UK Man Jailed For Being a Jerk On the Internet 898
Xest writes "A man in the UK has been jailed for 18 weeks for 'trolling,' and has also been given an order banning him from using social networking sites for five years. 25-year-old Sean Duffy mocked a dead teenager who had jumped in front a train by posting offensive remarks on a page dedicated to her memory, and creating a YouTube parody of Thomas the Tank with the deceased girl's face in place of Thomas. Is it about time trolling to this extent saw this kind of punishment, or is this punishment simply too harsh for someone who perhaps didn't realize how seriously his actions would be taken by the authorities?"
Coverage from the Guardian explains that Duffy pleaded guilty to "two counts of sending malicious communications," and added that he must tell police about any phones he buys that can provide internet access.
trolling vs free speech (Score:2, Interesting)
There are issues of free speech here. But having said that though I think that anyone behaving like that gets all they deserve. Making flippant or inflamatory comments on forums is one thing, being offensive and posting 'hate-speech' needs to be punished. It'd be the same if he'd sprayed grafitti on a gravestone.
Re:Propaganda or Bad reporting? (Score:5, Interesting)
If they get enough evidence to justify questioning someone as a suspect or person if interest and that person isn't smart enough to shut the fuck up until they have a lawyer to do the talking for them, the authorities will probably get all they need to continue prosecution from there. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law" is not a concept unique to the United States.
However in the UK, it's more a case of "Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law, and anything you don't say may harm your defence".
The right to remain silent can be used to make "adverse inferences", unlike the US. So unfortunately "shut the fuck up" doesn't always work too well.
Really? (Score:2, Interesting)
Prison time for trolling?
Now, trolling takes many forms, of which cyberbullying is just one (small one actually). Most trolling is harmless and fun - FTA's example of Apple-bashing in an Apple forum is typical. It harms nobody except filling up the forum with off-topic messages. Good moderators can curb this quickly and no harm is done.
Going after people though... Doesn't have to be cyberbullying and when it isn't, it also can be fun and mostly harmless. But the border between deeply hurtful and just fun is rather thin, and some trolls cross without realizing it. I'm actually fairly convinced that Sean Duffy didn't intend to make what happened happen. It was just fun going too far. I think prison is too harsh here. He should just be punished financially by being forced to pay an insane restitution to the victims family - at least in the two-digit millions. Then he could go to prison for failing to pay, but that's a different thing.
Re:trolling vs free speech (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. I'm not a UK law expert, but if he said offensive things to the person's face, what would the punishment be? I'm tired of punishments being much worse due to the fact that a computer was involved.
Also, they need to learn a bit more about the internet. I didn't RTFA, but it appears that the memorial page had an open comment section and they expected it to not get trolled. It doesn't matter who is in the right here, but that's an unreasonable expectation. If they don't want bad comments, then moderate them before letting them appear on the page.
Car analogy: pedestrians have the right of way. That doesn't mean you should try to walk across a 6 lane road with heavy traffic.
Re:Solving this problem (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks like that may be meant partly in jest, but it's actually brilliant.
I was having a conversation just tonight at dinner with my daughter that relates somewhat. One of her classmates is struggling with an almost complete lack of empathy, but hasn't yet become a full blown sociopath, although on the verge of adulthood. When he does something that hurts others, he often doesn't mean it, he truly doesn't understand (in her opinion) the hurt he's caused. (Geeks often share this affliction to a lesser degree.) Her solution, when he hurts someone, is to hurt him back. Hurt his feelings if that's called for, or hurt him physically if it's appropriate. Then she talks to him about it, drawing out how he felt about the experience, and drawing parallels with the damage he caused. I'm not a psychologist, dunno if this could possibly do any good, but she insists that he hesitates now before committing an action, and you can see him thinking through possible consequences. I'm really not sure what conclusions to draw from this. I think in the case of the article outright over-the-top intent to cause emotional harm should be met with some action, but I'm not sure simply confining him in a cage for a given amount of time does any good. That might be a different conversation, though.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Prison time for trolling?
First off, he didn't get time for simple anonymous trolling as happens everyday here on trolldot. He targeted the families and friends of the deceased specifically, that demonstrates a clear malicious intent. Lets remove the Internet from the current scenario, say he mailed hateful letters to the family, played that YouTube video on TV et al. It's the same thing minus the Internet and we'd call that stalking.
Secondly, this is the UK govt over-reacting. Since the recent riots they've been taking every oportunity to prove they are "tough on crime" in an attempt to make it look like they aren't letting the real perpetrators of the riot get away (because finding evidence and trying them would be hard and going after people who post stupid things on facebook is easy). Yes this guy is a dick, a complete dick who deserves some jail time and community service but that's it.
So dearest Australians and Americans, read the above paragraph and remember in 2012, conservatives don't fix problems, at best they don't create new ones.
really?! (Score:2, Interesting)
Is this really a criminal offense?! It seems to fly in the face a free speech. I know the UK and the US don't see completely eye-to-eye on free speech issues, and the UK is more likely to have these kind of pandering laws, but still... I could understand a lawsuit for defamation of character or some such thing, but not a criminal charge. If "sending malicious communications" is really a legal matter, than almost everyone posting in this thread is breaking the law. Is our society really in favor of such nonsense, or is this just another one of those 'the police don't like getting video taped, and no one prevented them from making-up laws yet' kind of things.
Don't get me wrong, I think that guy was an incredible jackass and deserves his just reward, but I certainly don't think he committed a criminal offense, and I likewise don't think I committed a criminal offense by calling him a jackass just now!
Re:really?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Propaganda or Bad reporting? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's a genuinely dangerous slippery slope.
Let's not exaggerate too much. The UK and the US are free and open societies, and yet there are law that prevent you to use your freedom to abuse somebody else's. That is the foundation of society and community to behave in some sort of acceptable way together.
We have to keep in mind, that each geek online is the equivalent in the physical world equivalent of a king living in a castle with an army at his disposal. Of course, we don't feel the need (or even resent) stuff like police and laws.
Re:Propaganda or Bad reporting? (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a difference between keeping quiet when questioned, which can cause inferences to be drawn in court, and refusing to be questioned without your legal rep being present, which cannot.
Actually refusing to answer without a lawyer can be mentioned in court [bailii.org] but the jury should be directed that under normal circumstances no inference of intent or guilt should be made. Abnormal circumstances are when the time itself may affect the outcome of the crime or interfere with evidence, such as if there is a bomb set to go off imminently or a critically injured victim at an unknown location.
Re:Propaganda or Bad reporting? (Score:4, Interesting)
Rowan Atkinson actually said something very interesting about it (he was, at the time, talking about the right to mock religion):
"It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended. The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression." ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1478381/Atkinson-defends-right-to-offend.html [telegraph.co.uk] )
Going to jail for being unfunny and/or crass is a little extreme (and impractical - we'd need more land that we can spare to house the entirety of 4chan and a plethora of talk show hosts). Also, why should we be able to mock Michael Jackson's death but not a random passerby's? It doesn't cause anyone close to him less grief just because he was a public figure. Which, by the way, anyone who appears in the news once or has a Facebook profile/shrine seems to be, to varying extents, in the web 2.0. Ask Antoine Dodson (or Natasha MacBryde herself, if you happen to have an Ouija board).
GP is full of BS, and TRACEABILITY CHALLENGE! (Score:2, Interesting)
Mod parent up, mod GP down (doesn't know what he's talking about).
TOR honeypots are only useful for intercepting unencrypted traffic, or at most, unchecked HTTPS connections. Also I wish the authorities good luck in breaking someone's keyfiled SSH connection.
I challenge anyone who thinks law enforcement is all-powerful on the Internet to a game (even if you work in law enforcement). You set up a server - HTTP, FTP, SSH, whatever, it can be public or you can give me a login, and I will take a file of your choice from it. Then I will put it online and serve it back to you in a way that is impossible to take down or trace. You will be unable to discover shit about who just did any of this. Who's up for it?
To make sure you don't cheat, I'll post this anon and monitor the mailbox M8R-x2csla at mailinator dot com for communication from challengers. I will only guarantee a game to one challenger. If you can prove you work in law enforcement this will give you preference.
To verify winners, I'll post this MD5 hash: b4f35ab23598f8bb95018758660ba1c1
And this SHA1 hash: e8d8782ce10947a80b8936e4469f9b8b9c3762b1
They are hashes of the same string.