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This is an interesting case for two reasons:
  1. From the Daily Mail article, "His barrister argued the posts had 33 views between them and were the 'impotent rantings of a socially isolated man' that had no 'real-world' consequences."
Should it really matter how big your audience is?
It seems that the UK judge didn't think it mattered (or maybe he did and would have given the fellow an even stiffer sentence if he'd had a big audience). But I'm curious how we even evaluate these things once we head down the road of policing speech like this:
Is it the speech itself that is bad and a crime or is it the effects of the speech? But if we are going to prosecute people for the effects of their speech, how do we even make that connection? (Nevermind that the crazy Brits have gone as far as to prosecute people for the potential effects of their speech). I don't see this trend in modern society going anywhere good -- get ready for ever increasing inconsistency.
  1. According to another article, the man tweeted:
Head for the hotels housing them and burn them to the ground.
and
I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter. Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE.
These are pretty awful things to say. I'm strongly in the camp of people should be able to say pretty much anything they like, but I can see how posts like these make people uncomfortable. I don't think anybody should be going to jail for saying things like this, but would it be bad if a private platform nuked his account? I don't think so.
Yet, if a private bank chose to cancel its relationship with him over these tweets, I feel less comfortable. Why? Maybe because banking is very interconnected and very necessary for daily life. So if he gets debanked in one place, he might get debanked from many places, and then how does such a person interact with society?
I don't think the government should be in the business of compelling businesses to provide services to people any more than I think governments should be chucking people in jail for the things they say.
102 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 10h
I suppose it's a very unfortunate reality or externality of government(s) attempts to denounce the thoughts of the people it obstensibly serves. If you are in the business of setting up thought-steering mechanisms, nudge units, or whatever cuddly name you wish to give it, you have to anticipate that there will be instances of rebellion of thought.
If you participate in ruining lives through massively unpopular policy, it is all you can expect. I don't condone any thought policing, deplatforming nor debanking. If courts, banks and government are going to defend that position, it amounts to totalitarianism and the break down of rationalism. The decent into the abyss of dehumanization.
Do I agree with what the person said? That's a loaded question, and all I can answer is that the rationale of being of such an opinion is a reaction, and to be expected.
Should it matter who said it and the influence they have? I think what matters is, you are bound by your position or profession to not be making political decisions. If you are a doctor, you have sworn an oath, to treat everyone equally, a reporter has some duty to report facts and not color them, a police officer, should probably not engage in their own biases, a judge, a bank manager's ideals shouldn't prevent them from providing service impartially, despite their own feelings.
All that's left is to point out that an utterance, be it a tweet, is not a statement of intention, a contract or any attempt to solicit action. People say all kinds of unresolved and meaningless things. That's what it means to have a tongue. The idea that the honous rests with a speaker to police their own thoughts is ridiclous. If there's a problem that speech is somehow enveloped into a formal record when you press a send button, then we can continue down the road of nannyism and litter platforms with more warnings. and disclaimers as such.
People will inevitably leave platforms that only condone certain ideas, and you are left with the same type of 'emperor without clothes' scenario, where platforms and channels that churn out government-sanctioned media go unwatched and becomes the echo-chamber of one hand clapping. God save the townhall.
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @pillar 10h
Many legal systems equate explicit threats of violence to violence itself.
If he would have said some ethnic group are inferior, I would think that's an extremely stupid thing to yell about on the internet but I would totally understand he has a right to say it.
But the moment he mentions slaughter, it becomes a threat.
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @Taj 12h
I dont post under my real name even on X or especially on X, it's a negativity echo chamber anyway
The irony is that the media whips up this sentiment and when people post about it they get slammed
Edit: I don't watch the msm either, so most of this drivel passes me by
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 13h
I don’t think he should go to jail but I agree a private social media company should have the right to ban him.
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I wouldn't even necessarily agree with a private platform nuking the account.
For the record, I'm not a fan of the argument: "They're a private company, they can censor who they want." The companies are already deeply entangled with the government, and the more essential they are to necessary tasks like banking and communication, the more entangled they become. Most will essentially do whatever the government tells them, so allowing them to censor is just allowing the government to censor.
Moreover, we should want all our institutions to support the sound principles of liberty regardless of whether or not they're private or publicly run institutions.
Instead of censoring, the better approach would be to empower users with tools to filter out the content they don't like.
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