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What You Say Online Can Get You Jailed
Author: Adamus16 Apr 2012
I am increasingly convinced that I’m living in the wrong country. My current status as a resident of the United Kingdom means that I could potentially go to jail for nothing other than speaking my mind online.
Those who know me know that I tend to have very vocal opinions that are often expressed with an abundance of profanity. I rarely hold back, and I swear often and loudly.
Apparently that is enough to get me sent to jail, should the wrong person choose to take offence and make a case of it. That is not an exaggeration. There are abundant examples of people going to jail for nothing more than saying something rude on Twitter or Facebook. Some prominent examples:
Facecook riot sentences: Two men are sentences to four years(!) in prison for posting messages on Facebook calling for riots. As those riots never materialised, these two men are effectively jailed merely for saying something online.
Twitter Joke Trial: Paul Chambers is convicting for making a bad joke on Twitter.
Offensive tweets: Student Laim Stacey is jailed for 56 days for posting offensive tweets about a footballer.
Olly Cromwell: Blogger Olly Cromwell faces prison for indirectly insulting a councillor with the c-word on Twitter.
All these cases are examples of a growing – and very worrying – trend in the UK to criminalise people’s opinions. What you say online can and will be used against you. All it takes is for someone to take offence and get the litigation ball rolling, and before you know it you’re behind bars for merely speaking your mind.
I fiercely believe that no one has the right to never be offended. I believe that everyone should have the right to speak their mind, just as everyone else has the right to disagree and to reply with criticism, mockery, and ridicule.
So for someone like me this criminalisation of opinion is an almost unbearable state of affairs. The UK is simply not a free country. A nation where citizens cannot speak freely because they fear being jailed for what they say is nothing short of a fascist police state. There is no other conclusion possible.
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Adamus
Adamus is the online identity of Barry Adams. A Dutchman living in Northern Ireland, Barry / Adamus is an internet fanatic, skeptic, technophile, gamer, and geek. On this personal blog he provides his unpolished view of the world and its insanities.
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5 Responses for "What You Say Online Can Get You Jailed"
I don’t think we are at fascist police state yet, but we are getting there.
What annoys me in these cases is that at no time did anyone let common sense prevail – there is a massive chain of command that people have had to escalate through both within their own organisations, then legal organisations and at no time did anyone call bullshit*.
Then you have the fact that clearly no one close to the idiots pursuing these cases has tried to call them on it.
It is a joke.
*OK maybe they shouldn’t call “bullshit”, they might just get jail time!
I don’t know Toby, the UK is fitting a lot of the measures one would attribute to a fascist state. A few:
- Portrayal of the military as admirable & superior : check.
- A small powerful elite running the country: check.
- Suppression of freedom and dissent through (ab)use of the legal system: check.
- A ‘democratic’ system where citizens’ choices have minimal input: check.
It doesn’t paint a pretty picture….
Hey Barry,
The scariest thing is I don’t think that people are aware that this sort of thing is actually going on. If someone does read/hear about this they will soon be bombarded with some news on Britains got talent/their favourite football team/celebrity gossip and forget about it.
This along with the governments interest in getting all email, text, phone call information makes a worrying combination.
Entertaining and humerous post, however, its true. We all have to be careful what we say, even online.
[...] is, I believe, an absolutely vital aspect of a progressive modern society. And in a society that jails people for what they say, free speech is a particularly fragile [...]
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