UK man gets 18 week prison sentence for trolling

edited 10th Jan '13 8:41:55 AM by JosefBugman

Being abusive towards someone and harassing them on the Internet _is_ as bad as doing it in real life - or doing it by phone, or any other communications medium, as long as it can deliver a loud, clear and vicious payload. You can drive people to suicide via the Internet, you can spread vicious rumours using the same medium, and just because it's convenient via the Web and lots of people do so, it's not a reason to go soft on people when they get caught.

He's a repeat offender, he was given a fair trial, he deserves jail, his victims deserve to feel their persecutor has been punished appropriately.

The rights of the victims do not factor into justice except in ensuring they are protected. Their emotions will conflict with justice, which is always neutral in mind. So what they want is irrelevant.

Genuinely shocked that people actually support imprisonment for being a dick on a forum. If that's what's wanted, let's trace and prosecute some of our more notorious trolls. Why not? Lots of cleanup for our mods and tropers that we could do without, they're really annoying after all! Yes, I'm aware I'm being facetious, but I'm not seeing much of a difference except in the emotions involved in this guy's actions (because it's about death).

edited 13th Sep '11 11:44:32 AM by CaissasDeathAngel

edited 10th Jan '13 8:46:05 AM by JosefBugman

Banning him from the sites would do that enough, I assume that factors into this anyway and there's nothing that this sentence will do that the sites own actions wouldn't. Prison isn't a real deterrent and isn't going to rehabilitate him here. This should be a civil matter only.

edited 13th Sep '11 11:45:54 AM by CaissasDeathAngel

If he did something like in real life he would at the very least be guilty of breach of the peace. You're looking at harrasment, too.

Shouldn't be any different if he does it online.

edited 10th Jan '13 8:49:22 AM by JosefBugman

I thought he pleaded guilty.

edited 10th Jan '13 9:06:28 AM by JosefBugman

He did plead guilty. Which makes the length of the sentence seem even more excessive. The British courts are a joke at the moment, the right wing is determined to make "examples" of people to satisfy the Dail Fail reading morons who insist that stringing 'em up is the only thing that's good for 'em, without actually considering the circumstances and societal benefit of the sentence. Sure, it looks good on the front page, but it doesn't help the victims any more than a site ban would (vengeance being satisfied is not a good thing), doesn't help him any because it basically wrecks his life, and I can't see how anyone else benefits either.

These are the same courts that were jailing people for receiving stolen goods after the London riots, after all. I could get behind a pure rehabilitation order, making him actually talk to the families of victims of such tragedies by way of community service, etc. That would do genuine good. Prison? Nothing, he won't learn anything except to come up with better ways to hide his true identity.

edited 13th Sep '11 11:57:30 AM by CaissasDeathAngel

edited 10th Jan '13 9:06:36 AM by JosefBugman

This sentence does little if anything to prove that though, certainly nothing that a sane sentence wouldn't have done.

I'm with Caissas on this one.. I don't have sympathy for him because of his punishment, but I don't think it's right to send him to prison for being a dick, and I certainly don't want harassment laws to be enforced for online actions.

TV Tropes Forum is not quite the same as Facebook because the worst you could do with your hatred is post it to a site your victim may not read, especially if they aren't tropers. Submitting it to a Facebook profile is pretty much like posting it right through their door.

But yeah, if someone somehow submitted the same intentionally cruel content to TV Tropes, intended for a specific person or small group (eg. a grieving family) and found a way to make his victim/s look at it, and he did this repeatedly then yes that's harassment and yes the offender deserves to go to prison. Same as if he used Email, wrote letters, phoned them up or shouted at them in the street.

EDIT: and I don't think he's merely a dick, or a troll, neither terms are really sufficient for his crimes.

edited 13th Sep '11 12:02:57 PM by betaalpha

edited 10th Jan '13 9:06:45 AM by JosefBugman

This isn't run of the mill trolling, this is outright cyberbullying and harrasment. These are things that society has to start taking more seriously in the social networking age and for a grown man in his mid-twenties there's really no excuse. Get it up him I say, I've got no sympathy for the weirdo at all.

Because I take meatspace seriously, but not cyberspace.

It's just the internet, you can hit the X and opt out at any goddamn time, the internet is the last real free frontier, and I would like to keep it that way as long as possible.

If you're being harassed IRL, you can't get away from it, the harassment finds you and there isn't any way you can just turn it off with a mouse click. The internet lets you do that if you so choose.

Besides, that's what private profiles are for. Dumbass people.

edited 13th Sep '11 12:06:31 PM by Barkey

What he did is not different from sending an abusive letter or making an abusive phone call, both of which are crimes.

Fuck him, basically. He had it coming.

Online harrasment has the exact same impact on people as offline harrasment. Actions have consequences, even on the internet.

edited 10th Jan '13 9:09:39 AM by JosefBugman

I refuse to believe that. If I am getting harassed at the market I can leave and nothing happens, If i get harassed at work or school I can't just walk away from my life and start over.

If I get harassed on the internet I can just close the tab, block the user, make a new profile, report to an admin, or many other options.

edited 10th Jan '13 9:12:39 AM by JosefBugman

Because people like the feeling that they could do anything if they chose to but since they don't choose to do it, they are "good".

Also, tell me WHY is Internet less big deal than sending main in written letters or phone calls or such?

Because internet sites can police themselves. FB and Youtube could simply IP ban the guy and that would be it, if he tries again? Another IP ban. That's what we do with our trolls. Real life doesn't have quite the same possibilities - or at least, they're not as neat as that.

Cyberbulling is a serious problem, I've been a victim of it myself for years (the picture of myself photoshopped to aborted fetuses will stick in the memory far longer than I'd like it to. But that doesn't mean I think actual real world prosecution is required, nor should it be here.

If it is justified, it should be of the community sort as I suggested. Prison will accomplish nothing in a case like this. "Short sharp shock" doesn't require prison these days.

Who honestly gives a shit? When my dad dies he is going to have people, with semi-legitimate reasons, hate him in private and that is perfectly acceptable. Why should anyone give a flying fuck what a random person thinks?

Mail and phone means they know where you live. And while you can just junk a letter, you can't exactly get a new number for free.

edited 13th Sep '11 12:21:35 PM by TheDeadMansLife