Petition to Free Jailed League of Legends Player Reaches 100,000 Sigs
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
He should have been arrested.
He should have been investigated.
But he should not be imprisoned when said investigation turned up nothing.
I think the same about the whole "yelling bomb at an airport thing".
Arrest them, investigate and then big arse fines to help cover the costs incurred having to investigate some dickhead's idea of a joke.
If I get a bomb threat on the phones at work, or someone claims they've got a gun, it doesn't matter how unlikely it is, or if they say "just kidding" afterwards, I have to treat it as serious as its in the best interest of everyone that I do so.
So whilst I agree with everyone who says he's being punished excessively, I disagree with those who think law enforcement should never have got involved.
He should have been investigated.
But he should not be imprisoned when said investigation turned up nothing.
I think the same about the whole "yelling bomb at an airport thing".
Arrest them, investigate and then big arse fines to help cover the costs incurred having to investigate some dickhead's idea of a joke.
If I get a bomb threat on the phones at work, or someone claims they've got a gun, it doesn't matter how unlikely it is, or if they say "just kidding" afterwards, I have to treat it as serious as its in the best interest of everyone that I do so.
So whilst I agree with everyone who says he's being punished excessively, I disagree with those who think law enforcement should never have got involved.
While I agree that the prison time is wildly excessive, he should've had the common sense not to say something that stupid on Facebook where you really have no idea who's likely to read it.Krinkle Ymouse said:
"Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still-beating hearts" doesn't sound like someone being sarcastic so much as someone trying to be shocking.
You don't have freedom of speech on Facebook, you have what they allow you to say. Even so, I think 100 hours of community service picking up trash or something would have made a lot more sense.
You really have to learn the differentiation between someone enacting a "joke" and someone making a comment. Someone yelling bomb at an airport or calling in a threat are direct actions that are very different from a facebook comment. If he had posted something like that on a specific schools facebook page or something sure, but in a reply to another player no way.fletch_talon said:
You have to use a sense of judgement in situations, for example as you brought up work, say a worker is just having a crummy day and says off offhandedly "wow I'd really love to just jump out that window". Do you jump up and pin them to the ground and call the authorities for an attempted suicide? No, you use your better judgement and realize that it's dark humor.
Exactly. This is why, when everyone was busy celebrating about us killing Bin Laden, I was just pensive. Yeah, "we won". Meanwhile, let's look at the state of our country today compared to 12 years ago when the manhunt started. Is there ANYTHING that's improved in that time? Anything that's at least... not worse? When a man's stated goal is the decimate the economy of a country, did he really lose when said country bankrupts itself both morally and financially just to kill him?Phrozenflame500 said:
But he didn't just say he was going to shoot up the school, he also said he is going to eat their still beating hearts as well, therefore your analogy is incorrect.fletch_talon said:
The correct analogy would be if someone called in a bomb threat and said the bombs are inside your kidneys or someone else said they had a gun which fires solid bullets of blood pumped from his very veins. I would hope that you do not report me and have me arrested as both a criminal and a blood mage.
I think I understand where the law is coming from here. They are making an example out of this twat. If he got a reasonable sentence of 6 months in jail and a year probation, no one would talk about it. But by giving him such a harsh sentence it has us talking about what is and isn't acceptable.
Also by threating to shoot up a school and eat the still beating hearts of children is not something to acceptable joke about where anyone can see or hear. If you want to joke about it with your friends, don't got posting it on Facebook. I will not be signing the petition because I think we should punish idiots.
Also by threating to shoot up a school and eat the still beating hearts of children is not something to acceptable joke about where anyone can see or hear. If you want to joke about it with your friends, don't got posting it on Facebook. I will not be signing the petition because I think we should punish idiots.
It's Texas. Texas has very little interest in "justice" when there's an opportunity to make an example of someone.
He did not identify a particular school, and was not attempting to make a specific threat which is required for Sec. 22.07. Terroristic Threat. of the Texas Penal Code. I have no idea how incompetent their defense is, but I would love to see someone look into the prosecutors. I would be willing to bet that they have made at least one death threat at sometime in their life. With the new 'terrorist' brand being applied to everything including death threats now (regardless of tone, or reason), they would be equally as guilty.
Come on WikiLeaks, save the kid!
Come on WikiLeaks, save the kid!
She didn't do anything wrong. He decided what he was going to say and how to say it. The police and legal system arrested, charged and imprisoned him for it. Both of those are at fault for this, but that woman did the right thing.Goofguy said:
How do you think she'd feel if she saw that, decided to do nothing, and found out later he did do these things? Probably a lot worse than she would in this situation.
I'm going to sign the petition of people who not only think he should be released, but that it was actually a pretty good joke.
Kill someone, then eat their still beating heart? Contradiction, man.
All I want--after this case is fully resolved--is a lengthy interview with the judge and anyone else who saw him fit for this, and then with the woman who reported him; asking how she felt about what her actions lead to.
Literally--LITERALLY--people say "I'm gonna kill that person" in just as sarcastic a manner millions of times a day. In fact, if I were Luis CK, I'd hold an entertainment media press conference sarcastically calling for my arrest, on account of having joked that I wouldn't ever have sex with a kid--but maybe a dead kid.
And then I go to prison, and film the next season of my show there. How's THAT for public activism.
Edit:
Wait, EscapistMagazine.com posting an article about someone being SERIOUSLY punished for some minor quip? Oh CRAP how did I only now realize how good of a joke I could have made about that?
Well I'll tell you how: because there's an example of someone affected by it just like FIVE POSTS above me. Apparently, saying,
"What does this even add to the article? I guess I should stop expecting contributors on a video game website to remain professional."
Is enough to get you PERMANENTLY BANNED. Yes, you can be a member of this site for two years and contribute over a THOUSAND messages to the community, and daring to criticize the people who work on the site with--gasp--sarcasm is worthy of having it all being tossed into the 'this guy must be shamed to the last day these servers are alive' pile.
Oh FREAKING gee, criticizing someone using smug, sarcastic remarks. The Escapist doesn't want anyone like that.
And yes, this is totally on topic. This is a thread about hilariously over-the-top punishments.
Now, maybe that guy had gotten warnings before. Though I don't know how one could lose their 'saying anything negative' rights. But okay, if he had kept making the same basic message over and over again for months, THEN I'd accept that logic.
But if not, then, well... crap, I just earned myself enough banishment to last three eternities, didn't I?
If so... can I just ask something? Um... why? Why is harshly negative feedback without 'constructive criticism' a bad thing? What does that do? I can understand unending obnoxious l33t speak spamming, I can understand personal attacks (that aren't clearly sarcastic, obviously), but what is damaged when someone says "this guy's work is wretched and pathetic and I don't expect better from him"?
That person's EGO, obviously. Film Brain permanently banned ME from TGWTG.com (and also IP blocked me from even VIEWING the website, which even their own rules don't authorize him to do) for saying "got I fucking hate this guy's videos!" And he told me, "we work hard on our videos and words like that disheartens and discourages us."
Oh boo hoo. If I fucking hate someone's videos, do I have to lie? Look, just because you really hate something and tell people about it, doesn't mean you're trolling or even flaming (so I didn't even break any TGWTG rules). If you want to be successful at anything, you have to be willing to face critics. But at the end of the day, I can KIND OF understand that hey--it's YOUR site--not a Constitutional Republic. You can moderate however you want. Just ADMIT it, please. Don't hide behind the 'constructive criticism' excuse.
When you say something sucks, you're saying do a better job. Not constructive enough? Well in my original post (yes I'm going on long, but since I suspect this post may get be banned from the site forever, I don't want to leave anything important out. But I'm STILL making sure that it stays within the general boundaries of 'ridiculous punishments' and has segued more into internet moderation. I am offering a LOT of content in this post. Escapist doesn't like low-content posts, right?) I actually did specify a few things that I hated.
I said I hated the theme song, and that I found his voice and overall persona to be annoying.
They told me that that STILL wasn't constructive enough. I had to 'offer advice on how to improve'.
And I was like,
"Uhh... get a better theme song? And... stop having an annoying persona?" My point being, the way to improve is usually easy to figure out if you apply your brain to straight criticism. Yahtzee rarely spends time to talk about how a game could be better, but it's a BRILLIANT place to go to get tips on how to make good games.
And they said NO, that still doesn't cut it.
"You need to be like 'this seems to be a little bad. I think your voice might be annoying.'" They said to me.
But... that has nothing to do with constructiveness; that's just how nice I'm being. SEE? This is all about your feelings being hurt.
(Yes I know I keep going on and on about this, but I have a lot to say, and would like to preemptively respond to every reaction I suspect I'll get.)
They also said things like,
"Be like this: 'Your theme song is rather bad. Go look for more songs to use as your theme song. Consider making your own. If you can't do music, go look for someone who can and keep in close communication with them. Make it something that fits the tone of the show.' There, see banned user? That's what would have qualified as constructive criticism."
Yeah so, basically, unless I give the video maker a whole freaking tutorial on how to make their videos, my criticism isn't constructive.
By the way, Film Brain never fessed-up to how his punishment was more than even his own rules authorized him to do. He never even acknowledged it back to me, despite me putting it RIGHT in front of his face and demanding an explanation. Also, by the way, I was completely in the dark about this whole thing for months. I had no idea what had happened and the admins weren't responding to my emails.
Hey, um, how about I offer some constructive criticism to The Escapist on moderation policy in regards to flaming and trolling?
1: Ban people who make personal--not clearly sarcastic--attacks. "This guy is a shit head." Is bad. "This video is shit." Is okay. "This guy sucks at making videos." Is just barely okay.
2: Ban people whose criticisms are jumbled up into a quagmire of poor typing.
3: Ban people who are CONSTANTLY stalking some output with constant meaning rambling of bitterness and won't stop despite multiple warnings.
Everything else--in the category of unconstructive criticism--is fine.
By the way, I moved after a couple of months of Film Brain banning me and was able to get back on the site. I eventually figured out how to get another account without people knowing. So even thought that was a DAY ONE account (the only I've ever had) with a thousand posts on it... I can't still be too mad at him, because I ultimately got away with it. I still want to use this case as a good example of bad moderation policy, however.
For example, on a South Park fansite that I had run myself, I gave one guy moderating powers. And then he went on to do nothing but abuse those powers, and then I found out that he even LIED to me to get fake moderating credentials in the first place. And then... I just took away his moderating powers and didn't do anything else. Because what harm can he do now?
I know that on a bigger website, this is much much much much harder, but I just think these policies need a deep philosophical shift.
Kill someone, then eat their still beating heart? Contradiction, man.
All I want--after this case is fully resolved--is a lengthy interview with the judge and anyone else who saw him fit for this, and then with the woman who reported him; asking how she felt about what her actions lead to.
Literally--LITERALLY--people say "I'm gonna kill that person" in just as sarcastic a manner millions of times a day. In fact, if I were Luis CK, I'd hold an entertainment media press conference sarcastically calling for my arrest, on account of having joked that I wouldn't ever have sex with a kid--but maybe a dead kid.
And then I go to prison, and film the next season of my show there. How's THAT for public activism.
Edit:
Wait, EscapistMagazine.com posting an article about someone being SERIOUSLY punished for some minor quip? Oh CRAP how did I only now realize how good of a joke I could have made about that?
Well I'll tell you how: because there's an example of someone affected by it just like FIVE POSTS above me. Apparently, saying,
"What does this even add to the article? I guess I should stop expecting contributors on a video game website to remain professional."
Is enough to get you PERMANENTLY BANNED. Yes, you can be a member of this site for two years and contribute over a THOUSAND messages to the community, and daring to criticize the people who work on the site with--gasp--sarcasm is worthy of having it all being tossed into the 'this guy must be shamed to the last day these servers are alive' pile.
Oh FREAKING gee, criticizing someone using smug, sarcastic remarks. The Escapist doesn't want anyone like that.
And yes, this is totally on topic. This is a thread about hilariously over-the-top punishments.
Now, maybe that guy had gotten warnings before. Though I don't know how one could lose their 'saying anything negative' rights. But okay, if he had kept making the same basic message over and over again for months, THEN I'd accept that logic.
But if not, then, well... crap, I just earned myself enough banishment to last three eternities, didn't I?
If so... can I just ask something? Um... why? Why is harshly negative feedback without 'constructive criticism' a bad thing? What does that do? I can understand unending obnoxious l33t speak spamming, I can understand personal attacks (that aren't clearly sarcastic, obviously), but what is damaged when someone says "this guy's work is wretched and pathetic and I don't expect better from him"?
That person's EGO, obviously. Film Brain permanently banned ME from TGWTG.com (and also IP blocked me from even VIEWING the website, which even their own rules don't authorize him to do) for saying "got I fucking hate this guy's videos!" And he told me, "we work hard on our videos and words like that disheartens and discourages us."
Oh boo hoo. If I fucking hate someone's videos, do I have to lie? Look, just because you really hate something and tell people about it, doesn't mean you're trolling or even flaming (so I didn't even break any TGWTG rules). If you want to be successful at anything, you have to be willing to face critics. But at the end of the day, I can KIND OF understand that hey--it's YOUR site--not a Constitutional Republic. You can moderate however you want. Just ADMIT it, please. Don't hide behind the 'constructive criticism' excuse.
When you say something sucks, you're saying do a better job. Not constructive enough? Well in my original post (yes I'm going on long, but since I suspect this post may get be banned from the site forever, I don't want to leave anything important out. But I'm STILL making sure that it stays within the general boundaries of 'ridiculous punishments' and has segued more into internet moderation. I am offering a LOT of content in this post. Escapist doesn't like low-content posts, right?) I actually did specify a few things that I hated.
I said I hated the theme song, and that I found his voice and overall persona to be annoying.
They told me that that STILL wasn't constructive enough. I had to 'offer advice on how to improve'.
And I was like,
"Uhh... get a better theme song? And... stop having an annoying persona?" My point being, the way to improve is usually easy to figure out if you apply your brain to straight criticism. Yahtzee rarely spends time to talk about how a game could be better, but it's a BRILLIANT place to go to get tips on how to make good games.
And they said NO, that still doesn't cut it.
"You need to be like 'this seems to be a little bad. I think your voice might be annoying.'" They said to me.
But... that has nothing to do with constructiveness; that's just how nice I'm being. SEE? This is all about your feelings being hurt.
(Yes I know I keep going on and on about this, but I have a lot to say, and would like to preemptively respond to every reaction I suspect I'll get.)
They also said things like,
"Be like this: 'Your theme song is rather bad. Go look for more songs to use as your theme song. Consider making your own. If you can't do music, go look for someone who can and keep in close communication with them. Make it something that fits the tone of the show.' There, see banned user? That's what would have qualified as constructive criticism."
Yeah so, basically, unless I give the video maker a whole freaking tutorial on how to make their videos, my criticism isn't constructive.
By the way, Film Brain never fessed-up to how his punishment was more than even his own rules authorized him to do. He never even acknowledged it back to me, despite me putting it RIGHT in front of his face and demanding an explanation. Also, by the way, I was completely in the dark about this whole thing for months. I had no idea what had happened and the admins weren't responding to my emails.
Hey, um, how about I offer some constructive criticism to The Escapist on moderation policy in regards to flaming and trolling?
1: Ban people who make personal--not clearly sarcastic--attacks. "This guy is a shit head." Is bad. "This video is shit." Is okay. "This guy sucks at making videos." Is just barely okay.
2: Ban people whose criticisms are jumbled up into a quagmire of poor typing.
3: Ban people who are CONSTANTLY stalking some output with constant meaning rambling of bitterness and won't stop despite multiple warnings.
Everything else--in the category of unconstructive criticism--is fine.
By the way, I moved after a couple of months of Film Brain banning me and was able to get back on the site. I eventually figured out how to get another account without people knowing. So even thought that was a DAY ONE account (the only I've ever had) with a thousand posts on it... I can't still be too mad at him, because I ultimately got away with it. I still want to use this case as a good example of bad moderation policy, however.
For example, on a South Park fansite that I had run myself, I gave one guy moderating powers. And then he went on to do nothing but abuse those powers, and then I found out that he even LIED to me to get fake moderating credentials in the first place. And then... I just took away his moderating powers and didn't do anything else. Because what harm can he do now?
I know that on a bigger website, this is much much much much harder, but I just think these policies need a deep philosophical shift.