Internet troll is jailed after mocking deaths of teenagers online.

[Therumancer]

I fear for the UK, and honestly this is one of the reasons why a lot of people in the US look down on it and treat it like a backwater country at times. As I understand this both this and the Jade Goody incident took place there. "Freedom Of Speech" does not mean "The freedom to say what I agree with or want to hear" and has it's dark side along with it's positive benefits, the pros however outweigh the cons, and no amount of rudeness is worth the cost to civil liberties that these rulings entail.

Coming from a country that infamous for having a fairly Christian stance on most things despite allegedly being founded on the notion of a seperation of Church and the State (something the UK has been dramatically more successful with despite maintaining our supposedly divinely appointed Monarchy) calling us 'backwater' seems to be a statement without anything really in the way of substance behind it.

The much touted 'freedom of speech' arguement that's held up by a lot of internet trolls not only gets grossly misused (it's actually intended to stop you from having your opinion censored by the government, it doesn't cover your right to be malicious and cruel to others, we can still call you out on that).

I'll also be blunt, the guy here is taking the wrong track on defending himself. Argueing Aspergers is kind of ridiculous. To be honest I have my doubts about that entire condition's very existance.

As someone with traits of the condition who has faced numerous difficulties growing up as a result of it allow me to thank you for essentially trivialising several things that were difficult about my childhood and teens (please note sarcasm), I agree with you about how said condition shouldn't be used as a defence for one's behvaior but I would say that it does exist (and your repeated allegations that we're just 'making it up' is sort of like saying that people with anxiety disorders are really ok they just need to relax, in other words, narrow minded and very inconsiderate).

If there is such a thing as Aspbergers, it's overdiagnosed, and as a result has had it's credability as a condition ruined.

I think you'll find that the overdiagnosis actually comes from people who look up a list of symptoms online and think that it sounds like them (and as such when they called out on being arseholes they think that having a condition means you essentially can't say anything to them about it).

At the same time though, with incidents like this, I figure you'd do better to just say "I got sick of listening to this so I did something to make a point and bug the people back". I might disagree with the action itself, but I can at least respect the point being made, and will even say it falls under basic human rights.

I would disagree with your sentiment that it falls under basic human rights, your basic human rights (as I remember) are mostly along the lines of things like a right to food, water, warmth, shelter and the right to not live in fear of suffering or violence.

Hell, even the notion of being allowed to express your opinion openly is technically a luxury we possess here in the west largely as a result of our social and cultural advances throughout history (trust me, of all the supposed 'human rights' to disappear first in an emergency, the right to freedom of expression will rightly be the first seeing as most of us won't die if we can't speak our minds, we tend to expire if we can't have food or water though).

I said the UK is treated as one, not that they are one. There IS a differance, and like it or not I *DO* think the attitude your espousing is a problem, as is the simple fact that we disagree on this subject, which kind of makes the point for me. Freedom of speech and expression is a basic human right, and freedom does not mean "the freedom to only say what I agree with" this means insults, mockery, and other things are all fair game. I doubt that you likely have an issue with the widescale mockery of things like "The Daily Mail", and other british institutions. The differance between this situation, and that, is simply a matter of opinion. Your liable to say that you think "The Daily Mail" deserves it, or is big enough to handle the criticism, where a bunch of public over-grievers do not.

In the end it comes down to a lesser of two evils, either dealing with trolls and rudeness, or having speech controlled by a handfull of individuals who decide what is okay and what is not. Those individuals can either be govermental (as we're seeing here with the jail time), or private (as we have an issue with in the US, with private owners of various media platforms have the right to censorship where the goverment does not).

The principle your defending doubtlessly seems fine to you, and will continue to do so until such a time as you find something you personally agree with or think is acceptable is being controlled. It's better to prevent that door from being opened at all. Precedents like the one we're seeing here tend to snowball rather dangerously.

Freedom of speech, being freedom, by definition is not something that someone else can look at and say "that is being misused" as when such judgements are made it's no longer freedom. Dealing with the trolls, is the lesser of evils.

If you want to get technical though, you are correct, the very idea of ANY kind of basic human right is a luxury coming from society, even the right to things like food. This in compairson to previous timeframes where a social elite could decide things like "whelps, we're going to let all our peasants starve to death because it will benefit us for the moment, we can always get more serfs". The right to speech and expression is just as important as food, because it's the right that prevents someone from pretty much putting you to the sword or in a dungeon for objecting with what the goverment, social elite, or even just other people do or stand for. Even in the case of mocking greiving parents, there is probably some legitimacy behind it with the parents simply going overboard with their public expression through the media (social media and otherwise).

As far as Asperger's goes, all I can say is that with no offense to you, I personally have not seen one bit of credability for the condition or it's actual existance. Saying that doubting this condition means you have to doubt ALL conditions isn't accurate. I don't disbelieve in neurology because I think Phrenology (the study and manipulation of bumps on the head, I think I have the right term) is totally bogus. Yes there ARE psychological conditions (I've gone into my history before), and there is such a thing as Autism which can come in varying degrees, I just have my doubts about the actual existance of that paticular flavor of high functioning autism.

 

[Azaradel]

Oooh, throwing people in jail for being meaniepants over the internet? Is the internet police becoming a real thing now? I take it the internet lawyers are soon to follow, to sue people for art theft on deviantArt?

Also, I love how people are fucking crawling out of the woodwork going "omg he tries to blame Asperger's! I have Asperger's! The audacity! This guy is clearly just a prick!"

See, I find it funny because I have a cousin who suffers some sort of mental condition (seriously, I have no idea of what it is, I don't see him very often) that makes him seemingly incapable of feeling empathy. He doesn't understand that what he does may hurt people. I doubt it's Asperger's (though I think he may have been diagnosed with some sort of Autism, but I doubt it has anything to do with his lack of empathy), but that doesn't change the fact that there is something blatantly wrong with him. He's a prick, sure, but it isn't something he has any control over.

Not saying this is the case with this particular guy, or indeed, trolls in general, just saying, y'know, not every prick is a prick just for the sake of being a prick.

I'm sure no-one gives a shit, though. Just go back to screaming "OMG PRICK ALERT!" and ignore me.

Who are they going to arrest next? The entire Encyclopedia Dramatica community?

I'm certain my fellow sickipedians will soon follow.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Myths are stories about how good always triumphs over evil, with little or no factual evidence behind them.

I find this to be a more accurate statement:

"Myths are stories with little or no factual evidence behind them."

 

[sageoftruth]

Still it also feels like a dream come true. What makes it most tempting is that with these new standards, we'd finally have the ability to prosecute those creeps from Westboro Baptist Church.

We can only hope. This guy did time for blatantly harassing the dead girls loved ones, and all the WBC does is blatantly harass dead peoples loved ones. With this new precedent (1 incident=4 months), I think we can put the entire WBC away for about 7 lifetimes.

WOOHOO! Count me in. Everyone, start rallying for troll imprisonment in the US.