This is a law that will never help a single person, and eventually will be used and abused against people the state finds undesirable. Really sad to see freedom of speech being killed off yet again in an idiotic pursuit of an illusion of safety.
This is a law that will never help a single person, and eventually will be used and abused against people the state finds undesirable.
Most countries having laws that limit freedom in favour of protecting people from abuse. They're used frequently, and they do work (at least to punish if not deter).
A law being abused by the state is a problem though; hopefully the New Zealand government will word theirs to protect against that happening.
Really sad to see freedom of speech being killed off yet again in an idiotic pursuit of an illusion of safety.
Freedom of speech is not absolute. It never really has been. You've never been free (in the specific sense of 'free' meaning 'a right protected by law') to lie about other people, to be abuse other people, to be obscene, to threaten other people, to copy other people's speech. There's a long list of case law about people who want to be free to say things and have been denied that right - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
Saying, printing, or posting online things that are designed to abuse another individual is not, and should not be, protected speech.
> You've never been free (in the specific sense of 'free' meaning 'a right protected by law') to lie about other people, to be abuse other people, to be obscene, to threaten other people, to copy other people's speech.
Obscenity is the easiest one in that list to argue ought be legal.
Why can't that be covered under normal harassment laws? Why do we need an entire new law, with very broad and vague definitions, to cover something that's clearly already covered by already existing laws.
The definitions are actually very narrow and specific if you read the text. And I imagine a specific law is necessary to clarify things for the justice system, who otherwise might not be sure whether such things are prosecutable when they occur via some new app or service online.
Unfortunately the law provides no exemptions for media, or against public figures, and truth is no defense. All that is required is that you caused harm and it is found that you intended to.
So for example, exposing the corruption of a politician (online) may well be illegal under the act.
In your examples, you readily equivocate civil and criminal law. The punishments and standards of evidence differ quite a bit. You also reference US cases that most free speech advocates (including the ACLU) disagree with. Reams could be written teasing out details, but I'll skip over that and get to the core of my disagreement.
I really dislike framing in terms of "freedom of speech." Many of the first lions of free speech: John Milton, Thomas Paine, and John Stuart Mill... they framed it in terms of freedom of hearing. By silencing someone, you limit potential audiences and their right to hear. In this original framing, the rights of these listeners are crucial, not just those of the speaker. Yes, Sturgeon's law applies. Most speech is crap. But let readers and listeners decide for themselves what they should read or hear. Don't give a government body that power.
And honestly, is there any government body you would be willing to grant that power? The power of deciding what you could read or hear? Considering their typical level of competence, can you honestly say you'd be happy with your government being a filter for your senses? Would you be content letting them throw people in jail for nothing more than text typed on a keyboard? Maybe it's my American upbringing, but the concept seems absurd to me. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but... words can be a felony? What the hell?
Edit: I'm not sure how, but many readers seem to have misconstrued my comment as condoning threats. That is not the case. Everyone here agrees that threats to one's well-being are criminal and wrong. The law we are discussing restricts the exchange of ideas, albeit potentially crudely-formed ones. Let's not attack straw men.
> Sticks and stones can break my bones, but... words can be a felony?
I guess when people live in such fear from online bullying that they have to move house because of the rape and death threats they're receiving, it's a little more than "text typed on a keyboard".
It's not your American upbringing, it's your framing of the problem.
It really should go without saying, but rape and death threats are crimes. Nobody is saying they aren't.
New Zealand's new law isn't about criminalizing such (already illegal) threats. It's about making non-threats crimes. Under this law, half of the comments in this thread could be interpreted as illegal. Hell, I can't think of a comedian that couldn't be charged under this law. That's what I'm up-in-arms about.
Well... actually you are arguing that they aren't crimes. You are arguing that governments should not be given the power to limit what you see or hear. Threats fall under that umbrella.
You say 'let readers and listeners decide for themselves what they want to hear', but that is exactly the course of action of this legislation. It's not a proactive government censorship stopping any abuse from happening, but a post-facto avenue to pursue for readers and listeners who do feel abused. There is no 'right to hear' being removed here.
That's very hyperbolic. The law is about threats and abuse - and is actually fairly specific as to what that entails. No one in this thread - or any comedian for that matter - is trying to incite a specific reader to take his or her life. If they were then boom - if this is in NZ there is now a law that will get you locked up.
> No one in this thread - or any comedian for that matter - is trying to incite a specific reader to take his or her life.
"If you have something to say, here's what you do: You write it down on a piece of paper, you go out in the lobby, and then you go home and you kill yourself."
— Louis C.K. [1]
I and many others found Louis CK's performance hilarious, but what's stopping him from being locked up the next time he performs in New Zealand? It's only fame and prosecutorial discretion that stands between him and a prison sentence.
What's stopping him from being locked up is that he is not attacking a specific individual, as the act clearly specifies he would need to for it to be a crime. He isn't pulling aside a member of his audience, then using email or social media in an attempt to get that person to kill themselves. That's what the law is there to prevent.
That and the fact that New Zealanders aren't fucking idiots. The law states 'reasonable person', not 'if the slightest offense is taken'. It's clearly part of an act, it's clearly not directed at anyone, and it's clearly not meant to be taken seriously.
While I don't want to disparage all New Zealanders, I'm quite certain there are enough idiotic, overbearing, or corrupt officials that this law will be abused. And I'd like to stake money on this claim.
I am willing to bet 1 bitcoin (˜265 USD), at even odds, that within a year we will see an article on the front page of HN showing abuses of the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. Specific abuses may include: corporate censorship, overreactions to jokes, or people jailed for offhand drunk-posting. There are a myriad of possibilities.
If this happens, you pay me one bitcoin. If this does not happen, I pay you one bitcoin. If you're interested in this bet (or terms similar to it), let me know and I would be happy to discuss details.
I should warn you: The history of these sorts of laws is pretty bad. For example, Malicious Communications Act[1] has been used in all kinds of ridiculous cases. People have been arrested for posting images as pedestrian as a burning poppy.[2]
As other people have noted, Kiwiland is known for more lenient sentencing and doesn't generally throw people in jail over trivial things. It still suffers from the vicissitudes of any legal system - run by humans, they're not perfect - but jail time for 'drunk posting'?
Similarly, I don't like your mechanism for success - a mere article on the front page of HN. For $265, what's to stop you writing an article and submitting it yourself? Your profile page clearly indicates your current handle as being intentionally anonymous so comments can't be traced back to you personally. And if your problem is that the law will be abused, why do you have no qualms in taking any article as being written in good faith, no matter the author?
And, even if you can provide a single counter-example, well, welcome to law. Sometimes false positives happen. That people get falsely convicted of rape or murder laws don't mean that rape or murder laws are an affront to freedom and must be disposed of. Laws are sledgehammers, not scalpels, and coming up with single counter-examples is worthless.
I'm also not personally interested in BTC. It's a farce - it's fun to play with for some and that's cool, but it's never going to be a functional currency. As I don't really find it fun (friends are fans), I've never bothered to get set up properly with it.
To sum up: no, I don't take your bet.
Edit: Writing your own article would actually be worth $530, since that's the delta between paying out and collecting winnings.
> It's only fame and prosecutorial discretion that stands between him and a prison sentence.
That a complete misrepresentation of how this law works. If Louis C.K. created a digital communication which contravened Principle 9 ('do not incite others to commit suicide') [1] then the victim might complain to the Approved Agency, which is presently Netsafe NZ [2], who mediates between Louis C.K. and the complainant.
If mediation is unsuccessful and Netsafe believes it is warranted Louis C.K. could be referred to the District Court, who hears submissions and makes orders as it deems necessary per s 11 [3] including referring the complaint back to Netsafe for further mediation. If the Court makes an order (e.g., 'remove the communication') and Louis C.K. refuses to comply he may be fined, or at the extreme end be sentenced to six months imprisonment [4] which in New Zealand would be served as home detention.
The New Zealand justice system is typically fairly lenient and lacks most of the mandatory sentencing requirements of the U.S. justice system. The District Court would not impose any significant fine or home detention unless the offending was at the extreme end of the scale, e.g. Louis C.K. incited a specific vulnerable individual to commit suicide in front of a large audience and they subsequently attempted to do so.
There is a lot more than 'prosecutorial discretion' between Louis C.K. and a prison sentence. This law is far from perfect, and maybe it'd be better if it didn't exist at all, but it's not imposing the insane wholesale restrictions on free speech that is being suggested throughout this thread.
All of the examples you and many others in this thread are giving are already illegal, under currently existing laws, in most, if not all countries. Threatening people with violence, encouraging others to commit violence against other people, actually coming over and stalking people. All of those things are crimes already. There is no need to make another law that makes it illegal to do something that is already highly illegal.
Living in fear is soul destroying. It colours everything you do, everything you think. Every knock at the door provokes a horrible fear reaction. You can't think straight. You plan your life around your fear to an extent that, if it was alcohol or drugs, you'd be recognised as a serious addict and people would try to get you medical intervention.
Living in fear destroys lives. And for what? So some idiot sack of shit can feel like a big man for scaring people? Why exactly should that be permitted?
b) Don't pretend that America doesn't have free speech restrictions in the legal system. The most egregious example is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_libel_laws , but there are also plenty of national security related ones. Try sending some death threats to the President and see what happens.
c) We really need to distinguish between saying things to people which a third party doesn't want discussed (the freedom of hearing case) and saying things to someone which that person doesn't want to hear. I don't think you can invoke Mill to give you unlimited freedom to send death and rape threats to strangers on the internet.
This is the "if you didn't want to get abuse from white people you should have sat at the back of the bus" / "you should have known that being a prominent woman on twitter would get you daily rape threats" argument. As others are saying, it's not costless, in fact its quite damaging to the psyche.
Because you can't know, until communication starts, whether it's going to be vicious. And you can't walk around with your fingers in your ears all the time.
Some internet services get this, but it's awfully easy for people to generate new accounts to route abuse through.
We could do well to develop anti-abuse technology in the same mode as anti-spam.
This is nonsense. If you are subjected to continuous, vitriolic, realistic rape threats on Twitter then this is inevitably going to stress you and make you feel somewhat unhappy or unsafe. But if you are a 14-year-old, or otherwise particularly vulnerable, then they may cause acute depression or suicide.
This Act isn't about antivaxxers or climate change deniers. It is about revenge porn and vicious cyberbullying, and I am not prepared to stand up for either.
If you receive that many threats on twitter, then leave twitter. It's not like you walk out of your residence every morning and every car passing by is yelling rape threats at you. It's not like you're getting on the bus and being yelled at. It's not like you're going to work and having your coworkers threaten you. Some assholes sent you digital messages on a website. That's it. Leave the website if it is such a problem.
Whether insult hurts or not is your choice. If you have such weak control over your inner world - learn to not give a fuck. not that hard.
The problem here is that most people who suggest 'just ignore it' as a solution haven't ever faced the sort of abuse that the proposed law is designed to deal with. You're quite right that it's easy to ignore an insult. It's much harder to ignore a believable death or rape threat, racist remark, misogyny, etc. That is what you're suggesting people should 'learn to not give a fuck' about. As someone who believes quite strongly that we shouldn't just ignore those things and that we should actively try to stop them, I find your argument incomprehensible.
While ignoring a believable (whatever that means) death treat is probably hard, why put racism, misandry and misogeny in the same stuff - you are totally free to talk to the harassers back - find what makes them sensitive and make them hurt. You have the same tools as them. Make a psychological profile, find what makes them tick and talk back in a way to inflict maximum hurt feelz.
"Would you be content letting them throw people in jail for nothing more than text typed on a keyboard?"
Yes! Of course!
Your line of argument is exactly like "I didn't kill him. I just moved my hands which happened to hold a knife which happened to travel through his chest."
Outcome matters. Intent matters.
Deconstructing real actions until some supposedly bizarre conclusion is reached does not matter.
I guess I've always wondered where the line is. To me saying "FYAD" seems like essentially harmless flames. Whereas saying "I'm going to rape/kill you" seems like a threat. I guess it's just related to how I "grew up" online?
I don't consider being mean to people on the internet default worthy of any law or punishment. Telling someone "You're an idiot and I hope you die in a fire" is my internet given right, assuming the context of the comment is right (it's within the social norms for that board/forum/site/reddit/whatever). But this law makes no allowances for such things.
Twitter is weird, because there are no norms, no mods, no masters. In essence that's a large part of the problem. No filters. No choice of engagement.
> Telling someone "You're an idiot and I hope you die in a fire" is my internet given right,
How far do you take that right though? Does the person you're trying to say it to have to hear you, or are they allowed to block you? Are you allowed to set up multiple accounts to evade the block? Are you allowed to take the message to AFK-world - sending letters through the mail or telephoning your insults?
The Criado-Perez trolls who were jailed didn't just send a couple of messages. They bombarded Criado-Perez with hundreds of messages.
> threats that [Sorley] had sent, including "just got out of prison and would happily do more time to see you buried” and “Rape?! I'd do a lot worse things than rape you!!"
Here she talks about the type of messages she was getting.
> She is still getting violent threats, and two people have now been arrested. When she was campaigning, she was getting hostile messages, she says, but they were relatively benign. "Get back to the kitchen, shut up, fuck off. That was just people being unpleasant and not liking feminists. But it was nothing that would have led me to report them to the police."
> Now, she is dealing with something altogether different. What kind of tweets has she received? "Gosh." She looks embarrassed. "So, for example, someone was talking about giving me a good smashing up the arse. Somebody said: 'All aboard the rape train.' Some guy tweeted another guy asking if he wanted to join in raping me." Then there were the death threats. "One was from a really bright guy who said: 'I've just got released from prison.'" She shows me her phone: "I'd do a lot worse than rape you. I've just got out of prison and would happily do more time to see you berried [sic]. #10feetunder." The tweet is signed Ayekayesa. There is another one, equally chilling. "I will find you, and you don't want to know what I will do when I do. You're pathetic. Kill yourself. Before I do. #Godie."
I hope you can see there's a difference between someone saying "FOAD" and someone sending hundreds of death and rape threats per day from multiple different accounts.
>I hope you can see there's a difference between someone saying "FYAD" and someone sending hundreds of death and rape threats per day from multiple different accounts.
I absolutely do - and I agree with basically everything you say. What I'm not sure about is where the law draws the line.
Twitter [social media] feels like a real problem for abuse, because instead of saying "anything goes, leave or stay at will" or moderating according to community rules, they claim no responsibility or interest and simply refer to the police.
I don't have answers, and I know defending my right to be a dick to someone for bad posting on some forum somewhere is somewhat pathetic. I just feel like "people could be fined or sent to prison for using deliberately harmful, threatening or offensive language" is dangerous. I'm pretty sure on the last one I've got some jail time coming - especially if the offence can be taken by someone to whom it isn't addressed...
Does a threatening message cause fear or alarm in the person it's aimed at? Would it cause fear and alarm in a reasonable person? Was it intended to do so?
These are all things that courts deal with every day with AFK verbal aggression.
>This is a law that will never help a single person
What makes you say that? There's a lot of nasty stuff like revenge porn that goes on and is hard to prosecute under existing laws. Why won't an act like this that bans it specifically help anyone?
How is revenge porn worse than any of other morally questionable acts (to say the least) that we decided not to police in the sexual arena? Right now, if I defraud someone into having sex with me (e.g. by saying I'm some famous actor or that I'm not having sex with anyone else), the state will not intervene unless maybe there's some STD involved.
If someone agrees to be filmed/photographed and leaves the material with the other person, I don't see why the state should intervene. This is especially so if the person doesn't attach any conditions at the time (though as I showed, we're even prepared not to enforce such conditions in other circumstances).
Well, with morally questionable acts in general there is a question of whether the law getting involved will make things better. For some stuff like say cheating on your girlfriend the answer is probably no, for murder probably yes. As to revenge porn I'd lead towards yes in many cases. It the case of 'isanyoneup' for example
>Hunter Moore, 26, used to run a website called IsAnyoneUp.com, which he told "Nightline" he had launched as a place for "public humiliation."
I have no problem with people like that getting prosecuted which he was in the end.
> if I defraud someone into having sex with me (e.g. by saying I'm some famous actor or that I'm not having sex with anyone else), the state will not intervene unless maybe there's some STD involved
While I can't speak for the U.S., in New Zealand consent is vitiated by mistaken identity [1]. I suspect there is also common law precedent.
> If someone agrees to be filmed/photographed and leaves the material with the other person, I don't see why the state should intervene.
Firstly, because from a policy perspective, having an intimate recording publicly and permanently released without consent massively harms the victim to the extent they may be driven to suicide, and there is no reasonable case to be made that the perpetrator should have the right to release such a recording, considering their intention is to inflict pain and trauma upon their victim.
Secondly, intimate recordings are implicitly provided in confidence. It is a social norm that if you receive a sext you do not immediately post it to Facebook. I see no problem in establishing this implicit confidential relationship in statute considering the outcomes of revenge porn.
> Secondly, intimate recordings are implicitly provided in confidence.
Lots of things are implicitly provided in confidence and yet we don't punish people through the legal system for violating confidence. If I tell a secret to a friend that would bring me disrepute if widely known and he reveals it to the world, can I sue him absent an NDA (assume that he knows that I told it to him in confidence)?
As to implicit consent, we actually assume consent very broadly in other areas of the law -- see for instance the third party doctrine -- people who voluntarily give information to third parties have "no reasonable expectation of privacy". But I guess if it's the government it's OK.
> people who voluntarily give information to third parties have "no reasonable expectation of privacy"
Well, under the law in many countries, that is not the case. For example, Facebook may not give any of your data to advertisers if you live in the EU. Similar situations exist in New Zealandish law.
I really don't see this as being just another charge tacked onto the end after something terrible happens because of cyber bullying. The biggest issues with cyber bullying are with kids and teenagers, not trolls. I doubt kids have the foresight to care, and even then they're also (rightfully) treated differently by court systems, meaning that they know there are much lessened punishments even if it is brought up.
"We must do something, this bill is indeed something, therefore we must pass this bill"
There are already sufficient protections in common law against harmful speech and passing vague law that only applies to online speech just makes us look like idiots.
I don't think making it a specific crime is the way forward long term. As the article states, in most countries everything is already covered by existing legislation (and society's general view of common decency but that doesn't necessarily help in a court).
The problem is one of implementation. How do you gather proof/evidence, how do you prove intent beyond reasonable doubt, and how do you support the victims during and after. A fair amount of the existing problem is similar to bullying in other area: the victims being scared to speak out either just through fear of the perpetrators or through the thought that nothing can and/or will be done. And other key problem is people in law enforcement (from the cops on the street all the way up to the judges and legislators) and people in society's support structures (parents, teachers, councillors, and so forth) not understanding: being out of touch with the technology, or facets of modern culture (cyber-bullying is a lot more common in the young and many who where young 20 or more years ago, and I'm including myself there, don't quite understand those people), or often both.
Sometimes the more specific a crime the easier it is for a good legal team (or just a clever arsehole) to find loopholes that allow them to get away with things that are effectively the same thing but are not covered by the exact wording, so great care needs to be taken in drafting the law.
Having said that: making it a specific crime might be a very useful stop-gap measure though. It at least tells both the victims and those on the other side that the situation is being taken seriously, brings the matter to sharper focus for the implementers/enforcers of the law so they'll see the need to fill the knowledge/experience gap, and to an extent brings the issue to increased public attention (hopefully with similar effect where needed).
While existing legislation covers the same issues, I think a problem is the courts and general public treat the same crime in a different context (i.e. over the phone or out in the street) as more serious / real, which leaves the cyber-variant harder to deal with effectively or consistently.
By explicitly singling it out with its own definition and punishments, this will no doubt it makes things easier for the police, courts and victims I think.
Assuming it doesn't get abused by our idiot politicians anyway (I'm from NZ - looking at you Colin Craig).
So - according to the bill, anyone with a complaint has to send it to a delegated agency that will be responsible for assessing each complaint. It is there to screen for trivial cases, etc.
If there is cause, they can then send it off to a court which will then determine what is to happen. The court can refer it back to the agency for more attempts at mediation etc... before making a ruling.
These are all reasonable checks on balances from the point of view of ensuring that this is not abused to censor speech etc. The courts are even instructed to take account of the "intent" of the communicator. So it's not like the nutso feminist-left - with their "intent is not magic" belief - are driving this bill.
So from this point of view the bill is actually quite reasonable...
Of course, from another point of view - i.e. when you consider the sheer number of assholes on the internet, it remains completely insane. The stated intent of the bill is to provide timely redress to victims. Lol - when hell freezes over.
My prediction - The delegated agency is going to be woefully under-funded. As far as I can see in the legislation - it is actually toothless. Any enforcement has to come from the courts. So people will learn to ignore the agency... feed-backing more cases onto the courts which see their time getting taken up because people can't get along on the internet. edit: the problem being that people WILL submit frivolous cases. Lots of them.
Victims won't by-and-large get the timely redress promised - except for a couple of high profile cases that make it into the media. And this non-result will come at great expense.
But thanks for being the test case NZ... nothing like empirical confirmation of any point of view.
New Zealand's centre right National party under John Key has made a lot of concerning moves regarding civil liberties, censorship, and the internet. A couple examples:
I view this bill as another attempt to control speech online with "cyber bullying" being just a useful phrase to push this sort of legislation through..
It's highly disingenuous to say that without also noting that this bill passed 116 to 5, and the most vocal critic came from the right side of the house. I oppose the bill as well, but we shouldn't pretend that National is solely at fault for it.
National has never really been a classical liberal party. Muldoon ran some of the most interventionist economic policy in NZ history, and Bolger and Shipley passed the Resource Management Act. In recent times only ACT has really been classically liberal, but even that is a bit shaky.
Oh goodie, another opportunity to sow confusion into one if the few remaining libertarian bastions of the internet. I'll be sending my EQUALITY+SECURITY>FREEDOM zealots to downvote anyone who defend the unimagimable horrors of bullying under the guise of FREEZE PEACH LOL STUPID WHITE MALES. Freedom is literally worse than the Holocaust, Jon Stewart taught me that.
Australia is literally the progressive apex of the multiverse for doing this. Literally.
I've been bullied on the playground (not just by Xcode). Most of the physical bullying I've forgot. That sad there were some rally vicious assholes (later on probably ended up on a war crimes bench) that did psychological damage. What kids do to kids in these days is beyond belief. Younger sister having someone savvy in like most of the people here to give her advice not to take it seriously is not as common as we tend to bias here. Psychological bullying in gangs is worse than being beaten on the playground. Let's not get paranoid. This is New Zealand we speak about :) Do your homework.
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