[MP-Ryan]

While I knew freedom of expression is not as heavily protected in the UK as it is in Canada, or anywhere near as protected as the United States, I still find this case disturbing:

A 21-year old student who posted offensive Twitter comments
about Fabrice Muamba as the footballer lay collapsed on a pitch has been jailed
for 56 days for inciting racial hatred.

Liam Stacey, a Swansea University biology undergraduate, provoked disgust with tweets posted as the 23-year-old Bolton Wanders midfielder was fighting for his life following a heart attack during a FA Cup quarter final match against Tottenham. The game was broadcast live on television.

The first of Stacey's messages began "LOL. **** Muamba. He's dead!!!"

As fellow Twitter users took him to task for his views, Stacey responded with further offensive comments.

He was arrested after numerous Twitter users, including former England international Stan Collymore, reported the tweets to police. Stacey admitted inciting racial hatred during a brief appearance at Swansea Magistrates Court last week.

Today, District Judge John Charles told him: "In my view there is no alternative to an immediate prison sentence."

Charles said that when Muamba collapsed, "it was not the football world who was praying for him... everybody was praying for his life".

He added that abusive remarks made to Stacey "via a social networking site were instigated as a result of vile and abhorrent comments made as a result of a young man who was fighting for his life".

As he was led away in handcuffs to a holding cell beneath Swansea Magistrates' Court, Stacey broke down in tears. He was led past the public gallery where, shaking with emotion, he was briefly embraced by family and friends.

Fabrice Muamba’s recovery since his heart attack on March 17 has been described as “miraculous”. He remains in a serious but stable condition in intensive care, and is reported to be eating, sitting out of bed, watching television and speaking with friends in both English and French.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/student-who-mocked-fabrice-muamba-on-twitter-is-jailed-7591032.html

Society in general may find remarks to be vile, but should they really be a criminal offense if an action doesn't occur or is not reasonably likely to occur as a result?

[redsniper]

This is bonkers. Anyone should be free to say awful things like this... and then everyone else should be free to call them a colossal asshole for it.

[MP-Ryan]

This is bonkers. Anyone should be free to say awful things like this... and then everyone else should be free to call them a colossal asshole for it.

 

[Mongoose]

Holy ****, that's messed up.

[666maslo666]

Society in general may find remarks to be vile, but should they really be a criminal offense if an action doesn't occur or is not reasonably likely to occur as a result?

I think this is quite ridiculous, and highlights the strange lack of respect for freedom of speech that seems to be so prevalent in the UK nowadays (at least thats the impression I have). As much as the guy was a jerk, I dont think he deserves any legal punishment at all. Grow a thicker skin!

[headdie]

He was arrested after numerous Twitter users, including former England international Stan Collymore, reported the tweets to police. Stacey admitted inciting racial hatred during a brief appearance at Swansea Magistrates Court last week.

read the bold section, nuf said.

For those who need it let me explain, while I agree whole heartedly with free speech, racial hatred is a criminal offence for several reasons, on the lesser degree it causes emotional hurt to the victim and those close to them, at its nasty extreme it encourages violence against the target.

[Dragon]

This can be said of any insults with any kind of background, whether racial, religious, social status-related, origin related, etc. Basically everything that isn't an insult to mental state of the victim (and only because we got used to these). There are many ways to initiate hatred towards another person. IMHO, they should either all be allowed or all forbidden. TBH, outlawing being a jerk and trolling doesn't seem like a very bad of an idea, there are way too many jerks on the internet and outside of it (plus, it'd mean arresting half of 4Chan ). Of course, it'd still be a bad idea, since such a law would be way too easy to abuse. Still, I prefer "you can say what you think, but politely" version of freedom of speech.
Of course, laws aren't the best approach to the decay of tact and savior vivre in the modern society, but that isn't a matter for this thread.

[666maslo666]

He was arrested after numerous Twitter users, including former England international Stan Collymore, reported the tweets to police. Stacey admitted inciting racial hatred during a brief appearance at Swansea Magistrates Court last week.

read the bold section, nuf said.

For those who need it let me explain, while I agree whole heartedly with free speech, racial hatred is a criminal offence for several reasons, on the lesser degree it causes emotional hurt to the victim and those close to them, at its nasty extreme it encourages violence against the target.

I really dont think "emotional hurt" is a valid argument for legal action. As I said, grow a thicker skin. Regarding the violence, there is a ban on incitement to unlawful violence, no need to get racial hatred involved. Its hard to judge without seeing the comments, but I do expect that this will be some PC nonsense charge...

[headdie]

True but race has long been a very sensitive subject and less avoided by the lawmakers than in say some states in America.  Also racial hatred has been on the books for a long time so tweeting this kind of thing is more like criminal stupidity than excessive law.

Also the issue of cyber bullying keeps being shoved in the politician's faces and there has been made aware nationally on a number of occasions with FB, twitter and bbm being in the middle of it all and national opinion is swinging towards the need for laws to control online harassment and bullying.

He was arrested after numerous Twitter users, including former England international Stan Collymore, reported the tweets to police. Stacey admitted inciting racial hatred during a brief appearance at Swansea Magistrates Court last week.

read the bold section, nuf said.

For those who need it let me explain, while I agree whole heartedly with free speech, racial hatred is a criminal offence for several reasons, on the lesser degree it causes emotional hurt to the victim and those close to them, at its nasty extreme it encourages violence against the target.

I really dont think "emotional hurt" is a valid argument for legal action. As I said, grow a thicker skin. Regarding the violence, there is a ban on incitement to unlawful violence, no need to get racial hatred involved. Its hard to judge without seeing the comments, but I do expect that this will be some PC nonsense charge...

when we have teenagers hanging themselves for less for online bullying this stuff needs tightening up

[FireSpawn]

I agree that the prison sentence is a bit much, considering that there is a hook-handed religious nut on our streets, preaching about how every non Muslim in the UK should be murdered in various ways. Perhaps a public apology, monetary compensation and getting his mum to give him a sound caning would have been more appropriate in regards to severity. More profitable as well.
 
There are a large amount of people who deserve that cell more than that fool.

[Flipside]

I think a public apology, made outside Camden Town Hall would be interesting, he'd probably be safer in jail

The thing is, it's swings and roundabouts, on the downside, inciting hatred being illegal means that silly things like this happen, on the upside, things like the Westboro Baptist Church would never, ever be legally allowed to operate here.

On this I'm kind of in two minds, if I could rely on all humans to be rational, intelligent and moderate about things then it'd be a different story, but they aren't and I can't help feeling that sometimes we need to protect ourselves from ourselves. I think jailing the guy was more a question of showboating the 'we don't tolerate trolls' mentality that the UK is trying to cultivate at the moment than a reasonable reaction to what was done, but I also think that Freedom of Speech relies heavily on the ability to those speaking to do so in a mature manner, rather than simply using it as a thin excuse to pour insults and prejudice into the world.

Edit: This is why I consider the 'Modest Proposal' to be one of the greatest works of Free-Speech, because although it is 'inflammatory', it manages to achieve it whilst remaining intelligent, and the controversy is deliberately used to drive home a point. It is not merely controversy for the sake of being seen, instead it is controversy for the sake of letting other people see themselves.

[Nuke]

what kind of world is one that penalizes you for publicly rejoicing in the misfortunes of someone you dont like? no world that i want to live in.

[Flipside]

Oddly enough, I was talking about 'Death humour' with a friend this evening. We decided there is a difference in, for example, making Micheal Jackson jokes to your mates and making them to the Jackson family. The problem is, with something like Twitter, people tend to forget that everyone is listening, not just the ones who reply, so this kind of falls into both categories.

[karajorma]

He was jailed for inciting racial hatred. Without knowing the contents of his other tweets and whether they had an audience likely to act on them, it's a waste of time commenting on whether the sentence was too harsh or not.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/27/student-jailed-fabrice-muamba-tweets

Based on the Guardian's report, it may have been too harsh. But then again when The Guardian doesn't give a **** about him, I tend to not see it as that disturbing.

[MP-Ryan]

Well, HuffPo has posted screen caps of a couple of said tweets here:  WARNING:  RACIST CONTENT

If this was all he was jailed on as far as the "inciting racial hatred" goes... while I think what he said was repulsive and abhorrent, I really don't think it should cross that line between in poor taste and criminal behaviour.  Apparently at least one magistrate thinks otherwise, though.

Canada has hate speech laws, but they are much much tighter than the UK.  While I agree with them in principle, I think this case at least demonstrates how they can be abused.

On the plus side... 10 days between offense date, trial (well, guilty plea), and a prison sentence?  Where the hell is that kind of system efficiency on this side of the Atlantic?

[MP-Ryan]

...aaaaaand, the law he was apparently convicted under:

Communications Act, 2003

127Improper use of public electronic communications network
(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
(b)causes any such message or matter to be so sent.
(2)A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he—
(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false,
(b)causes such a message to be sent; or
(c)persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.
(3)A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.
(4)Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to anything done in the course of providing a programme service (within the meaning of the Broadcasting Act 1990 (c. 42)).

Given the looseness of that section, I think there are a few HLP members (myself included) that might want to avoid posting from the UK lest someone file a complaint under 127(2)(c)

[Klaustrophobia]

i am so goddamn tired of the race card.  even if race truly IS the motivating factor instead of the victim just being a minority, crimes are crimes and race is no worse a reason than any other to commit them.

[Flipside]

Well, from looking at his comments, they cannot even really be justified as 'jokes' so much as just a plain stream of abuse, I suppose for me the difference there appears to be that it is designed to be offensive to those close to the incident. It's like last year, when a troll was jailed (and again recently) for posting abusive comments on someone's obituary. The defense was that the person suffered from a condition that meant they could not judge the emotional response of others, to which the prosecution pointed out that those comments were quite obviously designed and intended to cause offence, so the defendant must have some knowledge of the impact of their words. In fact, I think there was a thread on HLP about it.

Problem is for this guy is that the Media have now named and shamed him, life is going to involve a lot of running over the coming months I feel, regardless of whether or not he is in jail.

@MPRyan, yeah I agree, that's a really poorly worded piece of legislation right there...

[Mongoose]

Well, HuffPo has posted screen caps of a couple of said tweets here:  WARNING:  RACIST CONTENT

...I've heard more offensive **** in a high school hallway.  Dear lord, Britain.

[BloodEagle]

Wait, that's a crime in the UK?

Doesn't one of your political parties say **** that would be covered under that all the time?