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Comment by nsv | Hacker News Reader

I and many other believe that the government should not have the power to interview, detain, or do anything else to a person based on the contents of "offensive tweets".

Just because something is codified in law doesn't make it right.

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I'm generally on the side that the side that this kind of stuff is generally nonsense, but I also think that you're being a bit narrow minded in your interpretation of "offensive tweets".

Can you honestly not think of any "offensive" tweets that you think would constitute harrassment and benefit from someone telling you to get your shit together? (edit: by which I mean police attention).

e.g. "I hope your {{family member}} gets {{offensive act}}'d"

Replace with favourite family member, and most offensive act you can think of.

At that point I believe it would be more beneficial to just have them banned from the site or block them if it's continuous harassment not police intervention. If they go further, then it's not an offensive tweet that would become threats, which is a completely different topic from offensive tweets. I don't like the idea of being put into jail because of what someone else finds offensive. Being banned from Twitter won't make it harder to get jobs and live your life, like jail time / a record will. Saying I hope something happens to someone is nowhere near as bad in my opinion as saying you're planning to do something and giving a detailed layout of someones house and daily plan.

Then I suggest you run for parliament in your constabulary. Because the current UK government is not making noises about changing this law.

Well, no luck there, I'm an American. But I'm sympathetic to those across the pond that hold similar ideals as me.

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