stuff just sounds petulant in this context. If you want to insult gays on social media as a hobby, the main thing stopping you is not government oppression, it's the fact that a majority of voters want you to not do that.
> the main thing stopping you is not government oppression, it's the fact that a majority of voters want you to not do that
Do you really think that a majority of voters would want somebody to be arrested for a post like this? If we're going to automatically assume that all government actions are simply what the "majority of voters" wanted, then nothing the government does can ever be wrong.
Don't expand what I said to make it easier to argue against. I don't think all laws automatically reflect the will of this people. I think this one, the highly publicized one, the controversial one that basically everyone is aware of and has an opinion on, either does reflect the will of the people or will get changed if it doesn't.
And the reason I think that is, making fun of gays used to be both widely accepted and totally legal, and those two things changed at roughly the same time. If that's not the law changing to reflect the evolving will of the electorate, it's a hell of a coincidence.
Imagine for a moment, that people were accused of violating this law in a way which was not offensive to a specific ideology, or at least not the same one as the chap here....
Actually, we don't have to imagine this.
First they came for the bloke that posted bad taste jokes about a murder victim, and he got 12 weeks in jail [1]
Then they came for the man who insulted a policeman by sharing a Snapchat picture of his face with a penis superimposed on it, and he was fined £400 and required to do a community service punishment [2]
Then they came for the people who direspected military dead by burning poppies and they got nights in cells and fines and hastily organised commemorative apologies [3]
Then they came for the bloke that tweeted something about tEh LGBT AgEnDA, he got off relatively lightly and the police got their wrists slapped, and people started quoting Ayn Rand and talking about how uniquely oppressive "woke" people are
Thank you for actually finding good counter-examples. Come to think of it, the problem is deeper.
The first level is that many western societies have vocal groups of people whose joy in life comes from bullying others (getting other people fired, targeting them with rather disproportionate punishments, campaigning outside their houses, etc). The woke/progressive movement has attracted a lot of these people, but I agree that blaming all progressives for doing that is like blaming all conservatives for being racist.
The second level is that the governments realized that by giving platform to bullies they can keep the public busy with an endless third-world-style feud, while escaping accountability for many real problems (former middle class plunging into poverty).
The third level is that most people refuse to scrutinize the actions of those who claim to be fighting for a good cause, refuse to check for conflicts of interest, refuse to distinguish between anti-discrimination and attention seeking and refuse to focus on actions rather than identities. And this makes the 2 previous levels possible.
Did a judge sign off on a warrant for his arrest? If I find your post grossly offensive should you be removed from your home and sent to a police interrogation room just in case you hurt my feelings? And how would the police be able to determine that outside a court? My feelings would have to be litigated which would require my filing suit. Any suit originating from a civilian is civil in its nature and is outside the scope of police action.
Did the police catch him in the commission of a crime? If not then, yes, they would need a judge to sign a warrant. Seeing as he was released without charges it seems the police grossly overstepped their authority.
Edit: Let me caveat because I fired fast and loose with this reply. This is from an American perspective. I am not a UK lawyer so this could very well be perfectly legal. Though I do view it as "bad" and would oppose the introduction of these norms in America.
> A constable may arrest without a warrant to prevent the person in question [from] committing an offence against public decency (subject to subsection (6))
I'm not sure of the specifics as to what "public decency" means in the UK but I believe your implication. I think subsection 6 supports my 'theory' (read: wild accusation)? Seeing as it was posted on the internet and could reasonably be avoided.
Even if that's not so, this seems like a tort and should not be handled by the police. Just my opinion.
Your reply is "grossly offensive" in my view. I have the right to be taken seriously. If the police do not interview you then they are not equally enforcing the law.
Picking ideologies is the only way you can define something as nebulously described as "grossly offensive or indecent". For example, I find material that claims to care about climate change while attacking nuclear power to be grossly offensive. Someone else might find a selfie of a woman in a bikini or at a topless beach to be indecent.
Tell the complainant, sorry, you feel like you're a victim of crime
Do people in the UK really wake up every day knowing that hurting someone's feelings is a crime and they're just ok with that? Of course society could not function if that were the case in practice. In practice, whose feelings matter is entirely political.
It is a crime in the UK to send a malicious message contrary to that Act of parliament...
> Why would they even need to interview him to determine if it was a crime or not?
Lots of reasons to interview him, and you've given one here. Generally in UK, if someone complains that you've broken the law, you're given an interview to present your side of the matter.
If the police invite you for a voluntary interview then you're absolutely free to refuse.
The police also have wide discretionary powers to arrest without warrant. One of those grounds is to allow "prompt and effective" investigation of a suspected offence. And PACE Code of Practice G expressly suggests "won't come to be interviewed unless arrested" is one case when this might apply.
So, in practice, if you refuse the 'voluntary' interview then you may well face a compulsory one, plus a bonus arrest record.
Can you come to an interview and refuse to answer questions? It seems crazy that the onus for an interview is on the person to attend and show they have done nothing wrong rather than the police to prove via other evidence that you meet some standard as to necessitate being interviewed.
You can, but it's not always a good idea. The 'caution' here (our equivalent to the US's Miranda warning) is "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention in questioning something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence". The intent is to prevent 'ambush' defences (introduce an alibi at trial, for example, giving no opportunity to investigate it) but it has the consequence that a "no comment" interview can be tactically risky. (And that we have no real right to silence, of course!)
In principle they shouldn't be arresting you unless they have sufficient grounds for suspecting an offence, though there are the usual accountability problems in enforcing that. The recent case of ST is a good illustration of that[0]: a 14-year old was arrested at dawn on a flimsy case of participating in the robbery of a mobile phone at school. The arrest was mostly to search his room, as well as to ensure attendance at interview, which is legal under PACE, but he was willing to attend voluntarily, as well as to agree to the search, and the timing of arrest and decision to hold in custody rather than immediately bail were also probably unlawful. He sued for false imprisonment. He lost the case because the first instance judge decided that 'whilst the arrest and detention were "reprehensible", the way the police powers had been exercised "lamentable" and it was doubtful that the actions would be "justified in the court of public opinion", there had nevertheless been reasonable grounds to suspect the Appellant of an offence of robbery and there had been reasonable grounds to believe that the arrest and detention were necessary.'
(This was overturned on appeal to the High Court, but it does show what a high bar there is for holding to account the use of powers of arrest).
The even more worrying underlying problem is that the ones applauding, encouraging, and continuing to vote for this madness aren’t even aware that they belong to an extreme ideology. Most would probably consider themselves sane, rational, and educated. Governments and voters in the west have locked themselves into a positive feedback loop of midwittery.
See the other replies to this comment for examples of this.
I think it's unfair to blame this on governments. They do it because PEOPLE want it. For every MP pushing this nonsense, there are 100k idiots who think anyone who disagrees with them should be arrested...
This is exactly the kind of manipulation that the elites use to divide the population:
1. Look at a large amount of violent crimes
2. Handpick the ones committed against a specific identity.
3. Declare that this makes a huge problem in the (not crime in general, not socioeconomic factors leading to crime, but a specific identity being allegedly targeted more than others).
4. Make the identity feel entitled to public attention and guilt. Give them preferential treatment and special rights.
Voila! Now the public truly hates (as in doesn't like) the identity, so you can justify more identity politics, more spending, and keep the plebs distracted from the falling quality of life and other more tangible problems.
Portugal is run by a center-left socialist government, and has in its constitution:
"The Constituent Assembly affirms the Portuguese people's decision to defend national independence, guarantee citizens' fundamental rights, establish the basic principles of democracy, ensure the primacy of a democratic state based on the rule of law and open up a path towards a socialist society"
This is the UK. The Conservatives have been in power for over a decade, and the previous Labour was almost Conservative in many ways. Been a long time since we had the socialist left in positions of authority.
When I hear something like this it's like when I visit a website and get a popup about cookies in my face and several banners taking up the page warning about pedantic bullshit.
First off HN, don't post the Irish Mirror as a source, it's probably bullshit.
Secondly, this guy posted literal swastikas made of pride flags. The Nazis killed and experimented on gay people. Tyranny is what happens when we don't confront this behaviour.
Thirdly, this has been taken up as a cause celebre by such right-wing nutbags as Laurence Fox.
Hacker News is better than this and if its not, I don't want to be here.
Nothing that you have said, all of which I agree with, justifies police involvement. The tweeter is a moron and he is being used by right-wing ideologues like Fox to promote their agenda. But so what? Being a right-wing fool shouldn't prompt a visit from the police looking to "check your thinking," as a constable in a similar recent incident put it.
The original tweet was not an insult to LGBT people in general but to a noisy fringe that is extremely intolerant and are forcing their ideology onto others. At least that's my personal interpretation.
What many people object to, for instance, are things like JK Rowling being cancelled because she dared say that women may not feel safe in toilets with men. This is the sort of things that prompted the original tweet although it is obviously a provocation (being by Laurence Fox, who is notorious in the UK).
Now, in any case, I don't believe that the original tweet or its thousands of retweets received a police response. And by and large the consensus seems to be that no crime has been committed. So the issue in this guy's case is that the police overreacted based on a single complaint, which they could have investigated simply by looking at the tweet...
Good thing that men aren't in women's toilets then! I'm glad we both agree that trans women should use the women bathroom, and trans men should use the men bathroom. Otherwise there would be literal (trans) men in women's toilets.
I think to agree about that we have to agree what the words "man" and "woman" mean. If they are derived from biology (ie. "adult human male/female") then no, we don't agree. Of course if you "pass" then I don't think anyone has an issue in practice. The issue would be for non-passing, obviously male, people making women feel uncomfortable in their spaces. Hoping this can be discussed reasonably.
People are defending the guy because they believe you should be allowed to post things that some people find offensive. If you don't believe in that principle you should just say it instead of trying to discredit people supporting free speech.
As much as I don't like it, calling your political adversaries nazis is pretty typical in the Anglosphere. People usually mean those people over there are authoritarian in some vague sense and I don't like what they're doing. It's obnoxious, shitty, and I wish they would stop but I fail to see why it should be a crime.
> Tyranny is what happens when we don't confront this behaviour
The history of speech codes doesn't provide evidence for this claim. Actual historical Nazis were arrested for violating hate speech laws in the Weimar Republic, and used those arrests to promote their cause and their own victim narrative. Then when those same Nazis came to power they used speech laws to ban political dissent. Speech codes in the south in the US were used to arrest and harass civil rights activists on the basis that the were promoting racial animus and hate. The US used to lock people up for protesting the draft along similar arguments.
Anywhere you look speech codes are either used for oppression, or are useless in stopping hateful people. This happens because the either operate like the Streisand Effect or prohibit legitimate discussion and create zone of forbidden speech where hateful people can gather and disseminate their nonsense free from scrutiny and public debate. I highly recommend Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media by Jacob Mchangama[1].
What if someone sees LGBT ideology as something resembling nazism and that’s their way of expressing this? If they truly believe so, they should get a chance to explain themselves.
I don’t want to take sides here but in general punishing people for hurting someone’s feelings is a bad thing in meritocracy (which I wish we had).
I remember watching a documentary about Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to immigrate to the baltic states. The documentary talked about the effort to try to reduce the stigma of "middle east man terrorist" for the refugees because the stigma alone contributed to the mutual resentment of these people. To be clear, the doc purported that being exposed to the stigma actually encouraged violence and primed jihad-sympathy among the Islamic refugees.
All this is to say that if you treat people like hateful bigots, they're likely to become hateful bigots. This overreaction seems to have the potential to do harm than good.
Makes you wonder what all the current anti-straight-white-male ideology will amount to in the long run. Hate should be called out for what it is no matter the group it's aimed at - to set a clear example of civil expectations but I don't see that happening in my lifetime if ever.
Edit: I would love to have a dialogue with the downvoters - my email is in my bio.
The hell there isn't. I've had several people say things to me recently that, were the colors flipped, would be much less tolerated by the archetypical American liberal.
One example was a Hispanic woman talking to me at the bar about renovating her grandma's house that she bought, and she was glad she did it. It is in an old "brown" neighborhood and she didn't want some white guy coming in and buying it.
She said this without irony and also without any real anger, just as a matter of fact, to me, a white man who she presumably found decent enough to chat with.
The idea that statements can have the "colors flipped" and be equivalent assumes a context where there exists racial and ethnic equality, which there isn't. A white person saying "I don't want brown people to move into this neighborhood" and a brown person saying "I don't want white people to move into this neighborhood" are only equivalent if you evaluate those statements without a social and historical context.
In this example how do we think that a legacy of redlining, gentrification, and racial wealth inequality would impact the motivations of the speakers?
I understand there is historical context. I even can comprehend why a good person would have such feelings.
I can also assert that it is racist nonetheless, and that we should either admit some level of racial bias is acceptable in parts of society, or we should admit that even "understandable" racism should be discouraged.
> are only equivalent if you evaluate those statements without a social and historical context
This is presupposed by moral relativism, which can disintegrate the whole conversation incredibly quickly if we're not careful.
I think that most people would agree that truth can exist outside of a given context. To argue that all truth requires context is a _very_ slippery slope that most aren't truly committed to.
With that being said, something is racist regardless of who says it. There isn't a differentiation based on any sort of perceived, favored group. It's incredibly difficult to be consistent with the opposing stance.
As someone who is not a straight-white-male, and someone who grew up feeling generations of oppression against me perpetrated by straight white males, the level of privilege attributed to that group seems like a gross mischaracterization to me.
The abusers are merely a tiny percentage of straight-white-males (lets' call the SWMs for short). Most SWMs are average joes, many are living in poverty, and are folks who I wouldn't want to trade places with.
Yes, I may have had some additional challenges to deal with in life due to not being a SWM, but there are plenty of SWMs who've had to deal with their own challenges which I didn't have to face.
The real problem IMHO is a set of narcissistic, self-serving, almost psychopathic personalities which our current systems of governance tends to let rise to the top.
For example, did you know that CEOs are 5x more likely to meet the clinical definition of "psychopath" than the general public? And if you break it down into the specific negative attributes that they display, you'll prob find an even higher prevalence among the top brass.
I completely agree the primary root cause of minority oppression is a societal pressure to create division within groups that hold shared economic interests (poor whites and poor blacks, for example). We historically see cross-racial class movements being cracked down on _hard_ by "the powers that be" as it were. See the Reconstruction-era Farmer's Alliance, MLK's Poor People's Campaign, Fred Hampton's organizing, etc.
I never meant to imply that 100% of SWMs are directly responsible for the oppression of minorities. I'm simply pointing out that the rhetoric of characterizing a social movement as "anti-white" or "anti-man" or "anti-straight" is in itself a predictable reaction from people accustomed to certain privilege. In fact I would argue that this rhetoric plays directly into the divisions I mentioned previously.
I agree that it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that there's an "anti-straight-white-male ideology", but I am a bit bothered by the fact that it seems to be ok in some quarters to use "cishet white male" as a pejorative term. (To be clear, I'm not saying everyone does this! But it happens often enough to make me uncomfortable.)
If it's not ok to use people's sexual orientation, gender, or race as a slur when that person is part of a historically marginalized group, then it is also not ok to do the same when the target is someone who is not part of a marginalized group.
This isn't "fragile masculinity" or whatever; this is just "treat others as you want to be treated".
There are so many cases of people (especially professors) saying things like "whiteness is an incurable parasitic condition", "gas white people", "white people are villains", "abolish whiteness", etc mostly without consequences (I don't mean legal).
Yes, if I deliberately search for people saying ridiculous things I will find them. Doing so does not indicate a broader, systemic "anti-white" tendency in society.
Racism is actually significantly more complicated than "people saying mean things" based on race. If there were "anti-white" bias in society then why is there significant difference in the favor of white people across basically every health and economic outcome we can measure?
The inflammatory rhetoric of a handful of people (professors or otherwise) is in no way equivalent or comparable to the historic and systemic racism faced by black people (or the discrimination faced by other minority groups). The conflation of these demonstrates a lack of understanding of what is even _meant_ by "racism".
Not sure what you guys mean, but one comment was flagged by users (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32428254) sufficiently to become [dead]. You can see [dead] comments if you want to by turning 'showdead' on in your profile. Does that help?
Ok, I'll have to look into this later - there are not currently any deleted comments in this subthread. Possibly a mod detached some? I'm not sure yet.
I'm not a lawyer but my interpretation of section 127 is the 'message' which caused anxiety would not be able to be proven false or that the sender knew to be false (since it's not a definitive statement about anything in particular, or in fact a message), and so didn't break the law.
The alternative avenue is the police itself thought the material is of 'grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character' which would be next-level stupidity if the CPS actually agreed with.
It is noteworthy that the "meme" being shared was pride flags arranged in a swastika pattern, and that the person who originally made the image runs the Bad Law Project, whose webpage(https://www.badlawproject.com) contains statements such as this:
>Bad law is political ideology disguised as law. When we see police officers marching with demonstrators and waving political flags and chanting activist slogans - that is bad law.
>Our Equality Act 2010 is bad law, because it does not treat all people equally and can be interpreted in such a way as to discriminate against people with certain views or beliefs.
One of the people they feature on their website as oppressed by "Bad Law" is Calvin Robinson, who has this to say on twitter:
>“No LGB without T” is a highly political statement. What does a mental health issue have to do with sexuality?
>The trans movement is discriminatory towards women’s rights and female-only spaces.
>Anime is degenerate. There’s a reason most trans activists use anime avatars.
As far as I can tell it's an anti LGBT organization, and focuses on legal defense of people who engage in hate speech, and the repeal of anti discrimination laws.
Whether or not an arrest is warranted is another debate, but the it's important to highlight the context of the group who made the image to understand their motivations behind creating the image, and what it implies about people who share the image.
It's not an anti-LGBT organization. It is an organization concerned that the police have embraced trans ideologies that don't have the support of most of the UK population. It is in many ways similar to the LGB Alliance, which has a similar position with regard to the T in LGBT. Many of its supporters are gay, including a large number of lesbian feminists who support its goals.
(Non-combative) do you have a non-partisan source? - I ask because I’ve seen that and other similar statements (“The LGB Alliance is an astroturfed organisation”) on Twitter, and wonder if they’re objectively true or exaggerations / distortions from opposing activists?
It's almost impossible to find non-partisan sources on culture war debates and the definition of "astroturfed" is debatable. It is true that the LGB Alliance was formed by a small group of primarily lesbians who strongly disagreed with positions held longstanding LGBT groups that had historically campaigned for lesbian (and gay) rights. It is also true that the Heritage Foundation, more noted for sponsoring anti-gay groups, is its primary sponsor, and that the group's primary activity is campaigning against gender recognition and access to treatment for gender dysphoria. Anecdotal evidence would suggest that the group is quite popular with conservative journalists and highly unpopular with most lesbian and gay people familiar with them.
Why would it donate to an organisation that campaigns for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights, that has an overwhelmingly left-wing membership, and that was founded by two left-wing lesbian feminists?
- given the LGBA’s position is:
“(W)e do not, and will not, forge links with, or accept funding from, any organisation… that seeks to undermine women’s reproductive rights.”
- which the Heritage Foundation oppose, I gather.
I’m inclined to believe the Heritage Foundation link is a untruth, to be honest. Given the LGBA’s charitable status I guess we’ll get definitive evidence at some point.
I will backtrack a little and concede that it's not evidenced that the LGBA itself taking the cash, but here's its founder talking about how the wider movement she represents wouldn't have even been possible in the United States without Heritage Foundation backing
https://twitter.com/BevJacksonAuth/status/115396424210361548...
(not her only tweet defending the need for feminists to work with the Heritage Foundation)
I think being such a niche cause that only your notional political enemies pursuing a divide and conquer strategy will work with you internationally is what most people mean when they accuse a cause of being "astroturfed"
[For the avoidance of doubt I fully agree that in other respects, they do not share the same political views and that they are not closet hardline antifeminists in disguise]
Presumably the world would get the benefit. If anything I say is incorrect please point it out.
You appear to be saying a HOMOsexual focused organization is being HOMOphobic by wanting to focus only on HOMOsexuals.
But no, I'm not apologizing. I can't see anything wrong with any subgroup wanting to focus their attention more-directly on themselves. Do Indigenous people not have the right to their own organizations since the popularization of the BIPoC acronym?
But they're not against LGB, just T. So they're anti-T. When every letter in the acronym is literally representing a different group, lumping them together the way you are is dishonest.
that's exactly the kind of divide-and-conquer approach that queer solidarity is a bulwark against though - whether you're gay, straight, bisexual, or trans, we all face a very particular kind of oppression having to do with sex and gender, and our best bet for countering that oppression is to have eachother's backs: if you're coming after trans people you're going to have to get through the rest of us first.
That's not dishonest, that's a strategic show of strength.
I'm not saying there's anything dishonest about LGBT people all banding together to show strength. I'm saying that it's dishonest to say that an LGB person who doesn't want to be lumped in with the T people is "anti-LGBT."
I'm not LGBT, but I do personally know LGB people who don't like the Ts being lumped in with them. They aren't anti-trans by any means, but they see it as a different thing that tends to distract from the LGB and causes more strife. I also know LGB people who share your philosophy and are perfectly happy to have the Ts onboard.
In a literal sense, you're right. But the ideas and values that underpins the LGBT movement and many of the people who identify with it are not compatible with accepting just part of that group.
LGBT people bundled themselves together, decades ago.
This particular group was formed to combat the notion of LGBT identity. So it isn't unreasonable to class it as anti-LGBT, in addition to also holding more specifically anti-T positions.
How do you figure? It doesn't require you to be anti-lesbian, anti-gay, anti-bisexual, or anti-trans, in order to question why we lump together people who are homosexual/bisexual (which describes the types of people someone wants to get into a romantic or sexual relationship with), with people who are trans (people whose assigned-at-birth gender is not who they are).
The answer is, of course, that "we" don't lump them together; the group as a whole has decided to band together because the persecution and opression they suffer is in many ways shared, and often the kind of person who would persecute one of the groups would persecute all of them. But it's not "anti-trans" or "anti-LGBT" to ask this question.
(Consider "Asian-American", which is more a political/activist construct than anything else, given that "Asian" describes a bunch of different groups, some of which may not have all that much in common culturally or even politically.)
The organization in question may also be anti-trans (or anti-LGBT as a whole), but that's... a separate issue?
They highlight a case with Amy Gallahger, who is an adamant "anti-CRT" activist per her Twitter.
So it seems they were focused on other things, but have pivoted to anti-trans activism(hence the amount of Pride imagery on their front page).
Tactically it makes sense. They are following the lead of other such organizations by focusing on anti-trans rhetoric, as it is currently more palatable, before pivoting back to marginalizing other minorities.
It’s a tricky read, but a gist might be that most Brits are generally well-meaning, fairly uninformed, and tend to be conservative when asked questions about specific scenarios:
“Recognition: most Britons say that people should be able to change their social gender, but are split on whether they should be able to change their legal gender”
“Process: Britons oppose making it easier to legally change gender“
“Access to sport: Britons oppose transgender athletes taking part in sporting events for their new gender”
“Access to treatment: Britons are split on the NHS providing hormone therapy for trans people, and tend to oppose it providing gender reassignment surgery”
> Whether or not an arrest is warranted is another debate, but the it's important to highlight the context of the group who made the image to understand their motivations behind creating the image, and what it implies about people who share the image.
No it's not, it's literally not relevant (or at least shouldn't be). You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not.
> No it's not, it's literally not relevant. You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not.
In other western democracies, freedom of speech isn't paramount. What you say matters and you can be held responsible for it and the harm you cause. I'm not taking one side or the other, personally, but this is an opinion question settled by the voters.
That's not what OP was arguing, though. OP appeared to be suggesting it was ok to arrest someone on flimsy grounds, because they were participating in a meme promoted by an organization with harmful ideology. I'm not sure what other motive we can ascribe to that post, really.
I don't see that at all, and invoking "charitable interpretation" is a bit disingenuous. Why bring up the context if not to suggest that this arrest was justified because of the person's ideology?
I don't think it's ever disingenuous to invoke charitable interpretation when an uncharitable interpretation is made.
The comment was giving context around why the guy's actions might be considered morally reprehensible (or more simply, "wrong"), and was not in any way suggesting that that made an arrest justified. In fact the text explicitly says that this is not the point being made.
If the reader makes that leap (here despite the comment author's warning), then that's on the reader, and it's exactly why charitable interpretation is important. Without charitable interpretation, people put words in each others' mouths, talk past each other, or don't hear each other.
It's essential to civil discourse in general: most of what most people write or say will be less than perfect, so productive two-way communication requires making constant active effort to forgive any perceived allusion, subtext or sleight, to the point of unreasonableness. So no, it's not disingenuous at all to bring this up. (But isn't doing this exhausting? My goodness is it ever! Yes.)
Note, crucially, that a "charitable interpretation" is not necessarily the "most likely interpretation" or "the interpretation you believe is the most accurate". It is the interpretation that puts the other person in the most favourable light, while remaining mostly (yes, this often requires flexibility and some approximation) logically consistent with what was actually said or written. In this particular case, a charitable interpretation can be made by simply not putting words in the author's mouth: his text is entirely consistent with the charitable interpretation.
"Disingenuous" was definitely an unfair characterization, and I apologize for that.
> In fact the text explicitly says that this is not the point being made.
I don't think it's fair to prime someone with a bunch of negative information, and then turn around and say "no, no! I'm not trying to prejudice your thinking at all!"
To me, I think all this context was entirely unnecessary. This article is able police excess -- or, really, legal excess. I would much rather have a discussion about whether or not the sorts of laws that lead to arrests like this are reasonable and acceptable in a free society. Instead -- and I agree that doing this is exhausting! -- we are not only muddying the waters by giving people an excuse to say "yeah, but this person deserved it because they are anti-trans", but we are going into a meta-meta discussion about whether or not someone meant to muddy the waters or not. Which, IMO, is entirely irrelevant: the waters have been muddied, and this entire subthread is a stupid waste of time, time that I regret wasting (but, given who I am, I know I will waste again sometime in the future).
To me, the point is not "this guy said some stuff that muddied the waters, but he didn't intend to muddy the waters, so it's ok". The point is that the waters have been muddied with irrelevant context, and instead of having an interesting discussion about freedom of speech, we're talking about how shitty an anti-trans group is. Which, ok, sure, this group does indeed seem pretty shitty, but I don't come to HN because I want to get into a mood where need to yet again get pissed at shitty transphobic people.
> so productive two-way communication requires making constant active effort to forgive any perceived allusion, subtext or sleight, to the point of unreasonableness.
This two-way communication is a two-way street. We should not put all of the burden on the reader. The author should have a responsibility to be as clear as possible, and avoid posting things that are guaranteed to throw a discussion off-topic.
I don't disagree! I think a fairer criticism of the parent comment might have been, for example, something like:
"The relevant question is not whether this person did something reprehensible or wrong or even harmful, but rather whether the police's actions were proportional, or whether there was a legal basis for an arrest... Or even whether the current legal framework is how it ought to be."
The goal in the above paragraph is to:
- neutralize any unfair rhetorical impact of the parent comment
- allow for the parent comment to be read charitably
- argue directly to the relevance of the point, and help refocus or reframe the discussion
Now query whether I'd be successful at any of this... But I think that's how I would approach it!
I think your criticism demonstrates a willingness to only criticize one side of an argument, the one you happen to disagree with.
You ask for a charitable interpretation of OP, but don't give a charitable interpretation of the response.
To demonstrate, even if OP didn't mean to imply the interpretation as everyone sees it, it's highly upvoted and natural to interpret it as such.
The fact that it's upvoted demonstrates that many people do agree with the perspective of that interpretation. In other words, even if the interpretation is not correct (a very dubious claim), it's clearly a popular perspective. Yet you're not willing to engage with it.
I'm actually not on anyone's "side" here, and I provided an example of criticism I thought would be fairer. I also explained (I believe quite clearly) why I thought one criticism was valid and the other was not.[1]
The popularity of a comment does not change its meaning.
---
[1] In fact, I would like to point out that the alternative criticism I have just proposed (the one on which you are commenting) is essentially the same one you yourself made here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32428259
It would appear we're actually of the same opinion on the substance of the parent comment, so I'm not sure where you're coming from here. Is it at all possible that you may have projected a little bit?
Arresting someone on flimsy grounds is pretty well protected by decades of case law. The police are granted a wide degree of latitude over whom they can arrest and for what reason. Sometimes this is abused but there are limits to how much damage you can do with this abuse.
The fact a fairly minor inconvenience was suffered to somebody with a pretty sick ideology certainly means I wont be clutching my pearls. Im sure the government did 1000 worse things happened today that didnt catch the attention of the editor of the mirror.
> The fact a fairly minor inconvenience was suffered to somebody with a pretty sick ideology certainly means I wont be clutching my pearls.
This feels like Martin Niemöller's poem, personified. I agree that this guy has a pretty sick ideology, but what if one of us posted something snarky/disrespectful about, say, pedophile religious leaders, and someone got offended, claiming we were being disrespectful toward their religion? I doubt you'd be so calmly dismissive of an arrest in this case, even if it was a "fairly minor inconvenience".
I know UK law is different, but at least in the US, just the fact that you have been arrested, even if no charges are ever filed, can cause you problems down the road. Just last week I was applying to renew my Global Entry subscription (for non-Americans who may not be familiar, it's a lame-I-have-to-do-this-yet-useful program to streamline re-entry into the US after traveling abroad), and there was a question that specifically asked if I had ever been arrested, even if the record for such an arrest had been expunged or sealed. Fortunately I was able to truthfully answer "no" to that, but had I been caught up in something ridiculous like the article describes, I would have had to answer "yes", and possibly be denied a useful government service.
You might also consider that a "minor inconvenience", but I'm sure there are more severe examples where merely having a no-charges-filed arrest on your record can have some dystopian consequences for a person.
> Im sure the government did 1000 worse things happened today that didnt catch the attention of the editor of the mirror.
That's just whataboutism. So we shouldn't care about what are perhaps minor abuses, just because there are worse abuses?
If you tweet or retweet Nazi propaganda or holocaust denial material and live here in Austria then you may be prosecuted. I’m not a super fan of these restrictions on free speech but I do note that I live in a place where there are a few and they are important to us here.
Edit: There is some amusing irony to being downvoted for this reply which only states my own personal interest in hearing some information from someone and doesn’t tell anyone else what to think ;)
I don’t really have enough info to make a fair judgment. I only wanted to provide my perspective that I personally do find the context the GP provided relevant to the story even if they don’t. Wasn’t an attack or being contrary or anything.
> Edit: There is some amusing irony to being downvoted for this reply which only states my own personal interest in hearing some information from someone and doesn’t tell anyone else what to think ;)
Being downvoted is not equal to government prosecution. You can be told people don't like your opinion and just say so, compared to having police knock on your door over it. I don't agree with what the guy from the article is advocating, but I do agree that he should not be prosecuted/arrested for what he did.
> No it's not, it's literally not relevant (or at least shouldn't be). You are saying a person's political beliefs are legally relevant to if they should be arrested or not.
Isn't the idea that the intent behind actions being legally relevant pretty well established? There's a difference between different degrees of murder and between murder and manslaughter based not on whether the actions themselves differed, but whether the intent to kill was there (and not even that, but how _long_ it was held, e.g. "spur of the moment" versus premeditated). It seems like in any case where intent is relevant, looking at the context of the accused would be necessary to determine the scope of the crime.
That's not what I'm referring to; that's just in the headline. The context I'm referring to is in the parent of this comment chain, which describes both the actual image being shared and some of the writings of the accused along with others who they feature on their website. I think there's room for debate about whether that context is relevant, but it's not what I'm responding to.
Yes, mens rea (state of mind/intent) is part of many crimes.
But we're not talking about murder, we're talking about a social media post that "caused someone anxiety." Whether intent matters for other (actual) crimes is irrelevant.
Funnily enough the phrase beyond the pale is, perhaps apocryphally, said to originate from Ireland. The pale was an area around Dublin under the control of the English in the Middle Ages. Only “barbarian Irish” lived outside, beyond the area. I’m from the part outside ;)
While that would be a specific instance of it, my understanding is that "the pale" would refer more generally to the fence, or palisade, that encircled a town (made up of wooden stakes, or "pales"; this is also the origin of "to impale"), and "beyond the pale" simply meant "outside the protection of the town", and thus, metaphorically, outside of what's right and proper.
....In fact, Wiktionary states [0] "According to the Oxford English Dictionary, there is insufficient evidence that the term originally referred to the English Pale, the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages".
I could be wrong, but I think there's a specific violent threat embedded in calling trans people nazis - nazis are still the simplest shorthand terminology for "unambiguously evil oppressors whom it is acceptable to violently oppose." No one wrings their hands and bemoans the Allies' treatment of the nazis in WW2. To this very day it's hard to answer "is it okay to punch a nazi" negatively- most people would probably agree that the nazi had it coming.
That kind of sentiment makes this whole "trans nazis are infiltrating and controlling the cis lesbian and gay rights movement" accusation a little scarier, in my opinion, due to context - portraying your ideological opponents as nazis as prelude to violence, and trans people are already the target of plenty of violent transphobic attacks.
(I still don't think this arrest is warranted, absent some sort of other evidence that he intends to do more than call people names online... but there are very specific connotations to calling trans people nazis, that I feel like it's fair to call out aside from mere 'political beliefs')
I can't speak to the UK, but in the US, the term nazi gets thrown around a lot. For example, the Left calls Right nazis and Right calls the Left nazis, etc. As such, it's hard for me, and I'd imagine a lot of HN users, to consider calling someone a nazi as a violent threat.
> I could be wrong, but I think there's a specific violent threat embedded in calling trans people nazis
There is not now and likely never will be a politician who has not at some point compared their adversaries to Nazis. Do we put them all behind bars, or only the ones you disagree with?
What do we do with the trans activist comparing those who oppose them with Nazis?
There's really no need for a deep ideological discussion on the topic of Nazis. In modern times, the phrase "everyone I don't like it is a Nazi" sums up the definition.
The escalation from "swastika memes" to more substantial hate is not a big stretch either. There's been multiple threats to LGBT events in my local city lately. No tolerance for intolerance.
It may or may not be. Context is important, and I think it's pretty clear that the swastika here is attempting to make the point (right or wrong) that LGBT groups act like Nazis.
This is one of those situations where, although I think I'm usually pretty adept at spotting sarcasm, I really can't tell if this comment is sarcastic or not.
Top notch sarcasm or stereotypical "America best ever, every other country sucks". I guess it's funny either way.
I don't think it's a joke at all. Americans may be overzealous in claiming to be number one in many things, but when it comes to free speech they are 100 % right.
I think that organization is gross, Robinson is a bad human being, and the meme is disgusting, but whether or not someone should be arrested for "causing someone anxiety" is not "another debate". It's flat-out ridiculous.
The feminist they helped is an anti-trans activist who was posting "No Men In Women's Bathroom" posters. I'm also not sure if she is LGBT. They have also helped an Anti-CRT activist per their "cases" page, which contains a video about "AntiWoke".
This organization has a peculiar pattern, much of which revolves around attacking the Equality Act, which tries to protect people based on:
"Age, Disability, Gender reassignment, Marriage and civil partnership, Race, Religion or belief, Sex, Sexual orientation"
With that laid bare, I guess their pattern isn't so peculiar, huh.
This isn't "politics", it is simply about suppressing minorities.
No, he isn't saying that at all. There's a difference between saying something is morally reprehensible (OP's comment in my own words) and that an arrest is warranted.
> Whether or not an arrest is warranted is another debate, but the it's important to highlight the context of the group who made the image to understand their motivations behind creating the image, and what it implies about people who share the image.
Is it really? Someone retweeted something, that's controversial but not illegal and got arrested. The context does not clarify anything but divides.
I don't want to be arrested for pro-trans tweets either, but if people get arrested for speaking their minds that's the pathway to fascism.
> I don't want to be arrested for pro-trans tweets either
And that's the thing. I'm sure there are plenty of people (probably even the guy who was arrested in the article) who could claim a pro-trans tweet "caused them anxiety", and get someone arrested, or at least subject to a required police interview, which isn't much better. I am dumbfounded that people seem to think this situation is ok, and the UK law in question is sane.
I think it's because you're only hearing from the more militant internet-comfortable commenters who enforcement currently favors. When it's swung back on them in due time--and it will be, as it always is--then suddenly it'll be a grave injustice.
I personally interpreted the original tweet as being against a rather extremist minority within the LGBT community.
It was not in good taste but I think it highlights an actual issue and it's too easy (and perhaps even proves the point) to accuse anyone sharing it or not being overly outraged by it of being 'anti LGBT'. Like JK Rowling being cancelled for saying that women may not feel safe in toilets with men (many women agree), for instance.
You're using a term, TERF, which is used to spur stochastic terrorism[1] by implying that adult human females aren't to be allowed to explain their political needs. You're also using fake quotes (very loose paraphrases in quote marks) to support your demonization.
But, even if she or Dave had said that transwomen are men, and that as such they're as much risk to women (rape, violence, etc) as any other men, why would such an opinion not be worthy to be expressed. It seems distinctly less harmful than accepting the other side on faith, given the many rapes committed by trans-identified-men on women in women's prisons[2] for one.
Nothing says sincere commitment to freedom of expression quite like organising a campaign to ban policemen from appearing at pride events and force churches to ordinate people whose views they consider to be unrepresentative of the church's teaching...
Also noteworthy that the UK has had "Malicious Communications" laws on the statute book since 1988 and actually jailed people for it, so the position that this is some new level of outrage perpetrated by the Woke Agenda because the person spoken to by police was a homophobe rather than a poppy burner isn't really one in favour of free speech per se...
It is NOT noteworthy.
The solution to bad speech is MORE speech, not authoritarian crackdowns based on how someone had hurt feelings. Better points of view will prevail.
A system where it’s okay to arrest someone for causing “distress” is one that will 100% be abused.
Just the other day, we saw government tools originally promised to only be used against the Bad Guys (pedophiles, terrorists, and copyright violators) being used to persecute a 17 year old girl who got a miscarriage.
In the long run, bad precedents have a way of inevitably being turned against everyone, especially the most vulnerable.
"Let's not discuss a specific action and its implications on the society. Let's instead talk how bad the person is because he retweeted a post that was created by another person that expresses the views that some people decided nobody should dare to express."
No, separation of actions from identities is a cornerstone of a civilized society. Otherwise, we quickly descend into witch burning and lynching by the mob.
> The Equality Act 2010 says you mustn’t be discriminated against because of your religion or belief.
> A philosophical belief is a non-religious belief and includes things like humanism, secularism and atheism.
> Something can be a philosophical belief if you strongly and genuinely believe in it and it concerns an important aspect of human life and behaviour. The courts have said that the belief in man-made climate change and spiritualism are philosophical beliefs. But a political belief is not a philosophical belief.
> It is against the law for an employer to discriminate against you because of your religious or similar philosophical beliefs or political opinions.
> However, a political opinion which includes approval or acceptance of the use of violence for political purposes in Northern Ireland is excluded from protection.
Whether or not an arrest is warranted is another debate, but the it's important to highlight the context of the group who flies a flag so closely related to the nazi flag to understand their motivations behind creating the image, and what it implies about people who share the image.
I honestly don't know the answer to this, but: Has somebody asked the person who got arrested whether the swastika means something closer to "I think nazis are good", or instead something closer to "I think some people in some political groups who align themselves with the LGBT community share some attributes with nazis"?
There's an odd mindset around this sort of thing in some internet circles, in which for example a book that contains a fictional evil person is assumed to be the same thing as an evil book, almost by definition. Isn't that part of what people are reacting to when they are outraged when this sort of arrest happens?
Excellently done. I applaud your skill at rebuking all these right-wing free speech assholes. We need not discuss whether this person should have been arrested when we can much more productively discuss the fact that he is a piece of shit. Who cares if a piece of shit gets arrested? The proper fate of such pieces of shit is to suffer. I mean, suffer the proper and just consequences of their own hate. Who would want to live in a society where everyone can just post whatever hateful garbage they want?
>>it's important to highlight the context of the group who made the image to understand their motivations behind creating the image, and what it implies about people who share the image.
It implies nothing though. Or are you saying before hitting retweet or before passing along a meme that everyone now needs to do hours of research trying to trace back the origin of a meme to determine its source and how that source relates to politics and wokeness? Does that really seem reasonable to you?
> but the it's important to highlight the context of the group who made the image to understand their motivations behind creating the image
Well actually No. Its not important, not at all.
If it’s not illegal to cross the street, it doesn’t suddenly become illegal to cross the street because you’re crossing to get to a nazi meet up.
This whole “yes we are abusing the laws to oppress people with opinions we disagree with… But just look at how disagreeable they are!!” Is dangerous.
I see a lot of handwringing by conservatives and progressives on here about how the other “side” is coming for everyone. However my read of the relevant Irish law is that malicious communications via social networking are controlled and punishable by fines, arrest, forced removal of the posting, and forced apologies, which is a lot different than the standard here in the US. It reads like the police got a complaint that someone was posting threatening hate speech and they went to discuss it with the poster, were told to come back, then the gentleman refused to meet with the police on return. They arrested him to make him answer the questions they had because he otherwise wouldn’t.
It does seem to me the law in Ireland allows for this, but the PCC argument is there are more serious crimes going uninvestigated. However I don’t see anything here that doesn’t conform with what I’ve read Irish laws are (which are different than the US, why are people discussing the first amendment here?). Is it a silly use of time? Yeah. Should the local police have done a better job prioritizing? Yeah. Is this the sign of the progressive apocalypse? No. To me this reads as “local police make visibly bad judgement call and ends up as a meme.”
I can't really find any better coverage of this, but this seems like a clickbait article in a highly suspect news source.
One article [1] I found mentioned that there's an awareness course that "gives alleged offenders the chance to avoid prosecution." But I'm still not clear on what Mr. Brady would have been prosecuted for.
Questions I have that don't seem to be answered anywhere:
* What was the actual law that Mr. Brady was arrested under?
* What was the actual reason that Mr. Brady was arrested? I know the officer said "for causing anxiety" - but I doubt there's a law on the books that makes "causing anxiety" a crime in the UK.
* What are the actual relevant laws to arrest and detention of someone in the UK, and how are they differnet from the US?
* Are there any laws about Nazi and similar hate symbols in the UK, similar to the ones that I believe exist in Germany?
* I believe that free speech in the UK is generally subject to more restrictions than in the US, how does that affect this case?
Whether It would be great to see an actual news article that answered some of these questions, and not just this clickbait "poor army vet arrested for memeing" stuff.
Starts well: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”
But then: “The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to …” (lots of conditions!)
Seems to be a standard censorship case. Depending on your viewpoint, it's either irrelevant or highly relevant that the point of view being censored is an abhorrent view. Should the Nazis be allowed to march in Skokie? Should I be able to distribute my terrible views? Are views ever objectively terrible, or is it more of a matter of whether or not they clash with orthodoxy?
This never should have gotten to the top of HN. This paper is basically the NY Post but Irish, and this story is Facebook-feed-trolling outrage porn. @dang can you please push this off front page?
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups.
If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting
new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures.
If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
We should add to the off-topic section: If it would feature prominently in a tabloid.
I want to suggest a point to help us get past the stale "hate versus liberty" debate. This point is not directly on either side, but just needs to be a consideration.
We want people to have freedom of belief, but if their beliefs lead to widespread social exclusion, that can be a problem. Like, if I have a belief that red-haired people are secretly Lizard Illuminati and must therefore be denied from jobs and public life lest they gain access to levers of power... well, if I am too successful at spreading this belief, it really becomes a problem for red-haired people.
I don't know exactly how to negotiate this issue in a liberal society, but I think we need to recognize there is a real tradeoff between important liberal values here: freedom of belief versus inclusion for all in civil society. This isn't a place where you can just invoke one value or the other value and call it a day.
Considerations for navigating this tradeoff would likely include
1. How common the belief is, and thus its exclusionary power
America is effectively the only country left with free speech/expression.
Western governments had claimed for a long time to value free speech and democracy but once social media actually gave normal people the ability to compete with large media companies governments quickly changed their mind.
Karma police
Arrest this girl
Her Hitler hairdo
Is making me feel ill
And we have crashed her party
This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
When you mess with us
Equaling gays with nazis would fall in hate-crime land in many places. And my tolerance with this people that find pleasure in abusing of the time of random people on internet has ended long time ago.
The man looks exactly like a solitary moron begging for attention (successfully). He could use his scarce and precious time in this planet in a more productive way.
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