Man Jailed for 3 months over Facebook Jokes

[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?

 

[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.

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?

I'm not a law expert, so please don't take my musings as that, this is me joining the dots of what I DO know and applying a bit of common sense (No offense intended to anyone).

If someone calls you a **** in the street, however, they could be accused of disorderly conduct or something similar. It's a lesser crime that tends to be met with an ASBO (Anti-social behavior order) which can enforce a curfew or restrict movement (to memory) or other minors things.

The problem with your example would be that if they just yelled "Yer a ****!" and moved on then there's likely little that -can- be done by law, but that would change if they're yelling at passers by. Where the law would kick in would be if they were provably intimidating or harassing you (Or passers by in general).

 

[Vivi22]

It's not prosecuting people for bad humour, it's prosecution people for breaking the law, specifically the 2003 Communication Act.

So you're going to argue semantics now? Doesn't matter that it's illegal or what law makes it so if that law is wrong. I don't care how offensive what he said was, unless he was making a threat to an individual or trying to incite others to harm someone he shouldn't be convicted under any law. Of course the sad truth is that the US, for all of it's problems, bad laws and gross miscarriages of justice over the years, is still the only country that at least seems to try and take free speech as seriously as it should be taken.

Saying that he was prosecuted for bad humour is like saying that someone who was arrested for doing 150mph on the motorway was arrested for having a bit of fun with their own private vehicle.

Poor analogy. Driving 150mph puts others in direct physical danger of injury or death. Making a tasteless joke hurts some people's feelings. Equating the two is disingenuous.

It's also worth noting that he was taken into protective custody, arrested for his own safety, because what he posted was so offensive that an angry group of 50 people had descended on his house. If the police had ignored his posts and let him face the consequences of his bad humour, then a lot more funds would have been spent in combating and clearing up after the riot he caused, not to mention the pursuit and prosecution of every member of the mob he incited.

So the man who made a tasteless joke that angered a decent number of people should be punished instead of the people who were likely trespassing in his yard or who may have been threatening violence for all we know (seems a reasonable assumption if the police felt the need to protect him)? You know, the people committing actual crimes.

Bad humour and tasteless jokes on their own aren't against the law, but when you use a communications network to broadcast that offensive material to everyone with an internet connection, you're breaking long established laws and inciting public order offences.

More people should break those laws because they are unjust. Like it or not, somebody simply saying something offensive doesn't cause real harm to anyone. The idea that it's against the law to hurt people's feelings with speech the government has decided is unacceptable is appalling. That people defend the government having that power is mind boggling.

 

[IndieForever]

And what about the psychological harm.... I take it that's ok then ?

 

[suitepee7]

fuck that shit. i completely disagree with what he said, the joke was (if i found the right one) incredibly tasteless and offensive.

BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN ARREST HIM FOR IT. freedom of speech should not be overridden by people being offended by something, as offense is fucking subjective. this is bullshit