UK man gets 18 week prison sentence for trolling

In some ways the Internet is even more inescapable than real-life persecution. The name calls and nasty remarks find their way into your bedroom via your PC. You can make your profiles private but your harasser will just send things straight to your friends or your family's accounts. What they put online stays there 24/7/356 and you often can't have it removed for days, or ever. They can automate the harassment process with web bots, or make sure that if anyone Googled your name they'd see whatever lies the bully saw fit before any truthful info. And they can do all this anonymously. All this is possible without much technical knowledge but lots of GIFT malice.

Of course, most people won't troll to this extent. And they won't go to prison as a result.

1) Just because you are fine with it doesn't mean everybody is. 2) If words are just words, then why racism can be punished 3) I don't actually disagree on the communal thing, just on that that its "Less worse". 4) So bullying is better if its done in Internet?

^Also, that.

edited 13th Sep '11 12:25:34 PM by SpookyMask

edited 10th Jan '13 9:15:06 AM by JosefBugman

You still haven't actually explained why criminal prosecution, and prison specifically, are beneficial, useful, or actually remotely sane. It's a headline only, benefits nobody, fucks up everybody. Rehabilitation is needed.

edited 13th Sep '11 12:27:25 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

edited 10th Jan '13 9:19:02 AM by JosefBugman

That is heavily disputed. Prison is a great way to grab headlines, nowhere near as effective as community related punishments. Locking him in a cage for a while doesn't actually do anything real, making him talk to the families of the victims would.

You sure that it would?

edited 10th Jan '13 9:21:22 AM by JosefBugman

I didn't specifically say the same families, but victims of harassment generally (obviously online would be better). The relevant support charities could certainly handle such a thing well enough.

Punishment in itself is not desirable. Justice is, they are not the same. This is why the emotional desires of the victim/their close ones aren't relevant factors in judicial proceedings.

edited 13th Sep '11 12:37:36 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

Honestly, if people are willing to start to harass people who had their family members die recently in tragic ways just because they are in Internet or anonymous or not face to face to the person they are harassing, I see them as worse than just "jerks".

Heck, laws exist so that people wouldn't do crappy things in real life, if people can't behave themselves then why can't they be applied to Internet too? If you behave well it wouldn't affect anything in first place

Besides, its little different from posting to random people stuff like "Lol, your mom didn't love you, you should die"(while I don't see that as good thing either ) and posting stuff like that when something bad has happened. And its different whether you post that in places like 4Chan or in their email

Anyway, whether prison is too much or not, I don't care, I just think better than nothing is okay, so if they start to force them to do communal service, fine by me.

edited 13th Sep '11 12:40:48 PM by SpookyMask

Prison is more likely to be actively harmful than beneficial though, that's the problem. His life is ruined forever with this, and he won't rehabilitate at all as a result. Justice should be proactive and focus on positive net gains from the situation, rather than negative punishments. Everybody loses with this and "better than nothing" is a horrific approach to take when it concerns ruining lives. And no, those of the families of the victims are not ruined (at least not at the hands of this guy), they've been upset but in the long run are faced with far, far greater concerns than one random troll.

Far too much of an overreaction to the whole thing.

edited 13th Sep '11 12:44:49 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

edited 10th Jan '13 9:23:44 AM by JosefBugman

I would argue that the punishment isn't harsh enough. Imagine if you had done the same thing to someone's face. Being a dick is, in fact, a crime.

The guy deserves it. Suicide harassment online has gone overboard. Being a dick is a crime when you're harassing the family and loved ones, and people who think he shouldn't be punished because "it's just the internet lol" need to quit thinking that the internet is some lawless wasteland where crimes go unpunished.

How is that any justification for making things worse? He has brought this on himself and is a royal cock - I'm the first to admit it. But "he was in a bad way, so making it worse is no loss" is making judgement values about human lives that none of us are fit to make. Yes, the judge made the decision and that's what ultimately counts, but that hardly invalidates analysis/criticism of the decision and the process that led to it.

edited 13th Sep '11 1:04:00 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

edited 10th Jan '13 9:26:03 AM by JosefBugman

It absolutely should be stopped, and I applaud a crackdown. But we have to look at how we're doing it, and make sure that we're doing so in a way that causes direct, tangible benefits, and does more than just look good on a report or on the front page of a newspaper. Punishment for the sake of punishment is a self perpetuating cycle of negativity that doesn't ultimately stop the crimes from happening.

The support charities certainly want to raise direct awareness of the problems of cyberbullying, and that needs to be targeted at the sort of people who are doing this directly. People like him. Throwing them away, unless awareness and things to increase understanding of the issues and harm caused is provided to a similar degree inside, won't achieve that.

edited 13th Sep '11 1:15:18 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

edited 10th Jan '13 9:27:48 AM by JosefBugman

Policing internet behavior? Who are they, totalitarian Australia?

edited 10th Jan '13 9:27:56 AM by JosefBugman

I do agree with you on that one. Bullying has always existed, and it's always been wrong, but as technology evolves, so does the means of doing so. Our level of tolerance should not, however, change with it.

Thread Hop,

Can't jail him for trolling the memorial page. You could jail him for harassing her to the point where she committed suicide, however.

I'm not seeing much difference between this troll bloke and a flag/poppy-burner, or Westboro picketer; if anything, this is more within the control of the affected persons. Laws like this are essentially protecting folk from having their feelings hurt.

As someone who also likes the "lawless" nature of the net, I find all this totalitarian humanism rather constrictive.

edited 10th Jan '13 9:30:02 AM by JosefBugman

A little more info in this BBC News video. It does mention some important info: The 18 weeks is for a number of offences he pleaded guilty to and will be served concurrently. Therefore I expect his actual term will be much lower: less than half? He could get even more with time off for good behaviour (don't know how that works with concurrent sentenses though) and I expect will be serving that in a low security prison, maybe even an open one. While in there, he should have access to help with his problems should he be willing to take it.

Frankly, 18 weeks did sound a bit harsh even to me until I looked into it.