Jail time for internet "trolls" in the UK.

Just doing my BBC news reading for the day and I stumbled on this little gem:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29678989

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

So according to this law they want to use, a person that subjects to others to sexually offensive, verbally abusive or threatening material online are currently prosecuted in magistrates' courts under the Malicious Communications Act, with a maximum prison sentence of six months.... The article references a woman that received threats after defending her mother when her mother defended a rapist online, saying that the rape was "non-violent" and did not cause "bodily harm". -_o

Anyway, I have no idea where this is going, but they better make some clear distinction on what constitutes as a threat. I can see this going wrong, like that teenager ( Justin Carter) that got jailed for saying something stupid on Facebook, and frightening a Canadian lady.
 
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If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all my life,
And I had to start again with just my children and my wife.
I'd thank my lucky stars to be living here today,
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can't take that away.

And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land God bless the U.S.A.

From the lakes of Minnesota, to the hills of Tennessee,
across the plains of Texas, from sea to shining sea,

From Detroit down to Houston and New York to LA,
Well, there's pride in every American heart,
and it's time to stand and say:

I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land God bless the U.S.A.
 
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I knew David Cameron was a bit crazy, but this takes the cake. I wouldn't be surprised if UK has a internet filter, like China's, installed within the next decade or so.
 
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This really isn't about trolling, though. The British media have somehow conflated trolling with general online harassment. The only people who'll get jailed are people who send death/rape threats or racist abuse, and are dumb enough not to be behind seven proxies.
 
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It's really not that bad. The chances of being caught for "trolling" etc is minimal unless it becomes a news item. David Cameron is a Tory moron who doesn't understand anything about the modern world.

Oglooger said:
Why do Britbongs prefer saftey over freedom?
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This probably belongs in the politics thread, but guns aren't freedom :lol: I'm assuming this is about guns, at least. As a general rule, most Brits think it's laughable that Americans get so het up about gun control. We had the Dunblaine school shooting in 1996 in Scotland, banned hand guns, no school shootings since. Our police don't have to assume that we are armed, so people are very rarely unlawfully killed by cops. I can think of two high profile unlawful/questionable cop killings in the past 10 years - Ian Tomlinson and Mark Duggan. I can think of four last year alone in the states. [tw opinions]

Also you gotta remember that the majority of us Britbongs don't like Dave or his policies.
 
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Wolf Fetuses said:
It's really not that bad. The chances of being caught for "trolling" etc is minimal unless it becomes a news item. David Cameron is a Tory moron who doesn't understand anything about the modern world.



This probably belongs in the politics thread, but guns aren't freedom :lol: I'm assuming this is about guns, at least. As a general rule, most Brits think it's laughable that Americans get so het up about gun control. We had the Dunblaine school shooting in 1996 in Scotland, banned hand guns, no school shootings since. Our police don't have to assume that we are armed, so people are very rarely unlawfully killed by cops. I can think of two high profile unlawful/questionable cop killings in the past 10 years - Ian Tomlinson and Mark Duggan. I can think of four last year alone in the states. [tw opinions]

Also you gotta remember that the majority of us Britbongs don't like Dave or his policies.
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I'm only not taking about guns, but rather more on why you can't be a dick online because it hurts people feelings, or why you can't criticize Shariah law without being considered a racist.
then again, I think that kind of shit is only enforced in London.
 
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There seem to be a lot of conclusions being jumped to here.

The main thrust of this seems to be that actions performed online that would constitute an illegal act under other circumstances can be treated as such. i.e, if you phoned somebody's house or texted their mobile and threatened to rape or assault them, this would carry legal ramifications. Now you are no longer protected just because you chose the internet as your method of conveying your threat.
As Absinthe pointed out, the problem here is the misuse of the term "trolling"

And as for David Cameron, yeah the guys an upper class cunt trying to score some easy morality points, his world view has absolutely no basis in reality. Please don't assume that his views represent those of your average uk citizen.
For those who don't know, the only reason he's Prime Minister is because his political party joined with a weaker one after the results of the general election were inconclusive, thus forming a "coalition" government that in no way represents any of the policies of the smaller party that they effectively assimilated.

To put that in perspective for you guys over the pond, imagine if Mitt Romney was your president despite his party only getting a third of the election votes.
 
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Anchuent Christory said:
There seem to be a lot of conclusions being jumped to here.

The main thrust of this seems to be that actions performed online that would constitute an illegal act under other circumstances can be treated as such. i.e, if you phoned somebody's house or texted their mobile and threatened to rape or assault them, this would carry legal ramifications. Now you are no longer protected just because you chose the internet as your method of conveying your threat.
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This, of course, has always been the case. It has never been legal to do online what would be illegal to do offline. There has really never been any magic Internet immunity other than that enforcement is and remains tricky. First, people will make rather florid online statements that nobody involved takes seriously, and second, it's not always easy to find someone who actually does make actionable threats.

This appears to be a change in the length of potential sentence, at least according to this other article in the Grauniad.

The existence of this law, though, doesn't prevent prosecutors from going after actionable threats under any of the other laws generally against threats, some of which have even longer sentences. AFAICT it's just another "look what we did" law.
 
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Venusaur said:
a person that subjects to others to sexually offensive, verbally abusive
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Isn't that a violation of Freedom of...
THIS IS WHY WE HAD TO MOVE OUT MOM!
Seriously though, that seems a little, intense. Subjecting others to "sexually offensive material" could be a simple as a Pixy nude.
 
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