Man Goes to Jail for Being an Internet Troll

[Woodsey]

This seems like a breach of free speech (I know that it didn't happen in the US, but still)...
He does seem like a massive tool but that is what free speech is about. This could be concerning to people on the internet in the UK.

I don't think we really view freedom of speech in the same way as you guys do, and although this does seem a little extreme it's also a fairly extreme case. If he'd have been posting notes through their doors instead of doing it online then I think people'd take it more seriously - depending on the extent you could probably call it psychological bullying, and I doubt he did it once or twice.

Another reason for Yahtzee not to return to England

On a serious note, British slander laws are incredibly easy to hold a trial for and get CONVICTED for. They apparently don't have much tolerance for anyone saying anything. Shit, it's like 1984 over there

Yes, that is exactly what it's like.

OT: I'm in two minds. A jail sentence may be too harsh, but then he could be perceived to be causing rather extreme emotional distress - and yes, that should be taken very seriously. If someone's at school and being bullied, you punish the bully. If you're at work and being bullied, they punish the bully. Just because it's not within a closed environment doesn't mean it doesn't deserve punishment. Maybe this isn't the correct type of punishment, but this is still a pretty extreme case at any rate - he was posting it directly to them as well as far as I'm aware.

I don't think anything would have happened if it had been on a completely separate website/forum.

As a poster suggest a couple below, maybe some form of court-ordered restraint and a fine is in order instead.

 

[JDKJ]

Even if he did have sex with the kid's corpse, it's not like he was hurting anyone...

Sorry, that was me being offensive because I can. The moral of the story is that this is the internet, if you don't like the comment, stop reading. The price of freedom of speach is you have to put up with offensive assholes; it sucks but it's so worth it.

Offensive or not, I chortled when I read it the first time. Perhaps proving what the Supreme Court once famously said: "One man's vulgarity is another man's lyric."

 

[Kurokami]

snipped

Just for the record, not that I'm unhappy with this guy's punishment, nor do I disagree that the guy you're arguing with seems like an asshat, but I think it'd be more reasonable to get some sort of court restraint on this guy before sending him off to Jail, don't you? (I only read the headline, more or less, so perhaps that's what happened)

Basically give him a formal notice saying "stop being a jackass or else/you're now forbidden from being a Jackass to these people/in general" and then chuck him into the back and shoot him... I mean Jail.

 

[Knight Templar]

He must have been a real arsehole for people to think "The cops will step in".

 

[Daystar Clarion]

snipped

Just for the record, not that I'm unhappy with this guy's punishment, nor do I disagree that the guy you're arguing with seems like an asshat, but I think it'd be more reasonable to get some sort of court restraint on this guy before sending him off to Jail, don't you? (I only read the headline, more or less, so perhaps that's what happened)

Basically give him a formal notice saying "stop being a jackass or else/you're now forbidden from being a Jackass to these people/in general" and then chuck him into the back and shoot him... I mean Jail.

You should probably read the entire article. The guy is basically guilty of harassment, but yes, I am rather unsure of the punishment.

 

[Isaac The Grape]

Shock Trolls are generally the laziest and worst type of troll anyway, good riddance.

Cannibal Trolls are the best, more so because it's a game of wits and we generally keep to ourselves.

Trolls trolling trolls trolling trolls.

Wait. Haven't I just described, the board.

 

[Skarlette]

There's a difference between respecting Free Speech and promoting harassment.

What's more, freedom of speech, doesn't just mean "freedom of speech you like or agree with" but the freedom to say what you want without these kinds of consequences. Once you start regulating the jerks, it turns into people simply wanting to regulate anyone they don't agree with.

There is no requirement that you have to be nice to anyone, that you have to like everyone, or that you have to remain silent about those you don't like. That's what freedom is all about.

Yes, words can hurt, and do a lot of damage, but as Heinlan put it "You can either have freedom or safety, never both".

....the police shoulx not have been involved, and sending him to jail was both overkill, and an affront to human rights.

So whose rights is more important, those of the man, or of those he harassed?

What about Article 5 -"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"? Or Article 29 section 2 -- "In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society."

If you believe that he's entirely innocent of denying the grieving families their rights to Article 5 and 29.2, that there was no malevolence intended, then okay, I can respect YOUR right to that opinion. But I wouldn't go tell it to them, if I was you.

(As a side note, necrophilia IS illegal under UK law and holds misdemeanour/felony status in over 20 states in the US. He could be held on that charge alone, even if it was only an allegation.)

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

So yeah, I agree with what bjj hero has been saying. There's more to this than whether it has crossed some big imaginary line of human rights. It's a common assumption made by both British people and Americans that since the two countries share a language there is no cultural difference between them. We (as nations in general) think about laws and rights in different ways, and since neither America or Britain are overrun by crime or run by fascist governments, I can safely say we're both doing fine.

How ironic, one person goes to jail when there are probably a few hundred thousand more trolls lurking the internet. How you going to put them all in jail?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

Can I just say that link has the funniest picture I've ever seen on a wikipedia page.

 

[veryboringfact]

me

him

The comment about the bar shouldn't be taken seriously, sorry, but as for the whole pissing spot notion, what else could the internet have been created for ? There are no controls on where you can go, what you can do, there are some areas where authorities try to fight it but generally they are losing the battle. The only controls are the ones implemented by the users. Which is exactly as it should be. You say the net shouldn't be a pissing spot, I say it shouldn't be treated as a library or a kindergarten. I remember one specific occasion when someone said something which i consider to be as bad or worse to me and i went ape shit on them, if only for a few seconds. He didn't go to jail for harassment and i didn't go to jail for assault. It's called solving one's own problems, which in this case could have been solved by pressing a delete button. Claiming that some sort of trauma (mental or physical) could be caused by a few stupid comments to a family who are already dealing with the death of a baby son would be insulting and belittling the immense nature of the occurence (which ironically is exactly what the comments were doing, perhaps the judge should jail herself aswell).

To anyone who is interested, the owner of the dog in question was jailed for 4 months (16 weeks), compared to Mr Cross' 18 weeks maximum sentence. If anyone still wants to make out Cross' jailing was completely fair and that he deserved it, maybe I should call the police on you for trolling.

 

[Snarky Username]

This seems like a breach of free speech (I know that it didn't happen in the US, but still)...
He does seem like a massive tool but that is what free speech is about. This could be concerning to people on the internet in the UK.

Actually, no that's not what free speech is about. Free speech is about being able to express your thoughts and ideas about the government and in artistic media without worrying about the government bringing down the hammer on you. Free speech is not about letting dicks say anything they want to grieving families because they find it to be fun.

OT: A little strict of a sentence, but he deserved it.

actually you are wrong(sc) free speech is just that FREE SPEECH! the ability to say whatever the fuck you want whenever the fuck you want you fucking sheep. this troll did go to fucking far yes. but prison cannot hold him for just talking(not in the US at least). the UK is a stupid monarchy with stupid laws that assist crime(see anti gun laws). nuff said you failure

I'm guessing fuck is on your word of the day calendar. But my point was that the first amendment was added so that American citizens had the right to dissent from the government and have your own thoughts, and express yourself in whatever way you want. Not just to spew unwarranted hate speech. It was to allow the people to tell their government that they were wrong without fear of arrest or execution. That way America didn't end up exactly like the country that it succeeded from. It didn't mean that you should be able to say and do whatever you want just to make others miserable.

 

[Cain_Zeros]

This has been said before, but this isn't a free speech issue. Saying you fucked the corpse of someone's dead loved one (probably among other things along those lines) is the kind of disgusting shit that isn't (and shouldn't be) protected. Just because it was over the Internet doesn't mean it's acceptable.

It's tame compared to the things Westboro Church says in front of the funeral services of fallen war veterans. And which, more likely than not, is protected speech.

Unfortunately protests and going out of your way to find and harass the families of the deceased are viewed differently. What WBC does shouldn't be protected either, but there it is.

 

[Lord Monocle Von Banworthy]

So wait, if we can just get Fred Phelps to take his whole congregation to the UK they won't be protected any more? That plan would technically require MORE gasoline than my preferred method of dealing with them, but I still kinda like it.

 

[SaintWaldo]

Andy, please explain the difference between your advocacy of physical violence to punish speech that you find distasteful and physical restraint by authorities for speech someone else finds distasteful. They seem pretty much equivalent to me.

The difference is that the person who is physically violent can get arrested for it. Not the person who made the comments "causing" the physical violence.

Is your name Andy?

Also, the point is, both are forms of violence against a speaker. Whether there is recourse for justice against the actor is cold comfort for a black eye.

It's a rather big comfort to know that your government and your laws support the right party in any given altercation.

Unless the "non-right" party IS the government. You again fail to see my point.

 

[fat american]

This seems like a breach of free speech (I know that it didn't happen in the US, but still)...
He does seem like a massive tool but that is what free speech is about. This could be concerning to people on the internet in the UK.

Shout "I've got a fucking bomb" in an airport and see how free your speech is. There is no free speech unless you understand it as the ability to say what you want but you may have to accept the consequences.

There's a differnce between threatning peoples lives and saying what you think or what you believe will get a rise out of people. There are people in the U.S. that go around to military funerals and shout at greaving families "God hates fags". They don't get arrested because they're protected by the first amendment, however tasteless their actions may be.

OT: I would like to go to one of their funerals if one of their followers dies and shout God is a lie. See how they like it.

 

[Banter]

me

him

...To anyone who is interested, the owner of the dog in question was jailed for 4 months (16 weeks), compared to Mr Cross' 18 weeks maximum sentence. If anyone still wants to make out Cross' jailing was completely fair and that he deserved it, maybe I should call the police on you for trolling.

As I said, I'm in the bandwagon of too harsh, but at the same time he deserved something... maybe community service or whatever.

However:
"Colm Coss, 36, targeted sites including a Facebook page set up for the late reality TV star Jade Goody, who died of cancer last year.

Coss, who is unemployed and from Ardwick, also bombarded sites for a dead American, the victim of a fatal car crash in Australia and a Canadian murder victim.

Details of his horrifying posts - which boasted of imaginary acts of paedophilia and necrophilia - were read out in sickening detail at Manchester Magistrates Court. "
Source
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/crime/s/1353148_facebook_troll_jailed_after_targeting_jade_goody_tribute_page

So there was a little more to it (necrophilia and paedophilia being illegal in their own right), so I don't know what to think about it any more..

 

[SilverZ]

This seems like a breach of free speech (I know that it didn't happen in the US, but still)...
He does seem like a massive tool but that is what free speech is about. This could be concerning to people on the internet in the UK.

Actually, no that's not what free speech is about. Free speech is about being able to express your thoughts and ideas about the government and in artistic media without worrying about the government bringing down the hammer on you. Free speech is not about letting dicks say anything they want to grieving families because they find it to be fun.

OT: A little strict of a sentence, but he deserved it.

actually you are wrong(sc) free speech is just that FREE SPEECH! the ability to say whatever the fuck you want whenever the fuck you want you fucking sheep. this troll did go to fucking far yes. but prison cannot hold him for just talking(not in the US at least). the UK is a stupid monarchy with stupid laws that assist crime(see anti gun laws). nuff said you failure

I'm guessing fuck is on your word of the day calendar. But my point was that the first amendment was added so that American citizens had the right to dissent from the government and have your own thoughts, and express yourself in whatever way you want. Not just to spew unwarranted hate speech. It was to allow the people to tell their government that they were wrong without fear of arrest or execution. That way America didn't end up exactly like the country that it succeeded from. It didn't mean that you should be able to say and do whatever you want just to make others miserable.

Actually it did it was to allow people to say what they wished without fear or persecution you fool. basically the right to say whatever no matter what no matter how offensive. THAT IS FREE SPEECH, the ability to talk without fear for fear is the natural state of the oppressed. are you oppressed Snarky? you shouldn't you poor little goat you.

 

[Snarky Username]

Snip

I didn't even know goat was an insult. Thanks for that, I guess. As for whether or not I'm oppressed, I can guess you can argue that we're all oppressed in some way, you giraffe you. But I can see that this is making you angry for reasons that I can not explain, so for all intents and purposes you're right. I am any livestock you want me to be.

 

[Michael Keating]

brb, raping both jade goody and a young dead dog mauling victim

 

[Anarchemitis]

Justice being served to recalcitrant members of society?

[http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/9181/dowants.png]