As two countries separated by a common language, I’m always interested in hearing the opinions of the rebellious colonials and the impact of the U.S. Constitution, one the most fascinating documents mankind has produced.
Anyway, over here in Britain there’s been huge publicity surrounding the tragic disappearance of a 5 year old girl from her hometown in Wales, still missing as of time of writing although a man has been arrested for her murder.
A man then wrote several offensive Facebook posts about it (apparently getting ideas from Sickipedia, a wiki for sick jokes), and missing Maddie McCann. As a result, he was arrested and sentenced to 12 weeks in prison. Not fined, not community service - actually locked up for posting something on Facebook.
The Chairman of the Bench said of his sentence;
Some of the posted comments are reported by The Guardian here.
If a county in some American state enacted a law where you could be jailed for “sending a grossly offensive public electronic communication”, and some idiot (don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with what he did) posted similar comments and was jailed for it, how would you react? Personally I think it’s a scandal that the state should interfere, this isn’t shouting “Fire” in a crowded theatre. In civilised England, such a bastion for human rights, you can thrown in prison for something you write.
However, not many people here seem to give a toss about that figuring that he got what he deserved. What would an American reaction be? Demonstrations, riots? ACLU going into overdrive? Apathy, like over here?
That is a big difference between the U.S. and the rest of the 1st world. We generally take the absolute right of free speech seriously both legally and as a matter of public opinion. Even regular people usually support the right absolutely but the ACLU steps up to take cases where states or localities try to restrict it. That is why we have groups like the KKK and NAMBLA who are protected as long as the aren’t committing any violent acts.
People would hate someone for doing what the man did and he would probably be threatened and almost certainly shunned for life in social circles but I don’t think most people would be for jail time. We don’t think that they and we don’t have the laws to impose such a thing. The ACLU would probably take his case free of charge if a state tried to prosecute someone for something similar and they would probably win easily.
Actually many people here, including me, give a serious toss about it. However I am not going to die on the cross for a nineteen year old chav who would probably rob me if he could be arsed to stop watching jeremey kyle by sticking my head above the parapet (if you permit me to mix my metaphors) ESPECIALLY while the murder case is still on going and the “less capable people” who would have made up the fifty strong vigilante mob aginst him are still as emotional as they are.
I don’t know if this is a disgusting law or a disgusting incorrect application of it (I assume the former since he plead guilty after presumably some advice) but he should certainly have been permitted to say that thing on his facebook page.
Free speech is a core value of Americans, crossing ideological lines. Such an act would earn opprobrium by Scalia on the right of the Supreme Court: I would expect a 9-0 or maybe 8-1 decision against such an action: I’m less than certain about Thomas. IANAL.
FWIW, I lived in England for a while and was struck by the absence of federalist values and the relative weakness of free speech values on the island.
ETA: Oh yeah, public reaction. A lot of people would enjoy posturing about free speech. Like me for example. A few would be “Concerned”, others outraged. Popular opinions don’t need free speech protections, only unpopular ones do.
Nancy Grace would probably be ranting against the child - hating ACLU and demanding the constitutional be disregarded in order to crucify the man.
In general I think people would say something along the lines of "fuck him, but he can say whatever he wants. ". At least that’s what I’d say.
Things certainly are different over there. I’ve never heard of anyone in the U.S. being arrested for their own safety. That said, I can scarcely believe you can get arrested for saying something offensive on Facebook in the U.K. Woods is an ass, sure, but he didn’t do anything to warrant a 12 week sentence.
Edit: If I have friends in Great Britain do I need to be worried about what I post on my Facebook status?
There is the fascinating middle ground of making legal cases (sometimes civil, sometimes criminal) against people who publicly advocate violent acts (or other crimes.)
This was what got Tom Metzger in such trouble. . .
Regarding libel tourism, firstly you need to understand that is strictly a civil matter and furthermore the actions only succeed if the stuff was published in the UK. Secondly, you need to understand it’s basically one judge by the name of Eady behind almost all the silliness. Thirdly there is considerable opposition to the UK libel laws within the UK anyway, see Simon Singh etc.
Regarding the IRA, you are presumably thinking about the gibralter shootings which were in the 80s. Two points: firstly, ever noticed who owns gibralter? Secondly, that was hardly legal action. Very extra-legal, in fact
Also I tend to take the IRA’s pov that the Irish thing was a war, rather than the official government position, for what it’s worth. In which case some far better soldiers killing some crappy soldiers hardly raises an eyebrow.
Having said that, in actual fact the treatment by the US of the IRA during essentially the entire 20th century was disgraceful for a so-called ally. It took some towers falling down in New York before you noticed that what the state calls terrorism is actually a bad thing, whether labelled that or not.
That is not really fair. We have militia groups too which are the closest thing to the IRA that the U.S. has. One in particular blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City with hundreds of deaths. That isn’t really important in this discussion however. Both were mostly domestic matters to us at least. We also protect the rights of militia members to assemble and their free speech to this day. That is the big difference.
The U.K. and most of Europe hasn’t quite figured out that it is an advantage if you just let people talk freely and publicly announce their positions beforehand no matter what they are. Germany has strict laws against Nazi speech. We don’t in the U.S. and there are several active neo-Nazi groups. They don’t usually cause much harm because giving them freedom to speak freely also gives them the rope to hang themselves.
Great Britain also doesn’t have a formalized and strict Constitution protecting free speech rights like the U.S. does. That makes it mostly apolitical here and there really isn’t anything politicians can do about it.
Considering that the US government always labeled the IRA a terrorist organization this statement makes little sense.
Again, if you’re going to engage in nationalist insults I’d recommend doing more research first.
I know lots of people in the UK tend to think Americans were obsessed with the troubles but most Americans, even Irish-Americans never gave two shits about it and the US government always co-operated with the UK in combatting the Provos.
I think it’s a fucking disgrace. Going out of your way to offend especially people suffering such anguish is a shitty thing to do but it shouldn’t be illegal, especially the guy didn’t go around to the parents’ house and post notes in the door with the jokes. He just spouted some shit on his facebook and the offenderati got him arrested. Similar case from NI from last year which I think is even more ridiculous: Three teens in court over alleged Facebook poppy burning picture.
Agree that the prosecution is disgusting and that they should have been allowed to do that. But bear in mind there have been prosecutions against koran burnings and there would certainly be about pope-effigy burnings. You can at least argue (and I won’t support your argument, but I will understand it is of a different nature to the one regarding the guy in the OP) that these are attacks on an entire community.
I think people should get over themselves. If the Koran or the pope-effigy or whatever wasn’t burnt in your front garden then I don’t see why the fuck anyone should care. I saw photos of something and it offended me, arrest them! For fuck’s sake. If someone goes out and says “I’m going to kill every Catholic/Muslim/Homosexual/Rambler/etc.” or equivalent in a context where it isn’t abundently clear the comment is satirical in nature or a joke then maybe there are grounds for action to be taken. Stop perusing knob-ends’ facebook pages and you won’t come across these offensive but non-threatening comments.
You gave a few insults to the U.S. where they weren’t applicable and tried to change the topic just like you are now. It isn’t good board or debate form. You should start a another focused debate thread if you want to talk about something else. The question in this debate whether the person in question would have been jailed for the same speech crimes in the U.S. versus the U.K. The answer is no and people gave reasons why.
No, I was answering Odesio’s concern about whether he or she needed to be worried about the statements made on his/her facebook. The fact that such concerns were even mentioned suggested a mindset used to various extra territorial claims of juristriction, and there was nothing wrong with pointing out that the UK is very different to the US in terms of trying to do that sort of thing.
