Internet troll is jailed after mocking deaths of teenagers online.

[CannibalCorpses]

Fair enough i'd say. If you want to laugh and joke about someones misfortune then thats fine. When you take it directly to the victims family and laugh in their face then thats entirely different. He provoked a reaction and got a response, case closed.

If it had been my family the response would have been a damn sight more violent.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Yes, it's exaggeration to underline a point. Where exactly does one start and the other stop? Because if you can't state that, then you can't legislate it.

I see this is needed again.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html

Of course, if the original poster hasn't made any assertion that one point will lead to another, then the quotee suffers from what is known as the "being a jerk" rule.

I wouldn't want that to happen to you, would you? Especially given that the UK has several high profile instances of people making fun of dead people repeatedly in court at the moment, so finding that break off point would be very useful.

 

[oktalist]

your freedom of speech is null and void the moment it offends someone.

Causing offence to someone does not infringe their rights, because not being offended is not a right.

But it's irrelevant because the guy in this case was not jailed for causing offence, that would be rather Orwellian if he was. He was jailed for causing distress, which is quite different.

Was it unlawful? no

Actually yes. It turns out that if you get sent to jail it means you broke the law. Funny how that works.

Regardless, "sending malicious communications" is a crime?

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

 

[Mudze]

Just because they don't know how to deal with death doesn't mean we can't mock them heartlessly.

In fact, it warrants it further. These kids need to get over themselves. "Waaaaah, a friend of mine died" "So did million of others, of causes much worse than that" "But mine's speciaaaaaaal".



The suicides tick me off especially. Anyone remember Daani Sanders? Everyone was like "remember her suicide, and help teens everywhere". 9 suicides in Australia every day on average. The majority of them do it for justifiable reasons, if not downright acceptable ones.



People need to grow the hell up and realize the world doesn't give a ****.

 

[mariodude23]

I understand that this is morally bankrupt and terrible and all that... But I kinda feel like this is dangerously close to (if not already) stepping on our first amendment rights... But I mean, this was in Britain, right? Same laws don't apply. Still, something just doesn't feel right about it.

But hey, do the crime, do the time.

I don't think that insulting the death of a person by saying "I fell asleep on the track lolz" is free speech. It's borderline harassment.

 

[razer17]

This is ridiculous. The guy is a massive dick, sure, but getting jail time for being a dick? No. Stupid. Next time I call my friend a dick maybe I should just hand myself over to the cops.

Pretty sure he wasn't convicted under the controversial "being a dick" law. You guys don't seem to understand that the law doesn't work that way. The courts can't just manufacture a reason to give someone a charge. He was tried and convicted according to existing criminal code in the UK.

I mean, is it freaking everyone out to learn that there are actual existing legal consequences for being a huge asshole? This isn't the thought police. It's just common sense.

I understand the law and how it works. And actually, occasionally judges can bring in laws for which no statute exists. For example, the law that we can not murder others was never brought in by government, but exists only through a legal precedent. So you're wrong on that count.

However, even if a law does exist suggesting that certain things can or can not be said, I think it's wrong. Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right, and although certain things are excluded, such as instilling racial hatred, this should be legal. Yes, it's a dick move to take the mick out of a grieving family, but it shouldn't be illegal.

It's common sense to suggest that it shouldn't be done, it's not common sense to jail someone because of it.

 

[dudeman0001]

So much for the 1st amendment, huh?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

[
Let me put this into perspective. Your statement is as hyperbolic as saying that all video games that aren't completely innocuous because of the games that have been banned for excessive violence.

And what have we been trying to prove for years?

Yet you'll still see headlines like "Gaming causes rickets" in your tabloids sometimes.

If you're going to set a jailtime for malicious comments, you have to provide a set point where they become jail-worthy.

 

[Mr.White]

18 weeks in prison for intentionally upsetting some people? it's disappointing that British judges are not handing out sentences that harsh to violent criminals.

 

[A Pious Cultist]

So much for the 1st amendment, huh?

I don't want to make a "dumb american" comment but your law does not apply to any other country other than yours.

 

[EHKOS]

Yes we do know the difference and what he did was certainly wrong. He deserves that time in prison and I hope he gets more.

Why? Why should the government be allowed to throw people into jail for saying mean things? Could you imagine what were to happen if every single person ever to troll someone on the internet got thrown into jail? The internet would be half empty!

Also to quote Jonathon Green:

"The populist authoritarianism that is the downside of political correctness means that anyone, sometimes it seems like everyone, can proclaim their grief and have it acknowledged. The victim culture, every sufferer grasping for their own Holocaust, ensures that anyone who feels offended can call for moderation, for dilution, and in the end, as is all too often the case, for censorship. And censorship, that by-product of fear - stemming as it does not from some positive agenda, but from the desire to escape our own terrors and superstitions by imposing them on others - must surely be resisted"

What Green said.

People have a knee-jerk reaction when they hear people say horrible things, so they don't think and just blindly let the government throw supposedly bad people behind bars.

Well fuck that. Speaking of fuck:

"Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government."
-Lenny Bruce"

Hell, here is an entire page of quotes like this: http://www.quotegarden.com/censorship.html

Yes you can say anything and that is good. This man was doing something different. He was harassing. Harassing people who had recently lost a child. You don't do that. It's anti social.

 

[Neaco]

[
Let me put this into perspective. Your statement is as hyperbolic as saying that all video games that aren't completely innocuous because of the games that have been banned for excessive violence.

And what have we been trying to prove for years?

Yet you'll still see headlines like "Gaming causes rickets" in your tabloids sometimes.

If you're going to set a jailtime for malicious comments, you have to provide a set point where they become jail-worthy.

The world isn't black and white. You are correct in that there needs to be a better system than "society decides who's a dick and who isn't" but c'mon, were doing the best we can. Why not write up the law yourself and present it to your congressman?

 

[dudeman0001]

I understand that this is morally bankrupt and terrible and all that... But I kinda feel like this is dangerously close to (if not already) stepping on our first amendment rights... But I mean, this was in Britain, right? Same laws don't apply. Still, something just doesn't feel right about it.

But hey, do the crime, do the time.

I don't think that insulting the death of a person by saying "I fell asleep on the track lolz" is free speech. It's borderline harassment.

I know that with freedom comes responsibility, but have you ever heard the anonymous quote "Although I don't agree with what you just said, I'll defend to the death your right to say it." If you don't believe in free speech even for people you despise, then you really don't believe in free speech. Besides, I find the whole "cyberbullying" idea tough to swallow, because in any competent communication site, there's always an easy way to block off communication with someone who's harassing you, those block buttons are there for a reason!

 

[Neaco]

So much for the 1st amendment, huh?

I don't want to make a "dumb american" comment but your law does not apply to any other country other than yours.

No no, as an American I fully support your comment. Dudeman... Learn to Read.

 

[KenzS]

Even if a few months in jail is too severe, I imagine this guy is going to learn from this.

And pulling the "Asperger's" card is pretty lame. Just because your incapable of empathy doesn't give you the right to mock people like that.

 

[CommanderKirov]

While he got what he deserved. I must ask, is that even legal?

 

[Baneat]

Why don't comedians go to jail for taking the piss out of everything, even when it's so soon? Gotfried made a 9/11 joke like 3 days after the attack, why isn't he jailed?

 

[psychodynamica]

"WAAH, he said something MEAN to me. WAAH"

GROW THE FUCK UP. seriously, are these people 5? they are words. WORDS. they mean NOTHING. they are EMPTY. don't give me the "well he clearly intended to cause them pain" bullshit. it doesn't matter what he intended to do, he did nothing harmful.

Those of us who actually use the English language maturely and know when the best time to throw the word 'fuck' into a sentence know all too well that words can sometimes be just as harmful as a fist to the face (maybe not in the traditional sense of a bloody nose but harm will still be done).

Now I'm going to put a small amount of confidence in you that you're over the mental age of ten (or are at least out of the stage in life where the main thing you use your head for is headbutting people) when I assume that you understand that just because you aren't offended or upset by something doesn't mean that everyone should be fine with it.

I'm not offended or upset by people who ask if we can finally shut the Hell up about 9/11 (I understand where they're coming from most of the time) but I understand why that would be distressing and painful for someone who lost a child or a parent or a spouse to the events on that day (and this is coming from someone with the same condition this guy is using as a shield for this behavior).

If you're offended or hurt by me talking down to you like a child and implying that you have the emotional intelligence of a pile of sand then good, then you understand where I'm coming from when I disagree with you.

excuse me? come again? where does any nation give its citizens the right not to be offended? pop music offends me for being corporate whores masking an acting career as music, sports offend me for being a massive waste of money that accomplishes nothing but the spectacle of teams of sweaty men groping each other. religion offends me for being nothing but a pyramid scheme that aims to keep scientific development and social progress at bay with a mask of goodwill and faith. are you to say that every theist, sports fan and player, pop star and listener is to be arrested? i don't say this often, but you're an idiot, learn what you are talking about before you try to argue it.

Trust me, I understand what I'm argueing (and very well at that) and the cases you're citing there as reasons you think count as 'offended' aren't even anywhere close to what happened to result in the arrest in the OP. I think Pop music sucks too but I wouldn't call for people like Justin Beiber to be arrested, however, someone taking the time to follow me (online or off) and make light of the fact that a close friend or family member had been killed (and in a somewhat horrible way) would be far, far removed from being a laughing matter (and odds are on that more than a few punches would be aimed in their direction, and I try to avoid violence wherever possible).

This isn't a case of arresting people because 'oh noes! they hurt my feelings by disagreeing with me!' as much as it's 'this bastard has been stalking my family and rubbing it in our faces that our daughter died recently because he finds it funny'.

If you have even the slightest ability to tell right from wrong you'd see how big a difference that makes.

Sorry oh great one our inferior understanding of language has allowed us to offend your oh so intelligent and righteous opinion. You do realise that this is a subject that really does warrant the word FUCK right, I mean whatever side of the argument you fall on. Now it totally agree that this Trollchild did something genuinely disgusting to those people.
Now you are the primary kind of well spoken internet lurker that pisses me off, the fact that you believe so self-righteously that you are right, you can convince yourself that you can talk down to someone simply because they made a point you don't like. I feel I must kerb this as best I can, because anyone with a reasonable understanding of language must realise that. 1. there is no greater way to prove how much of an a**h*le you are than parading your pseudo-intellectual crap around to make yourself seem better than someone else. 2. There is no bigger mistake than totally judging someone's entire character because of an individual paragraph on a forum in what amounts to little more than a troll thread.


So please get down of your high horse and talk like a reasonable and socially viable human being or stay on it until someone pulls you off.

 

[mariodude23]

And what have we been trying to prove for years?

Yet you'll still see headlines like "Gaming causes rickets" in your tabloids sometimes.

If you're going to set a jailtime for malicious comments, you have to provide a set point where they become jail-worthy.

Harassment is illegal, simulated violence in a vaguely controlled escapist media is not. That's where the line is drawn.
What the tabloids do is try to strike fear into the hearts of stupid people and that's all that they've done since before I was born. So long as that Penn and Teller episode is available to the public, (and at least 5 people still have common sense) gaming has hard facts to back us up.
Causing emotional distress on the other hand is literally a part of psychology and I can testify personally, as a person with clinical depression, that it has made me seriously consider suicide in the past.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

FUCK THE FIRST AMENDMENT! SOMEONE MEAN GOT SENT TO JAIL FOR SAYING MEAN STUFF! HOORAY!

Seriously people, fucked up though it may be, this kid didn't really do anything. You do realize he's going to be in jail for four and a half months right? Four and a half months of jail, and prison charges that will make it difficult for him to get a job for the rest of his life for being a bit of a dick.

I honestly don't believe he should be prosecuted at all. Punched in the face, yes, but the law has no place in this. Even then, this is something that warrants community service or something not strait up jail time.

It's seriously appalling to see so many people strongly supporting this kind of government issued punishment for "I fell asleep on the track lolz." I realize this is a gaming site so there's bound to be a heavy nerd populus but holy shit, is there that much bad blood from bullying that you honestly believe this kids life should be ruined for making a few off color comments?