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Jailed for facebook comments


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You've clearly never used Facebook, so let me explain... usually only people on their friends list, or possibly friends of their friends can see it. He wasn't announcing it in a national newspaper or paying to hire a big billboard. It was a personal Facebook page.

 

I know a lot of people with their security settings set to "Everybody". Likewise if, as has been alleged on some sites, you go onto a page set up by people distressed at the news, and then start posting offensive jokes, you're likely to upset the general populace, not just a handful of people who know you and can add you to the friends list labelled "idiot".

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Then perhaps you should take issue with the actual law and the government who introduced it in 2003. This should get you started:

 

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_offences/

 

Thanks for the link, I wasn't aware of the case law precedent from the Lords which makes this very broadly defined law much worse. The fact that saying something that could be taken as grossly offensive by person or group of people that it relates to even if not aimed at them or even if they are not aware of it can lead a person to be jailed, and that the offence will be judged by a magistrate and not a jury seems to me to be a very severe curtailment of freedom of speech. It's no great surpise that Harriet "ban everything" Harmen was Solicitor General at the time this law was proposed and enacted.

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The airport bomb one? There's even a law against that - bomb threats - on the CPS link I posted earlier.

 

common sense was used in the end ,although the lad who joked about it should never have been charged with owt in the first place. Eventually someone in power used their brain and cleared him.

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and yet Jim Davidson is still walking around free as a bird.

 

And yet George Osborn is still walking around free as a bird, you know, that guy who robbed over 1.3 Trillion pounds from the British public and given it to his mates., that guy.

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and yet Jim Davidson is still walking around free as a bird.

 

As is every other comedian in the country. They all tell jokes in bad taste ,they all crack gags about people who have suffered , its called comedy ,and they attract audiences in their thousands ,who love their material, which tells you the British public laugh at peoples misfortune .

 

Do the sad individuals who report jokes made on Facebook /Twitter and other social network sites want every comedian locked up too. ?

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We don't have freedom of speech any more. Who decides what is 'offensive'? People are arrested for making anti-semitic comments but derogatory comments about Mohammed are not prosecuted. We are treading a very dangerous path.

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We don't have freedom of speech any more. Who decides what is 'offensive'? People are arrested for making anti-semitic comments but derogatory comments about Mohammed are not prosecuted. We are treading a very dangerous path.

 

A very dangerous path indeed if Governments are allowed to pass legislation where people can be prosecuted for comments made on the Internet. A very dangerous path indeed.

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