News - A bad day for careless tweeters

[HEXUS]

Bad news for #twitterjoketrial and Tory councillor @GarethFCompton as they’re punished for ill-conceived tweets.

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[kalniel]

The law is clearly being made up on the hoof

That kind of comment's gotta get you in trouble

[danroyle]

it's a GOOD job we live in a world of free speech.


it's also mildly funny. I think we have all said something like that in the past as a joke With absolutely no malice intended.

[cameronlite]

all that's worth saying is... don't they have better things to do?

[scaryjim]

I think the Compton one probably crossed the line two ways: by being aimed at a named individual rather than an organisation, and by inciting others to action rather than threatening it himself. But the whole area - twitter, blogs, forums, etc. - needs very careful thought. Users tend to consider them personal space, but "authorities", of any nature, tend to consider them public broadcast. Where the truth is, and where the law will eventually draw the line, I'm not sure, tbh...

[Shooty*]

I know Gareth. He's a very nice guy. This is a shame.

Edit: It's hardly inciting anyone. As the article says, it's the kind of thing people say. No one is going to act on it.

Prissy, humourless Guardian journalist in "how dare you disagree with me? I HAVE THE HIGH MORAL GROUND" shocker.

The Guardian: Wrong About Everything. All The Time.

[scaryjim]

... it's the kind of thing people say. No one is going to act on it.

"Won't somebody rid me of this turbulent priest?"

His mate down the pub might not act on it, but there's more than enough nutters out in internet land for one of them to go "Hell yeah, he's right" and actually do something. When it comes to the internet you can't assume anything.

And frankly, "Please will someone stone <person's name> to death" is *NOT* "the kind of thing people say".

[Noxvayl]

"Won't somebody rid me of this turbulent priest?"

His mate down the pub might not act on it, but there's more than enough nutters out in internet land for one of them to go "Hell yeah, he's right" and actually do something. When it comes to the internet you can't assume anything.

And frankly, "Please will someone stone <person's name> to death" is *NOT* "the kind of thing people say".

I assume all people I come across on the internet are brain dead until proven otherwise... so far it has served as a very useful assumption.

As for the "tweets", I find them kind of stupid. Saying something in the moment is very different from logging onto a service to make a statement. You have several opportunities to re-think what you are going to say with a "tweet", where as something said on the spot tends to have no option for reflection.

Even though that is the case I do not like the ridiculous enforcement of arbitrary laws, which contradict the rights we are supposed to have... In the UK many people don't think for themselves because government try to do it for them through laws. For instance; Health and Safety has replaced common sense or intelligence and totally distorted people's concept of responsibility.

I just hope at some point we can overcome this nonsense.

[Robscure]

I don't even know how to make my tweets show up on other people's pages, it seems whenever I tweet that it only shows up on my own page.

What am I doing wrong? I want to be racist and negligent too.

[TooNice]

it's also mildly funny. I think we have all said something like that in the past as a joke With absolutely no malice intended.

Malice, not unlike sarcasm, can easily be misinterpreted when written in text (emoticon can help to an extent, as would a "j/k" or "/sarcasm" afterward).

[nichomach]

Compton used his Twitter feed as a means of promoting his public presence, so you could certainly argue that his comments were via at least a semi-official channel of communication. Possibly we have said things in conversation to our friends that would, if written down, look objectionable, but a private conversation is a very different medium to a public announcement, which is what, effectively, Compton's Twitter feed is/was. Further, a conversation provides other information which we can use to interpret a statement like that; the wry grin or laugh that indicates a joke, the fact that we may know the person that we're talking to and realise that they have a quirky sense of humour. The tweet lacks all of that contextual information. It would be a joke in poor or at least highly dubious taste with it, but without it I would have said "Would someone please stone <named person> to death" does cross a line, and not an arbitrary one either. I also think that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has a point when she says that a Muslim cracking the same joke would likely have been arrested under one of the various bits of anti-terror legislation.

[Scott B]

"Would someone please stone <named person> to death" does cross a line, and not an arbitrary one either.

If not arbitrary then what, official? That's my point.

Which side of this line did Chambers fall on and by what criteria to we make that judgement?

[aidanjt]

Let's face it, nobody was ever harmed by words. If someone acts on what someone else said, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

[Robscure]

Let's face it, nobody was ever harmed by words. If someone acts on what someone else said, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

People are emotionally/mentally harmed by words every day, quite often.

That may sound good and ring true at times for some people, but it simply isn't true bro, no offense to your opinion or anything.

[hermano pequeño]

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown would have known full-well that this was not meant seriously but went to the cops to get her petty revenge. Shame on her, a journalist is supposed to be a wordsmith and so should be more than capable of replying in-kind.

Do you think it will end up being that whole "in my opinion" thing in future or has Twitter just been broken by UK laws?

[nichomach]

If not arbitrary then what, official? That's my point.
Which side of this line did Chambers fall on and by what criteria to we make that judgement?

Yes, very probably official; that's why he was arrested. I suspect that he will probably be cautioned (which involves admitting the offence), and let go. If you want to look further, there is a moral dimension; stating that stoning is justifiable is a (vile, IMO) opinion. Asking that <named person> be stoned is what our colonial brethren are pleased to call "speech as conduct"; the commonly cited example is yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre - it is not merely the free expression of an opinion, it is speech designed or apparently designed to elicit an action from a person or people (a stampede of panicked theatre-goers, for instance, or a violent visitation upon Alibhai-Brown after a brief sojourn at a builders' yard).

This idiot Compton was (probably) joking, and I hold no brief for the woman in question; from what I've seen she holds views which I find abhorrent. That said, she may hold whatever views she likes, so long as she doesn't express them in a way which apparently incites violence or other illegal activity.

edit: Chambers should have been cautioned and let go; that he was not seems to me to have been an overreaction, but what he did was illegal, so broke the law (the official bit) and incredibly stupid.