The woman accused of being first to spread the fake rumours about the Southport killer which sparked nationwide riots has been arrested.
Racist riots spread across the country after misinformation spread on social media claiming the fatal stabbing was carried out by Ali Al-Shakati, believed to be a fictitious name, a Muslim aslyum seeker who was on an MI6 watchlist.
A 55-year-old woman from Chester has now been arrested on suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred, and false communication. She remains in police custody.
While she has not been named in the police statement about the arrest, it is believed to be Bonnie Spofforth, a mother-of-three and the managing director of a clothing company.
Careful what you wish for. Our freedom of speech is a pretty big thing we have. You want the guy who tweeted that Vance was a couch fucker to be thrown in prison or some shit?
Freedom of speech should not equal to the freedom of consequences. You should be able to say whatever you want, but when you lie with intent of causing harm, you should be accountable.
I’m okay with this phrase except for the word “intent”. If we give someone the power to try to assess our intent, it can easily go the way of totalitarian states where they say you have a bad intent any time you criticize the government.
You should be punished for outcome, not intent. If you say something provably untrue that results in riots or murders, you should be held accountable for the outcomes of those statements. This is not that different from our current libel laws.
But all criminal law already has a concept of Mens rea (guilty mind) baked in. The reasonable proving of intentions is nessisary for the severity of the sentencing in almost all cases under review and has been at least as long as anyone here has been alive. It isn’t the sole factor of creating a criminal charge because - as you stated you also need to prove harms but saying people are not punished for intent and treating that as only the tool of strictly authoritarian government is factually untrue.
Yes my point was that “guilty mind” alone shouldn’t be enough to charge you with a crime.
Agreed, but you also said :
And I am pointing that the power to assess intent is actually a norm in the justice system. Too many people on here are very quick to catastrophize things that are actually very culturally normal and stable in systems of law. Your point is not the same one I was making, hence why I referenced your likely intended point in my post.
Furthermore if outcomes are what gets punished, then what happens if people get hurt because you said something provably true? Poeple aren’t rational at the worst of times.
Untrue does not automatically mean its a lie. For an untruth to be a lie it also must intend to deceive.
All lies are untrue but all untruths are not lies in the same way all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.
But even untruths that intend to deceive aren’t automatically lies, could be a joke though it’s probably debatable with regards to joking. But then that’s exactly why intent must be determined when considering the totality of any situation/incident
Something can be done for amusement that isn’t a joke. And we all should be aware of the nature of Trolls at this point online
This feels like it was not an intended reply to my post as it seems to be dealing with entirely different subject matter , are you sure you are replying to the correct person?
If your point is that intentionality of harm is required for law to be enacted then that isn’t particularly true either. Things like manslaughter charges exist because intention isn’t always nessisary when determining criminal fault for harm. Negligence, lack of adherence to pre existing law or willful ignorance are still criminal factors… And they have their own individual criminal burdens of proof that must be met to stick a conviction in court.
It is simply a nature of law that intent is always considered and proof of it is nessisary to bring forth particular types of charges that are weighted more heavily based on proof of premeditated knowledge or intent. Lack of intent does not always mean no damages are criminaly found to be your fault that must be answered for. Law makes allowances in many cases for the potential of the purest of pure accidents.
However since the UK has hate speech law, libel law and laws against provoking violence or harassment and damages are now measurable the person in the original article can be proven to have violated a law and damages happened as a result meaning that she cannot claim pure accident. Knowingly or not she broke a pre-existing law and people and property was damaged as a result.
Just like a charge of vehicular manslaughter only really sticks if you were speeding or broke a traffic law. If you are truely blameless and followed all law it is ruled " actions leading to accidental death" which is not a punishable crime. Speeding in a school zone is usually a pretty mild punishment if one is caught doing it and no one gets hurt usually it is a pretty mild fine… But if someone dies as a result of your speeding you go to jail. Same premise here just different laws.
I’m not sure how to respond to this.
Reply was where it was intended.
Im clearly (to me anyway) responding to the conversation about outcomes and intents you quoted, but was reply to the conversation between you and the other person. Was trying to offer more support to your position since neither of you mentioned the facet i brought up. I may have rambled a bit but re reading it im not sure why you responded the way you did.
Im not that invested in this though so im just going leave it as i was agreeing with you, intent is a useful tool to use in any incident of judgment. Not one that needs to be used in the judgement, but needs to be considered before judgment
Calling a dude a couch fucker is not the same as yelling fire in a crowded movie theater.
And really, the worst thing the JD Vance rumors will do is cause a sales bump for Siemens couches by Republican males.
https://youtu.be/jTsPgiUoBKA?si=rl2wAayZfWxql8-E
When you spread outright lies about someone what sparks violence, it’s a bit different, right? Or are you on the side of the woman who lied about Emmet Till and got him killed? Because if it was known she lied about the thing at the time, I’d say she should have been jailed the same as his killers.
If the hard right propaganda machine isn’t shut down we will deal with the risk of a fascist takeover every four years for the rest of our country’s existence.
Free speech is not absolute, and the ‘fighting words’ precedent certainly applies to fascist instigators.
We almost had to deal with the free speech limitations of KOSA. The power to limit free speech will eventually be abused.
We have always lived with exceptions to freedom of speech. Libel, slander and obscenity law as examples. The sanctity of medical records is another.
The UK also technically does not and never has had any freedom of speech enshrined in law and the government has always been able to squash print and media publications that post things deemed a danger to security.
Russia on the other hand holds a constitutional freedom of speech and the press… But will also send you to prison for publishing “LGBTQIA propaganda”
Americans treat this misplaced concept of freedom of speech as this full access pass as a universal good that is the only thing holding us all back from totalitarian regimes. In reality however speech has both never been totally free even in America as plenty of exceptions have always existed and having those protections is way more optional in other democratic nations then they would believe. It also does not protect from abuse on it’s own.
Remember that any and all tenants of free speech aren’t nessisarily a universal good. If there are measurable harms being done to people your nation is allowed to carve out an exception. It’s on you to critically evaluate the individual exception for potential issues but not specifically on the basis of a dogmatic adherence to an idea of free speech. Totally free speech itself could actually be harmful to a society and in fact has already proven to be hence libel/slander laws.
Yeah the reality is if the courts start letting the government arrest people for speech, it’s those going on about “woke mind viruses” who are gonna be the first to weaponize that. Without free speech, the left ceases to exist.
The left have been utterly excluded from free speech protections.
Yes, they have.
I mean Rogan and Kyle Rittenhouse got canceled this week by trumpers for daring to not say trump is their favorite weirdo. Free speech is mostly a bludgeon that is currently only allowed to be wielded by in groups.
If you spread a knowingly false fact with the intent of causing riots, imo that’s a good law. Nobody is going to riot over the couch fucking tweet.
There’s a difference between getting canceled and getting in actual trouble by the government.
People complaining about you is not the same thing as being put in jail
“People complaining about you” is a weird way to say “death threats”
On the internet it tends to come with the territory unfortunately
When you are calling these fucking assholes weirdos, do you realize how fucking many kids have had to live through that stigma being slung at them unfairly and hurtfully?
Do you know why one of the worlds most loved and celebrated humans calls himself Weird Al Yankovich?
Yes im venting im sorry but this new tactic against the enemies of humanity is going to cause damage to people who are already and always have been vulnerable.
Shame on everyone who is jumping on this band wagon with absolutely no understanding of the consequences you are having.
I hope you can live with yourself for being part of the reason kids feel like they need to take a gun, go to school, and start shooting their bullies. While thats not the motivation of all these school shootings it was very much a big part of Columbine happening.
So go ahead and keep doing harm to a small group of people you didnt give enough thought to before you propagate this moniker for people are some of the worst people in history
As somebody who grew up being called weird for having head trauma as a kid, you missed the ball here. Kids have a way of cutting egos with even harmless words. Bullies should be weird. Assholes should be weird. As in they shouldn’t be normalized. The word does have a meaning and its not inherently bad, but it can be with the correct intonation and facial expression
I’m not missing the ball thank you very much.
But you are obviously my point because you just restated everything i was talking about.
I couldn’t agree with you more
If someone unironically advocated for that, then yes.
Lies aren’t free speech.
Though without the Context I have a feeling that this was to show show how ridiculous the allegations of him are.
My understanding is that it was a made up name, so there is no “him”. But also, she’s claiming she heard it from someone else, so why is she the one getting in all the trouble, as opposed to everyone else who spread it around?
This is the first time i have seen someone with an Israeli flag on Lemmy. Congratulations.
Hard to believe anyone would riot over JD Vance fucking a couch though
Only those too propagandized to realize it believe you actually have the right to free speech in the USA. You’re guilty of something, all the time, in the USA. If they want to get you for something, they can. It’s that simple. It’s not hyperbole and it is the fascist playbook used in the USSR before as well.
You’ll be hard pressed to find people in the US who get in trouble for criticism of the government or most other things. I can freely say the president sucks and cops are dirty, and no one will lift a finger in the US. I’m allowed to say this. There’s a good many countries where you can’t.
It’s hyperbole but it’s not out of the realm of possibility for that to change, given someone’s litigious nature, to declare that activity to be treasonous…
That’s a tall hill to climb. It’s literally been protected by the Supreme Court that you can fly a flag that says something like “Fuck Biden”(I think biden did a fairly good job, fyi). There are limitations to freedom of speech, but criticism and opinions aren’t any of them.
I hope so. I really do. There seems to be interest in ignoring the constitution that they claim to protect…
ya, but that’s republicans for the vast majority
Exactly
Obviously when it works out in my favor… I’m all for it.
But really, slander is slander. JD has plenty to make fun of that’s real. Just dig a little.
It’s not slander if you can’t prove it’s not true.
Well, you’re technically correct. How does one prove they never fucked a couch?
You fucked a couch! Prove me wrong. 😛
I don’t need to, I’m not accusing you of slander. 😉
Well, now I have a visual. 🤤
UK has freedom of speech, but there are limits. Been a Nazi is not covered.
As Chomsky said, “That’s not freedom of speech”
Is libel freedom of speech?
I personally believe it is. Legally it isn’t in the US. But luckily courts are pretty hesitant to actually prosecute it most of the time
In which case, perhaps unqualified “freedom of speech” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
(I appreciate that Chomsky’s opinion resonates more with 1968 than now.)
I believe it is. But if you don’t that’s your belief, but at least admit you therefore do not believe in freedom of speech.
I think unqualified freedom to say anything can lead to negative utility, pragmatically speaking. Malicious lies bring less than nothing to discourse.
I’m concerned that the libel system can be abused, of course; and I don’t approve of arresting octogenerians under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for shouting “nonsense!” at Jack Straw. But I don’t see there being a need to draw a distinction between online and in person speech, and I think that incitement to riot isn’t something I’d typically defend.
Having said that: I hope the woman in question (who has a history of being a deniable pot-stirrer) gets a trial rather than copping a plea, because the bounds of these things are worth testing.
I don’t trust anyone to evaluate that is the problem.
I think it’s like the distinction between art and obscenity; it’s not a nuanced distinction in the case in question. If it were, I’d largely trust UK courts to get it right (they are by-and-large capable of this, and much less politicised than their US counterparts).
I agree in that its an inherently individual decision.
What makes you think this?
I don’t think this was right
Nor this
Nor this
I think you mean freeze peach