You're free to do what we tell you - or else!

I blame post-Christmas and post-New Year lethargy for missing a brilliant article by Alex Massie at The Coffee House which is summed up in this copy of a grossly offensive, threatening tweet which, in my opinion, is likely to cause an outbreak of violence - well, it will if I ever get within swinging distance of the Chief Constable of Scotland!

 

 

Now, I don't want anyone reporting me for being 'Jock-ist' because, as Mr.Massie confirms, exactly the same sort of dangerous idiocy exists south of the border.  And when it comes to idiocy, our 'Plods' are in a league of their own - you only have to remember the 'Plebgate' affair!  To be fair, which I am not inclined to be, they are aided and abetted in their stupidity by the political class and - natch! - the lawyer class.  None of them seem to recognise the importance of upholding the freedom to be rude and to be offensive:

But regardless of whether people are grossly offended by such posts or not it is plain that, in the absence of direct harassment or threats of specific harm[my emphasis], they’re simply expressions of opinion. Distasteful opinion, perhaps, but still only opinion. Which ought not to be enough to trigger an investigation, far less arrests and prosecutions. This is so even if – no, especially when – a reasonable person might conclude the tweets (or whatever) were racist, sectarian, homophobic or anything else. The freedom to be a moron is an important one. Ditto for bigots.

To paraphrase that famous quotation, 'First they came for the morons and bigots'!

 

 

Comments

[Mayfly]

I don't object to people airing their offensive views, I object to sites like Twitter not being consistent with their rules.

Example : a couple of people on a forum I belong to made statements via Twitter which were later described as offensive and Twitter shut them down.

Katie Hopkins, on the other hand, can make racist and discriminatory comments via Twitter and they don't shut her down. Why?

"It's OK when they do it". It's stupid - either have rules or don't.

I would argue that it would be better to shut people up who Twitter things not backed up by facts, but there we go.

[David Duff]

No idea who Katie Hopkins is - and no, nor do I care! However, dear Miss Mayfly, if you were to ban all statements, tweeted or otherwise, that are not backed up by facts we would all be reduced to silence - not that that would be entirely bad! Greeted with the phrase, "It's a nice day today," one would be unable to answer because it all depends what you mean by "nice" and how do you define a "day"?

[Whitewall]

Hmm, I thought this was a tongue in cheek put up job? If it is actually factual, then many western nations will need to understand that their first enemy may indeed be authorities tasked to protect their citizens. If authorities are hamstrung by PC fear and grovel police, maybe today's events will slap some sense into people.

[Mayfly]

OK, nasty and defamatory statements not backed up by facts :-).

Mind you, as I said, I am not against people twittering rude comments, but there must be a consistent ban.

If we instead allowed true freedom, one would find that most statements on Twitter would be treated in the way that they should - with contempt and deafening silence. For example, Tom Daley and all his followers should have treated the tweet about his dad not being proud of him with no response at all. Instead, the tweeter can now be googled. He got his 15 minutes of fame.

We should judge the tweeter not the tweetee....is that right?

[David Duff]

"We should judge the tweeter not the tweetee....is that right?"

No! Or at least, not unless we are in full possession of the facts which in most of these cases we are not. The best thing is to ignore all tweeters, in fact, give up on Twitter altogether and instead just concentrate on blogs, you know, really wise, considered and thoughtful ones like, er, well, modesty forbids . . .

[Mayfly]

Really wise, considered ones like?.....Um, let me think.....

Yes, let's ban Twitter.

[David Duff]

Atta girl!

[jimmy glesga]

Excellent article David. Police time and taxpayers money wasted on verbal drivel.