Man Jailed for 3 months over Facebook Jokes

[Nouw]

Uhh.....maybe I am missing something, maybe I fell into a coma and I have been out for a while, but when did we start handing out sentences, not on the severity of the crime, but based on the amount of outrage from the public?

Also, he is also charged with child abduction? What the hell is that about?

No, like, genuinely, there is no mention of child abduction in that article except for the two words, "child abduction".

That, I believe, was someone else. Mark Bridger is the criminal and Matthew Woods is the 'criminal' who posted offensive material on Facebook. Mark Bridger has been charged with the abduction and murder of April Jones, and Matthew Woods has been charged with...well you know, upsetting people and almost being the victim of an angry mob. Once again people, what about the angry mob? Am I crazy here?

 

[poxyrom]

I can't develop an opinion if I don't know what he said.

 

[Treblaine]

I don't have a problem with this per-se... but I do have a problem with the very idea of the police using their power to decide what people can and cannot say with the power to arrest and imprison people it is bound to end in abuse and innocent people in court and some of them being unduly punished or at least costing a lot in time and legal bills.

See, I think we (Britain) have forgotten WHY Freedom of Speech is so important and it's not to protect jerks like him, it's to protect people like YOU! You who doesn't have to worry about making a risqué private comment that the thought police will deem inappropriate. Only the most serious offences like holding a KKK style Rally calling for genocide or criminal insurrection should be stopped with imprisonment.

Even for this jerk, the appropriate response to such infractions should not be imprisonment, he is not a danger to society, he is not a thief who constantly steals things, a vandal who breaks things, the problem was him using the internet, ban him from using the internet for posting any public comments on the internet for 6 months.

The hurt of his comments will sting for a day or two before they wear off as just idle words, but the suffering of a 3 month prison sentence both in the short term and long term on his employment prospects is totally disproportionate to the harm done. Prison can only make a young man like this worse.

How does the government kidnapping and imprisoning someone for 3 months prove the moral high ground here? It's not like this was the only way to stop or reprimand him. Ban from the internet for a time with the threat of prison is far more appropriate but even then it was a few comments that weren't even directed to the bereaved but just semi-public. I mean just because you can overhear someone in a pub doesn't mean they can be held to the standard of a broadcaster.

What is it with our courts:
-Calling armed burglars "courageous"
-Double-talk on appropriate use of force in home-invasion
-Refusing to press charges against police who kill civilians in dodgy circumstances
-The most Plaintiff-Friendly lawsuit courts IN THE WORLD! The Libel-law mecca for the rich to silence poor critics

 

[dumbseizure]

Uhh.....maybe I am missing something, maybe I fell into a coma and I have been out for a while, but when did we start handing out sentences, not on the severity of the crime, but based on the amount of outrage from the public?

Also, he is also charged with child abduction? What the hell is that about?

No, like, genuinely, there is no mention of child abduction in that article except for the two words, "child abduction".

That, I believe, was someone else. Mark Bridger is the criminal and Matthew Woods is the 'criminal' who posted offensive material on Facebook. Mark Bridger has been charged with the abduction and murder of April Jones, and Matthew Woods has been charged with...well you know, upsetting people and almost being the victim of an angry mob. Once again people, what about the angry mob? Am I crazy here?

Ahh after re-reading the article, your right about who is being charged with what.

But my god, would it kill someone to word that just a LITTLE bit better?!

 

[Treblaine]

Why did they arrest him and not the mob that attacked him?

I read in The Times they initially "took him into custody for his own protection" and when the mob continued to be a threat they promptly decided he was the criminal and charged him after they lured him to the station saying they were taking him there to protect him.

British Police, supposedly the best in the world, though this reminds me of history class where we learned about racism in America's deep south how an angry mob would demand revenge on one individual who offended them.

As offensive as any comments are, I'd say threatening someone so much that they have to be protected by the police is far more offensive. It is the definition of "offence" not the nebulous one of "I hear someone somewhere in the world wasn't duly deferential to the depressing issue".

 

[Nouw]

Ahh after re-reading the article, your right about who is being charged with what.

But my god, would it kill someone to word that just a LITTLE bit better?!

Yeah, it's a really poorly structured article for people like us that have no idea who April Jones is.

 

[Treblaine]

Uhh.....maybe I am missing something, maybe I fell into a coma and I have been out for a while, but when did we start handing out sentences, not on the severity of the crime, but based on the amount of outrage from the public?

I am starting to think a few people in the British govt read 1984 and said "You know, this stuff isnt a half bad idea!"

This is less like the fiction of 1984 and more like the actual history of "American Deep South".

As bad as the death of a little child is, angry mobs aren't justify themselves by how large and angry they are. What is the POINT in judges if they capitulate to the mob. You know there is a chance prison will finish what the mob on the outside started.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Now I want to know what the joke was...

As many others have said, someone getting jail time for a joke is flat wrong. It doesn't matter how bad the joke was.

 

[Daeggreth]

Too much missing information here for me to really decide if the sentence was appropriate or not. Based on what's given and the assumptions being made here it's more than a little worrying that this seemed like a good idea to anyone, not to mention the quote from the judge.

Sure the guy made some tasteless comments but unless he was actively harassing someone...

And to echo other posters, how is it the mob is not being charged with anything? I'm not sure how the police would go about dealing with it, but surely some sort of punishment should occur. (Fines maybe?)

 

[Treblaine]

British Police, supposedly the best in the world, though this reminds me of history class where we learned about racism in America's deep south how an angry mob would demand revenge on one individual who offended them.

The british police are far from the best in the world.

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime

If they were very good people would have more faith in them, and there would be less crime (per capita)

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_vic-crime-total-victims

"Supposedly" being the key word, of course.

My main problem is the Police's two faced duplicity, and cover up for their harmful incompetence with constant dodging of legal responsibility.

When they don't carry guns they run away from their responsibility to protect the unarmed public from armed criminals or send policewomen to ambushes by deranged gunmen. When they are armed they manage to disproportionately end up killing unarmed and non-threatening members of the public.

The problem is not the "armed or not armed" the problem is the attitudes endemic in the police system. The "canteen culture", the officious harassment, the attitude they are a law unto themselves beyond reproach.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I just had to point out that you use '...' a lot. I dunno why I had to point it out, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing...I do it heaps myself. I just had to remark upon it. *shrug*

I have noticed this too! I either use '...' or '!'...

I think it is because I type conversationally as I think of it, and I use it as a pause if I am either going to use another sentence that follows on, or as an invitation to think more to the reader...
Really should start using ';' more! :/

It's probably a phase too... like using txt speak, and LOL all the time!

 

[Tenbob]

Maybe I'm just one of those Constitution-waving Amurkins (the real kind, not the ultra-conservative kind), but do you guys in the UK not have some kind of protection of free speech? I don't care which country you're from, it's a gross violation of freedom and ethics to send someone to prison over a joke (no matter how tasteless).

Though maybe it's not so bad, since the UK apparently has so little crime that the police don't have anything better to do than arrest you for tasteless humor. Then again, I suppose that's true here in the US as well - only they arrest you for smoking the wrong plant instead of telling jokes. And it's the same in some middle-eastern countries, only they arrest you for worshiping the wrong god. Gosh, what a crime-free world we must live in!

There is protection for Freedom of Speech, but it's not as big a deal in the UK as it is in the States. The UK stance on Freedom of Speech is "Say what you like, but expect to receive a kicking for anything out of line" And by out of line I don't mean a disagreement on a point. Freedom of speech is protected in the UK on different levels:

a. A person may speak freely on private property.
b. A person may speak freely publicly, as long as they do not break any other laws.
b.ii. One such law is against hate speak- speech intended to induce hate. (Most frequently discussed in case of religious fanatics)
b.iii. The law this prosecution fell under was Public communications (I forget the exact act name) the defendant could not reasonably claim to be speaking in private (Facebook) and was making highly offensive comments. You could liken it to saying the same thing, but over a megaphone in the streets, this law is infringed. In the eyes of the law, there is not much difference between posting on Twitter or Facebook and grabbing a megaphone and yelling it out to passers by.


Note: I am no expert on law and the outline I am delivering is only the gist of it. I reckon there's people around who could highlight the exact acts that came to play, but I'd say that the main route is: Defendant could not reasonably claim it was a comment made "in private", thus he was speaking in public to an audience. His comments and speech caused public outrage which could potentially have escalated. Those would be the reasons he was imprisoned, not because he made a tasteless joke and was a horrible comedian. Minimum punishment for that particular crime is Capital Punishment. So he got off lightly!

 

[Pebkio]

Someone was put in jail for expressing an opinion while drunk? This is my surprised face. Oh wait, this was in England... so I guess there's a little actual surprise on my surprise face.

Sure you could say it was hate-speech that could've caused public violence... but you know what, holding one person responsible for how fifty others react is downright dirty.

I'm also angered to see some of you out there are supporting this new Good-Taste Gestapo. I cannot begin to tell you how much the limiting of personal rights gets on my nerves.

 

[AngloDoom]

no, we're making it up as we go along.

no written constitution...

This is the biggest problem I have with this news. While I personally believe the guy shouldn't have been taken to court unless he was directly harassing the people involved with these jokes, the fact that some people are taken to court over jokes and some are not is the really strange bit.

Frankie Boyle, as many people have pointed out, has made much worse jokes than this on national television in a way that practically ensures those involved will, at least, hear the joke. This guy made a joke on the internet where it is just as likely no-one would have found out and he gets the full force of the law.

 

[Guffe]

Dear Lord, if bad humour was punishable by law, the escapist would be depopulated in a matter of days.

This is so true.
Then if we'd go for bad puns or puns that don't work I'd probably get a deathpenalty...

But as said, he isn't being punished fro a joke he is being punished for saying abusive things.

 

[HardkorSB]

So a guy has been sentenced to 3 months in prison for posting tasteless jokes on his facebook.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-19869710

What do you guys think of this?

My own opinion is that its quite frieghtning and pretty disgraceful that posting a tastless joke can warrant a prison sentence, even if it is pretty disgusting.
Arent there better things to be spending funds on rather than prosecuting people for bad humor. I mean it was on his own private page, not directed at the family or people involved in the case itself....

I think that he would argue more under other circumstances but apparently, some people have formed a lynch mob to punish him on their own so I think that this was partially done to protect him.

 

[Bertylicious]

Those 50 people should have been charged with disturbing the peace, irrespective of anything else that happened in this incident.

Was the facebook comment made on Wood's own page?

 

[Tenbob]

Those 50 people should have been charged with disturbing the peace, irrespective of anything else that happened in this incident.

Was the facebook comment made on Wood's own page?

I wouldn't be surprised if the 50 were charged, but received a lesser punishment- likely a warning or a fine. From what I can tell, they didn't do any property damage and all they did was show up, then the mitigation would be the public nature of the statement.

The big struggle that the UK law is having with social media at the moment is that people trolling/harassing are breaking laws or committing public speaking offenses working out the middle ground is proving tricky to find in our current law.

That being said, there is information missing here- It doesn't matter if it was made on his own page/wall as comments on Facebook can rightly be considered "in the public domain" particularly if there are hundreds of "friends" who simply happen to be a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend.

My opinion: I don't agree with imprisonment for facebook comments, but if they are enough to incite public outrage and there is a sufficient audience for those comments, then anything said on Facebook should be considered public.

I think this case (and other similar recent cases) are in a big grey area of UK law right now. However, there are parts that fall firmly into existing laws, so it really is working it out as it goes along.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I guess freedom of speech was an antiquated notion anyway, right?

 

[Bertylicious]

Those 50 people should have been charged with disturbing the peace, irrespective of anything else that happened in this incident.

Was the facebook comment made on Wood's own page?

I wouldn't be surprised if the 50 were charged, but received a lesser punishment- likely a warning or a fine. From what I can tell, they didn't do any property damage and all they did was show up, then the mitigation would be the public nature of the statement.

The big struggle that the UK law is having with social media at the moment is that people trolling/harassing are breaking laws or committing public speaking offenses working out the middle ground is proving tricky to find in our current law.

That being said, there is information missing here- It doesn't matter if it was made on his own page/wall as comments on Facebook can rightly be considered "in the public domain" particularly if there are hundreds of "friends" who simply happen to be a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend.

My opinion: I don't agree with imprisonment for facebook comments, but if they are enough to incite public outrage and there is a sufficient audience for those comments, then anything said on Facebook should be considered public.

I think this case (and other similar recent cases) are in a big grey area of UK law right now. However, there are parts that fall firmly into existing laws, so it really is working it out as it goes along.

Yes, I was going to talk about the whole 'public domain' thing. In the past it has been very easy to consider whether or not something was in the public domain. No longer.

I think the nub of this comes down to the definition of incitement. If I, say, were to use any form of communication to implore people to rise up and commit harm to Liverpool fans then that would be wrong and socially problematic. If I were to say that Liverpool fans have bad breath and a bunch of people then tried to burn my house down, I don't think that should count as overt action.

You seem a knowledgabe fellow; if someone calls me a **** in the street is that breaking the law?