Free Speech... or not thread

Iowa. I know some Aussies and their propensity to kick someone’s ass was a lot quicker than anyone I’ve known in my life that wasn’t a borderline psychopath, so it’s not an American thing (if anything I feel that most Americans are slower to start throwing fists than anyone else, maybe it’s the subconscious fear that someone might pull a gun). That said they’re really nice guys, until someone pissed em off. They’d tell stories of shit that would probably land most people in prison and they’d say it casually.

Maybe it’s a more urban vs rural thing, though I’m pretty sure one of them is from Melbourne.

Hell, one of the nicest and most liberal people I know will has a tendency to kick people’s asses at the drop of a hat, so it isn’t even really a conservative vs liberal thing in my experience. I’ve never been one to do it, but I’ve always acknowledge it’s a distinct possibility in any given social interaction, especially if someone starts pushing buttons.

Maybe if we’d been persecuting people for unforgivable hate speech like “I plan to vote Republican in the upcoming [insert any variety] election,” we wouldn’t have to worry about Trump/GOP would abuse such rules :)

I would expect people getting jailed for making offensive jokes in Erdocunt’s Turkey, or North Korea, but UK?

That is depressing.

… are we the baddies?

That skit promotes Nazism and is probably illegal if you can find someone it offended.

I mean they’re dressed like Nazis and portraying them as sympathetic after all.

Because if a threat (OMG offence sorry!!) is directed at millions of people instead of your neighbor, it doesn’t count as a threat, right?

Every country prefers one type of threat versus another.

Threats have to be credible.

Just credible? Or immediate?

“Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.”
-Adolf Hitler, 1922.

Not credible.

I mean I can go on some law reference websites and copy and paste the legal definition of a threat if you want.

Let me know when Count Dankula is about to become Chancellor of Germany.

Also the thing he got arrested for isn’t remotely that specific. It’s a racist meme at best.

Edit: Basically what he said is akin to what Armando says on here several times a week. So I guess we should arrest Armando? I mean he’s openly said he would kill everyone that voted Republican several times and since we can’t use context or anything, that makes him the most ambitious mass murderer the world has ever known. Best lock him up before he can kill over 100 million people!

Or, you know, he’s joking and has no ability to carry out any of the things he said.

Nah, better to arrest him.

Just because a threat is not considered immediate or credible doesn’t mean it’s not a threat.

And if Armando were part of a group called the Militant Penblades with a history of violence and assassinations, maybe we should take more interest in what he says.

Actually… it means exactly that.

You cannot commit a criminal threat if the threat is vague or unreasonable. The threat must be capable of making the people who hear it feel as if they might be hurt, and conclude that the threat is credible, real, and imminent. If, for example, you threaten to blow up the world unless your bartender doesn’t bring your drink to you immediately, no reasonable person hearing it would believe the threat was real. On the other hand, if you walk into a store with a gun and threaten to shoot the clerk unless she gives you a refund, such a threat is credible and specific.

Or just arrest him for making a joke. That’ll show him. Why wait for them to form into groups?

“Criminal threat”

In the thread about putting people in jail for things they say. Imagine that.

Again, all this is beside the point. He wasn’t arrested for threats. He was arrested for sending a grossly offensive communication.

Very true, but I was just pointing out that even threats have a bar they need to pass and nothing he said would remotely clear it. Yak is the one that decided that being offended = a threat. Which, ironically, is not even a jump the shitty UK judge could make.

Oh, sure.

I’m no lawyer, but it’s hard to see how this fits with the prosecuting guidelines for the Communications Act, released following public consultation. I am hopeful this ruling will be overturned.

British Free Speech has always been tenuous at best anyway. You could sue people for slander and they were presumed guilty and had to prove their innocence. And you could until very recently do it for nearly anything as a private citizen.