"Currants Bw..."

[Letters]

You realise that asking who sets the limits was a rhetorical question.

I didn't realise that, that's why I answered it

A reasonable person might also deduce that the guy who has 20 months inside was merely speaking in the heat of the moment and actually spoke about resentments that a lot of people feel, about how services are cut in these communities yet resources can be found to house people who have never lived here or paid into the system. I think it’s an incredibly simplistic point of view, but I can understand why people feel that way.
People say a lot of things when they are angry, often stupid things….if no tangible crime has been committed, it’s really no different from someone who has had a few too many to drink down the pub mouthing off.

I think the difference is the internet. We can chat shit to each other on here fairly safely - let's face it, no-one is looking.
But the internet means someone can spout some bile and instead of a few mates in the pub hearing it, it can "go viral", as the kids are saying, and actually impact people. As I said to NQ in another context, it's why Flat Earth has become a thing. Loonies on street corners can now reach millions of people. Add a distrust of the mainstream and authority and...voila!

I don't think the law has really caught up with this, which is why some of this clumsy stuff happens. I'm not sure this bloke really belongs in jail, as you say he was more likely letting of steam. But when people shout stuff like that across the internet then it can have consequences so I think the law needs to reflect that somehow.

[HCZ_Reborn]

See I think this is largely a post hoc fallacy

There’s actually very little to prove that online behaviour influences real life behaviour anymore than anything else. Organised riots and public disorder happened long before the advent of the internet

It’s the same with this panicking about the spread of conspiracy theories. Basically if you are influenced by online conspiracy theories you are most likely to be the kind of person to seek them out. And if not online, in some other format…it feeds an existing demand.

The problem is unless you can prove tangible consequences which in this guys case they absolutely could not, then essentially he’s being sent to prison for saying something unpleasant. And I don’t think the law should get involved when it comes to saying unpleasant things

[Letters]

There’s actually very little to prove that online behaviour influences real life behaviour anymore than anything else.

Why are influencers a thing then?

Organised riots and public disorder happened long before the advent of the internet. It’s the same with this panicking about the spread of conspiracy theories. Basically if you are influenced by online conspiracy theories you are most likely to be the kind of person to seek them out. And if not online, in some other format…it feeds an existing demand.

All true, but what else can you attribute the proliferation of conspiracy theories too other than misinformation spread online?
It's a numbers game. You shout some conspiracy nonsense on a street corner and maybe a few dozen people hear you. Most laugh, maybe one or two people will be interested.
You post stuff online and end up going viral, suddenly millions of people can see what you wrote. Add a bit of scientific illiteracy and a distrust of the mainstream and voila, we suddenly have flat earth conferences springing up.

The problem is unless you can prove tangible consequences which in this guys case they absolutely could not, then essentially he’s being sent to prison for saying something unpleasant. And I don’t think the law should get involved when it comes to saying unpleasant things

I don't have a big issue with that, and I think he got caught up in the hysteria whipped up around that incident and a desire by the authorities to crack down hard to de-escalate the situation.
I don't know whether you should have to prove tangible consequences though - speeding is illegal whether you happen to run someone over or not, it's illegal because what you're doing increases the risk of there being consequences.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Speeding is an actual action. It’s not an intangible there is a clear direct risk between going over the speed limit and harming someone. If someone is harmed as a result of a message posted on social media, it would be hard to prove a direct correlation or that someone wouldn’t have behaved violently anyhow.

There have been fads and trends far longer than there have been influencers, things spread by word of mouth


You didn’t need the internet for every school kid in the early eighties to do Joey Deacon impressions

[Letters]

You didn’t need the internet for every school kid in the early eighties to do Joey Deacon impressions

Hard to argue with that tbf.

[Letters]

Speeding is an actual action. It’s not an intangible there is a clear direct risk between going over the speed limit and harming someone. If someone is harmed as a result of a message posted on social media, it would be hard to prove a direct correlation or that someone wouldn’t have behaved violently anyhow.

This is a pretty reasonable point. But if you spew inciteful bile to enough people then while sure, it can't be proven that it was your bile which caused a result, it can't have helped and if your message goes viral and millions of people see it (I don't know if this bloke's did, although it clearly came to the attention of the police somehow) then, again, it's a numbers game.

There have been fads and trends far longer than there have been influencers, things spread by word of mouth

Well, sure. But Joey Deacon was on Blue Peter, he wasn't just known to a few people and that spread by word of mouth.
Never before have ordinary people been able to so easily shout stuff to millions of people.
There has never been so much misinformation and such efficient ways to spread it before.

Again, I don't think the law has quite caught up with that yet. I'm not convinced that this bloke should be in prison, but I'm not exactly shedding a tear for him either.
People aren't just being rounded up and locked up for expressing legitimate opinions. I don't regard saying people should be smashing up or burning down hotels housing families as legitimate.

[HCZ_Reborn]

It’s not about personal sympathy, it’s about principle for me. As I’ve said I believe in pretty much unencumbered free speech and I believe in personal responsibility. I don’t hold with dual enterprise in cases of murder, like in America where if you drove someone to somewhere to commit a murder you are held just as responsible as the person. Now I think you bear some responsibility but not to the same degree as the person who committed the crime

And the old adage of “if x told you to put your hand in a fire, would you do it?” stands out for me. Now if you explicitly tell someone to go and kill someone and additionally pay them money that’s criminal conspiracy. But if you just generally say “people should do this” it’s a throwaway remark. And I simply do not believe that someone would commit an act of violence based on reading such a comment on social media…and if they do…it’s on them.

If you go back to the Dreyfus affair and in fact a lot of French history, there is a particular phenomenon called the madness of crowds. And for me the problem is often the backdrop of circumstances that are happening when the behaviour occurs rather than some irresponsible or false remark. Happy people don’t riot