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Internet Trolling...should it be a criminal offence


mizdarby

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So write a damn book. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press has nothing to do with being entitled to harass random strangers on the Internet. Nobody ever started a revolution by shouting racial slurs at someone over X-Box.

Hate speech, ie racial slurs, have had their own laws, regardless of the way they are communicated, ie non digitally or otherwise.

 

What people are being imprisoned for is for the likes of writing crude jokes on their own facebook pages. Technically anyone could very well be charged and imprisoned for writing the same kinds of things, being offensive, and publishing it in a free Ebook.

 

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are similarly legislated.

But if 'free speech' is already legislated in the non-internet world, why not apply the exact same legislation in the internet world, to my mind anonymity is a privilige, not a green light to be as offensive or hostile as you like. In the city where I live, vandals have destroyed several childrens graves, and quite rightly the families of the deceased child, are demanding some sort of justice is served on the person/people who did the actual damage, and in the exact same way, if trollers had posted abusive/hurtful comments on the deceased childrens memorial sites, the familes should expect some sort of justice to be served on the person/people who did the actual trolling.

Racial/hate speech and the defamation laws already did and does still apply to the internet word. If you did those things you could be charged and sued.
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But if 'free speech' is already legislated in the non-internet world, why not apply the exact same legislation in the internet world

Because speech ain't free if it's legislated. There should be no laws legislating speech.

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Oh, cool. So if I go around offering people $20,000 to murder Wilhelm Ackermann that's totally free speech right?

You realize that even now you can offer people money to kill someone all you want, that it only turns into a crime when you actually pay them or come to an agreement to pay upon services rendered, right?

Edited by Syco21
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Oh, cool. So if I go around offering people $20,000 to murder Wilhelm Ackermann that's totally free speech right?

 

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/soliciting_to_murder/ That's an offence here and I assume it's also an offence wherever you are, it's not a free speech issue, offering people money to commit an offence is a crime for obvious reasons.

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Quite so, jim_uk. Certainly even suggesting or asking, without coming to a contract, is enough to constitute an offence in this country and it is certainly also true in the USA.

 

In Brandenburg v Ohio the U.S. Supreme Court held that the First Amendment shields individuals who advocate violent overthrow of a government but that not all forms of speech are protected. The court held that speech can be prohibited if it is "directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action" that is "likely to incite or produce such action." Hal Turner was convicted of incitement.

 

I understand that there are various campaigns in the USA to have nutjob preachers prosecuted for incitement to violence and advocating the effective genocide of gay people, inter alia.

 

So, Syco21, the United States Supreme Court seems to disagree with you.

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