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Looking at the tweets in question linked from that article [1], many of those are statements of blowing up airports or making death/rape threats. I, for one, ap

by madrox 4y ago

Looking at the tweets in question linked from that article [1], many of those are statements of blowing up airports or making death/rape threats. I, for one, appreciate the idea that making death threats online have consequences. Often these are the only signs you get before mentally ill people act on them, and in most cases police can do nothing until an actual crime is committed...usually that crime is murder. There's a difference between getting arrested for tweeting for social change and for, well, calling for deaths. There's certainly a grey area about "jokes" here, but you haven't been able to joke about "the bomb in your pants" in airport security lines for the entire history of airport security, so it's hardly a new global trend. It's also different when someone with millions of followers "jokes" about something. Before Twitter, this woman would've still been arrested for what she was advocating, and that's what makes her situation awful...not that she got arrested for tweeting. We should be compassionate when applying the law and continue to figure it out, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. 1: https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/7/22912054/uk-grossly-offensive-tweet-prosecution-section-127-2003-communications-act https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/7/22912054/uk-grossly-offens...

strawhatguy 4y ago
Well what I noticed was that the targets of the comments were an airport, soldiers, footballers and politicians. While most of the tweets were dumb, it’s also the case that it’s powerful people/institutions using the law to quash lower class folks. In the US (still I hope) as none of these are calling for an immediate action against the targets, a non corrupt court here would have to let all of these go. In other words, the UK law referenced is bunk; to take your analogy, it’s like they kept the bathwater but threw out the baby - over exuberant enforcement will only lead to MORE resentment, not less.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
> usually that crime is murder. There aren't many blown up airports by people that stated such things on the internet, this is not a rational concern. I think people in the UK got sentenced for having bad taste too where bad taste is a matter of perspective. We completely revamped air port security specifically to provide a feeling of safety after 9/11.

by madrox 4y ago

strawhatguy 4y ago

Well what I noticed was that the targets of the comments were an airport, soldiers, footballers and politicians. While most of the tweets were dumb, it’s also the case that it’s powerful people/institutions using the law to quash lower class folks. In the US (still I hope) as none of these are calling for an immediate action against the targets, a non corrupt court here would have to let all of these go. In other words, the UK law referenced is bunk; to take your analogy, it’s like they kept the bathwater but threw out the baby - over exuberant enforcement will only lead to MORE resentment, not less.

raxxorraxor 4y ago

> usually that crime is murder. There aren't many blown up airports by people that stated such things on the internet, this is not a rational concern. I think people in the UK got sentenced for having bad taste too where bad taste is a matter of perspective. We completely revamped air port security specifically to provide a feeling of safety after 9/11.