Internet trolls face up to two years in jail under new laws | Hacker News Reader

Internet trolls face up to two years in jail under new laws

bbc.co.uk

28 pointsk-mcgrady72 comments

Criminalizing behavior has its own side-effects that are more problematic than the problem they are meant to solve. What the system would end is inconsistent application and execution of the law, until some one figures out to profit off of it. We have 4 liberal judges in US supreme court who have a tendency to cite laws of other countries in their opinions, so if Americans think they are immune, they should rethink again. As corrosive internet trolling is, wait till Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice system insert themselves as behavior police, they take a corrosive problem and seem to have expertise in making it radioactive.

Inserting of words like "terrorism" into such discussion only makes me feel, this is one more shot across the bow against individual rights.

I think they're talking only about e-death that's which have become more popular in the recent months. They're not talking about General trolling.

The UK if I recall already has very strict libel laws, where you can accuse somebody of libel and they have the burden of proof to prove they didn't libel you, which is why authors leave England for the US like Christopher Hitchens did. David Irving wasted everybody's time abusing this law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_v_Penguin_Books_and_Lips...

Are these new laws even needed? Between the harsh libel and existing criminal laws on threatening what difference does this new law make except the slightly broad definition of "verbally abusive". I can think of a few The Exploited or Sex Pistols songs that will likely now be deemed verbally abusive towards the Queen.

"Under the act, it is an offence to send another person a letter or electronic communication that contains an indecent or grossly offensive message, a threat or information which is false and known or believed by the sender to be false."

So I guess porn will be made illegal by this law, as will lying (even if the lie is intended as a joke -- "I'm 300 years old!" or "this sentence is false" -- and even if it's such an obvious lie, like the above, that it's unbelievable).

Who decides what's "indecent" or "grossly offensive"?

Why is the legal system stuck with Victorian-era mores where, for instance, sexual images or words are "indecent"?

Doesn't the UK already have laws against threats of bodily harm? If so - what is different about threats made online than offline?

There is the Malicious Communications Act 1988:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_Communications_Act_19...

What this actually appears to be doing is extending the maximum prison sentence under this act from six months to two years.

Note: the above act is for England and Wales only - I wonder if there is equivalent legislation for NI and here in Scotland.

There also the Communications Act 2003 which seems to be UK wide and covers "Malicious communications":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_2003#Malicio...

The latter has had a lot of criticism:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/27/law-cri...

Am I alone in thinking that this is a net detriment to freedom?

The whole point of "freedom of speech" (I know this is in the U.K.) is that people should be allowed to say things even if other people don't like what's being said.

I guess the debate is should that include the freedom to threaten people. Personally I think that the current laws are used irrationally at times but in cases where someone is being threatened (even if that threat is unlikely to be carried out) I think it's fine. We need to look at it from a bigger perspective than is it good/bad for web freedom or even freedom of speech. Is it in the public interest to allow or disallow specific types of speech? That's the important question.

Yes

Material threats, the ones that seem actionable, seems like a good line to draw, and I think it's the current state of the law in the U.S.

E.g., if I threaten to "kill you" because of a bad book review, I'm allowed to say that. But if I threaten to "kill you in your living room tomorrow night at 7pm", that's illegal, because I've provided specific detail about when/where.

Honestly I don't know the specifics of the US law, if someone else could chime in and clear things up a bit, that'd probably be better than me butchering the law.

Freedom of speech really has become a bit of a burden to modern society though. By incrementally reclassifying what is considered free speech and outlawing the rest we can one day live in a world where no one ever has to have their feelings hurt again.

Won't that be wonderful? Our politicians certainly seem to think it's a good idea.

Someone threatening to kill you/rape you/etc. is a bit more than getting your feelings hurt. If they walked up to you in the street and did it they would be arrested. Online it's difficult to tell if the threat is real or not and it can do a lot more to a persons mental state than hurt their feelings.

Saying you're going to kill someone on the interwebs is a flippant gesture weighted by anonymity. It means nothing and the barriers to carry out that threat are high(distance, tracking them down etc).

If you're face to face with someone and are making threats, unless you're some loon, they probably carry a bit of weight and emotion.

The two are very different and so should be treated differently. Locking up a bunch of keyboard warriors because they spammed you some feeble minded insults on twitter isn't going to do anyone any favors.

>> "Saying you're going to kill someone on the interwebs is a flippant gesture weighted by anonymity. It means nothing and the barriers to carry out that threat are high(distance, tracking them down etc)."

I'm sure people who have received these threats would disagree that they mean nothing. Regarding barriers there is no way to tell what the barriers are - which is probably what scares people. The person making the threat could be 3,000 miles away or they could live in your street. If the threats are anonymous you have no way to know.

Is it more than feelings? Worst thing that happens when one receives a death threat is them getting seriously worried about it.

Luckily, I haven't received such treats in face (i.e. non-online), and all threats I've got online were so childishly retarded I think no sane person would ever consider them serious, but... I strongly suspect I'd be worried not about the statements, but about the actually happening offender's actions and physical situation I'm in. But it's only psychological, not physical harm.

Another possibility is if threat's here and it's subjectively serious enough to disregard, but offender seemingly does nothing (or cannot be observed), leaving me worried about the situation I'm in. But, again, it's only my feelings being hurt, no physical harm whatsoever.

I'm not trying to say such threats are nothing serious (they surely are), but I think I disagree about the "more than feelings" part.

And I think it would be much worse if I'll get suddenly attacked without any prior threats. So, silencing the threats may have negative effects.

Someone threatening to kill you/rape you/etc. is a bit more than getting your feelings hurt.

But the law makes it illegal to send messages “for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another” - that pretty much includes simply hurting others' feelings.

Using the worst case scenario to justify overreaching laws is par for the course, and I'm disappointed by the number of useful idiots defending it on this thread.

Wait, was that last sentence needlessly annoying? Maybe I should get arrested!

Unless it has a special well-defined legal meaning, "causing inconvenience" is even more broad than hurting one's feelings.

Similar wording is in existing UK laws - you haven't been able to make telephone calls or send material through the post “for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another” for very many years.

That's not strictly speaking politicians, though, that's directly due to pressure (often exerted transparently) from interest groups, and much of it is completely reasonable (for example, calling someone a nigger in the street will get a person arrested). I understand your perception, I just think that much of the time, that attitude is a reification of media stories.

Have you ever lived in fear? It's fucking horrible. It affects everything you do, everything you think. Even if you know, you KNOW it's irrational, the fear doesn't go away. Spending every day hiding inside, flinching at every knock on the door, your mind being eaten away by a constant, ever-present fear.

Feelings hurt? This isn't about calling someone a dickhead. This is about the kind of thing that destroys people, and we should sit back and let people do this for their own entertainment?

So an appropriate response would be 2 years of imprisonment?

I'm not saying the nasty end of the troll spectrum isn't a problem and we should all just take some concrete pills. When you face the wrath of the internet it most definitely will put you in a shitty frame of mind.

In the extreme cases I would argue that it's not the individual 'I hate you jump off a bridge you POS' that will make someone crack but the torrent of thousands of people at all different levels of hatred.

> So an appropriate response would be 2 years of imprisonment?

I think prison should be reserved for people who are repeatedly violent, so my answer is no. But still, making many credible threats of extreme violence - often causing the victim to leave their homes and disrupting their work - should carry some penalty.

By incrementally reclassifying what is considered free speech and outlawing the rest we can one day live in a world where no one ever has to have their feelings hurt again.

Nor will anyone ever be able to form their own opinions again, or even have freedom of thought. That sounds more like the dystopian society of 1984 than anything else...

Yup, as you say, this is in the UK where we - rightfully, in my opinion - don't value freedom above everything else, unconditionally. Whether this means not allowing all citizens to own/carry firearms, or preventing abuse and harassment, I believe we have the balance just about right.

Edit: there's a difference between not "liking what's said" about you, and living in a perpetual state of fear, with an expectation that you might be killed any minute"

As if there isn't a balance in the US. It has always been my understanding that we have the right to express our freedoms as long as they don't infringe upon other peoples' freedoms.

Say you go up to somebody in public who is minding their own business and start yelling expletives at them and threaten to murder them. Obviously that is making it impossible for them to be free to do what they are doing, and they could certainly have you arrested for that (disturbing the peace or something).

It's difficult to apply this to the Internet because that person certainly has the power to NOT READ the comments from somebody that is attempting to troll them. There are plenty of services in place to ignore these trolls, but instead people let themselves be trolled and then complain about being a victim. This is nothing new, it has been happening since the beginning, but these less experienced users just haven't learned how the Internet works.

I think you make a very good point, although that obviously depends on exactly how the communication takes place - e.g. repeated email/direct tweets versus forum posts, etc. Still, I just don't see any need to protect hate speech, whatever form it takes.

> There are plenty of services in place to ignore these trolls.

I'm curious - what do you mean? e.g. if I'm receiving threatening emails / tweets / comments on my blog / reddit DMs, there are services that will filter them out for me?

I don't think there are; and even if there are, I'd rather have the ability to have the authorities investigate them if they are credible threats.

You could just begin reading the message, then quickly trash it and ignore the user at the first sign of negativity. You might even be able to discern it isn't worth reading just from the subject.

There are tons of social mediums out there I don't have experience with. I have a reddit account but have not done much on there, and I have a twitter but have barely used that as well so I have no clue what it's like to receive lots of communication on those platforms.

My experience is with things like email, Facebook, and chatrooms. With email you can block addresses, report it as spam, click a trash button to throw it away, make a new email and don't share it publicly. Facebook you can ignore friend requests and report people.

Chatrooms (and video game chats) always have an ignore feature, and that is where a lot of the sentiment behind my post came from. It always bugs me when people get into these long conversations with trolls to the point that they are crying and complaining for mods to ban them, when they can simply use the ignore feature. I inform them about this feature and they choose to ignore my advice and continue to complain about it. People complaining about trolls are more annoying than trolls in these cases.

Anyways, clearly I am not a social enough person to understand the problems at play here.

> You could just begin reading the message, then quickly trash it and ignore the user at the first sign of negativity. You might even be able to discern it isn't worth reading just from the subject.

Why should you? Especially if you're getting dozens of messages an hour.

It's weird when people say the victims are doing it wrong and if only they did something different everything would be okay.

Words can have a huge impact on a person's state of mind, daily routine and behavior, and even physical state.

A victim of Internet bullying who is able to filter out the attack is much better able to handle the situation than a victim of an Internet attack who is unable to filter the attack.

If, for example, someone's mass tweeting at me via their followers (e.g. a blogger who dislikes me and posts my twitter handle), I'm going to be in a much better position if I turn off Twitter notifications for awhile than I would be if I let the notifications continue to show up on my phone.

Besides, there are two things at work here. Are you suggesting people shouldn't be allowed to spam someone else? Or are you suggesting that people shouldn't be allowed to say harassing things to other people? Both?

> If, for example, someone's mass tweeting at me via their followers (e.g. a blogger who dislikes me and posts my twitter handle), I'm going to be in a much better position if I turn off Twitter notifications for awhile than I would be if I let the notifications continue to show up on my phone.

Yes, when someone makes a death threat it's good if you stay away from the windows and hire bodyguards to check the car for bombs.

> there are two things at work here. Are you suggesting people shouldn't be allowed to spam someone else?

Denial of service attacks should carry some consequence.

> Or are you suggesting that people shouldn't be allowed to say harassing things to other people?

Depends on the severity and frequency of the harassment.

Follow up question: are internet chat rooms / websites different from, say, your mailbox or your phone?

e.g. should it be OK for me to crapflood you with postcards that say 'today is your last day on earth, I will rape and kill you tonight'? Or send you texts (from different numbers via Twilo, naturally) that say the same, but with fundamentally worse grammar due to length restrictions?

> because that person certainly has the power to NOT READ the comments from somebody that is attempting to troll them.

You're hopelessly uninformed about the sheer quantity of messages that a harasser can send. Modern Internet trolling easily reaches ddos levels and services make blocking harassing users harder than it should be.

I agree. I am not a very social person and haven't been on the receiving end of these situations. I have encountered plenty of trolls and have had no problem ignoring them, but I suppose the trolling can reach a level where that is impossible on certain platforms.

Freedom of speech surely isn't as simple as being able to say whatever you want to say, given that certain things (implied threats, say) will infringe upon the freedom of others.

"I'd do a lot worse than rape you. I've just got out of prison and would happily do more time to see you berried [sic]. #10feetunder."

"I will find you, and you don't want to know what I will do when I do. You're pathetic. Kill yourself. Before I do. #Godie."

Caroline Criado Perez was not complaining about one or two people sending a few dozens of messages that were a bit mean. She was inundated with thousands of messages, from many people, threatening sexual violence and death. One man was sending 50 messages per hour, over about 12 hours. Another woman sent hundreds of messages. Perez's "crime"? She campaigned to have a woman on British banknotes after the Bank of England phased out Elizabeth Fry on the £5 - leaving no women on the banknotes.

It's weird that you do not say anything about her freedom to talk without being subjected to death threats, but that you are concerned that people offering to rape and murder her might have to stop posting death threats.

The most worrying thing about hate speech today is that time and time again it's in response to people, usually women, campaigning for gender equality, and almost always takes the form of violent sexual threats. There really is a concerted effort taking place to try to prevent women from having their say, and it's sickening.

This point illustrates that the discourse is complex and flows into a good number of other equally toxic positions of privilege and hegemonic power.

It would be quite interesting to see a breakdown of death, rape, and violent threats based on a victim's gender, race, and other such factors.

She, you, myself, we don't have a freedom to talk without being subjected to death threats.

It's terrible, awful, and a reflection of the unfathomable depths of depravity existent within humanity that she was subjected to such horrible treatment, but as long as she's allowed to say what she wants, these folks are allowed to say what they want.

I know for absolute certain that this is a truly repugnant idea, letting people like those who've harassed that poor woman continue, but to stop them would be declaring a governmental monopoly on the determination of "appropriate" speech, something which invariably leads to abuse.

I'm not comfortable letting my government tell me what's okay to say, and I don't think the threat of being threatened with death is enough to get me to change my mind.

“She, you, myself, we don't have a freedom to talk without being subjected to death threats.”

Except not quite.

Serious question: When was the last time you received a rape or death threat for something you posted?

Now accept that if you are a woman, the chances are that you have.

There is a narrative of equality in your statement which is betrayed by the statistical reality.

Like I said, threats really suck. They do, I wouldn't ever deny that.

The cost of eliminating them just isn't a cost I'm willing to pay, however. Maybe that's because I don't pay a high cost for that position, but that's probably true for most of the things I or anyone else believe.

That reminds me of this quote, which I agree with:

"I don't agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire

It's a great quote. Voltaire definitely was not talking about threats to rape someone to death, though.

At least in the US, credible death threats made with an intent to intimidate are not protected free speech (as the Supreme Court has ruled in the past).

Which is why no new legislation is needed- it's already against the law.

There's no need to give authorities more power when they already have all the power that's necessary.

(Article is from the UK, not the US, and it's about extending the penalty)

The UK authorities also have all the power that's needed as well.

No new power is necessary.

> Which is why no new legislation is needed- it's already against the law.

New laws guide behaviour. People don't wear seatbelts until you make it illegal to not do so. New laws make sure there are no gaps in the existing laws - laws applicable to public order or telecommunications may leave exploitable gaps.

Oddly enough reading the article there is no new anti-troll law. They are just changing the max penalty on a ten year old law. There does seem to be a new anti revenge porn clause being put in though.

Yeah, I think this is a good standard. I agree that the proverbial, "yelling fire in a crowded theater" shouldn't be protected.

I just think we should be super stingy about what falls into the "unprotected" category.

but to stop them would be declaring a governmental monopoly on the determination of "appropriate" speech, something which invariably leads to abuse.

Or... the world could be in shades of grey.

Edit: actually, to address the issue at it's fundamental level, yes, she should have a right to talk without being subject to death threats. If she is intimidated to the point of not talking, then she has had her right to freedom of speech taken away by another. What you're saying is that people are free to intimidate others into silence, which is internally inconsistent as an argument for free speech.

Not government but common law; the existing law regarding offensive language in public is "breach of the peace", is very old, and administered by magistrates.

>declaring a governmental monopoly on the determination of "appropriate" speech

It would end up being more of a court decision as to what the limits are and not absolutely a new thing. Some existing forms of speech such as blackmail, incitement to murder or genocide, offers to sell heroin and the like have been able to get you into legal difficulties for a while in most counties. It's a question of where you draw the line.

> It's terrible, awful, and a reflection of the unfathomable depths of depravity existent within humanity that she was subjected to such horrible treatment, but as long as she's allowed to say what she wants, these folks are allowed to say what they want.

She's not allowed to say what she wants. She's not allowed to make death threats or to tell people that she's going to rape them.

English people on the whole think it's just weird that people would defend that as a freedom people should have.

> I'm not comfortable letting my government

It's (just about) a democratically elected government, and they're reflecting the English mood.

I will go right ahead and say it: It's substantially worse to destroy free speech for the sake of a few people's "right" to feel comfortable (which I deny is a right at all) than it is to allow a few (really, very few) threatening statements to go unpunished.

Also, it is foolish to think that law enforcement will be judicious in their application of these anti-speech laws.

Your argument is fallacious, because the law covers much more than death threats. It makes illegal to send messages “for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another”, not just to send death threats.

Citation? (I can't find that in the article's description of the law)

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

It has been illegal to say things in public, or to send written material through the postal system, or to use telephones “for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another” for very many years. This new law just ties up loose ends with online activity.

Oh, well, as long as the overreaching articles have been the law for a long time, it's alright then.

How about deliberately hurting and frightening people for no reason other than your own entertainment? I can't see that we should privilege deliberately hurting people for your own entertainment just because the weapon being used is words.

No, it's an extreme net detriment to freedom.

Laws like this never stop with the initial effort, they get used, manipulated, and pushed even further. Typically they end up being used to justify other totalitarian laws that further restrict individual liberty.

Supposedly it's a law attempting to outlaw bullying; it's actually a law meant to dramatically curb personal freedom.

It's like the FBI claiming they need access to your phone - everyone's phone - to stop pedophiles. It's nothing but a ruse to curtail liberty.

I always find it fascinating that the British can spot America's move toward fascism and police state behavior, regarding things like spying and the NSA - but they seem completely incapable of seeing their own accelerating shift toward fascism.

We're quite capable of seeing it, and it has been worse in the recent past (especially relating to Northern Ireland); but this sort of stuff is also popular with a large chunk of the public.

>incapable of seeing their own accelerating shift toward fascism.

If by fascism you mean the kind of thing Hitler and Mussolini did then preventing trolls issuing rape threats to women is a funny sort of fascism.

lol, most stupid person on earth, if you believe Hitler rose to power in any other way that by promising protection for people, especially children and women, against threats and 'terrorism'.

There's an article here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_rise_to_power

Oddly those are not mentioned much

this tells you what and when, not why. straight from Hitler: "To prevent this terror," that's the justification he repeats.

Prediction: the comments in this thread will once again demonstrate the deep division between brits and yanks in their commitment to free speech.

I think that depends. In the US "terroristic threats", what's being cited to extend the time in prison for violating this law, are I gather generally illegal, Wikipedia uses Texas as an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroristic_threat A little digging found that the penalty is up to 6 months in prison and/or a $2,000 fine.

I don't know of any American that has a problem with that.

EDITED: arethuza pointed out a Wikipedia article on this law goes which makes vague (but entirely believable to me claims) that it and its enforcement go way beyond that. However its one concrete example "In 2012 an individual was arrested under the Act for saying that Olympic diver Ton Daley let his late father down by not winning at medal at the London Olympics." is reported by many sources on the net to actually include a white line terroristic threat.

ADDED PROLOGUE: To the extent this punishes thought crimes instead of terroristic threats, it's another reason we rebelled against them, and are rebelling against our betters who, while not quite yet putting us in jail for thought crimes, are moving smartly along in creating a totalitarian paradise, see e.g. the Houston Mayor for the most recent notorious example.

Tom Daley's troll was arrested, and given a harassment caution, for making a death threat - threatening to drown Daley.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/07/30/tom-daley-twitter...

"i'm going to find you and i'm going to drown you in the pool you cocky tw*t your a nobody people like you make me sick."

Exactly - that part of the Wikipedia page I linked to should really be updated to point that out.

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