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Arrested and Convicted for Tweeting in the UK!!!
Renegade:
Not taking sides here, (because, quite frankly, I don't give a s**t), but how is this different from:
While standing in a street you point to a house and ask the person next to you, "Which c*** lives in a house like this. Write the answer on a piece of paper and put it in his letterbox.", oblivious to the fact that both the owner of the property and a policeman are within earshot.
By inference you have called the owner of the property a c*** which could be marginally considered as slander.
-4wd (April 17, 2012, 07:26 PM)
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It's very different.
First, tweeting is not analogous to putting a letter in someone's mailbox. A tweet isn't sent to a specific person - it is posted to your own account. A letter that is put in someone's mailbox is directed at them.
Second, the tweet was directed at a politician, who is a public figure. We have different standards there. Public figures are open to scrutiny in ways that private people are not.
I will leave this country once the net is monitored heavily.
-Redhat (April 17, 2012, 02:20 PM)
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As an expat, I'm getting sick of being a second-class human, and can't wait to get back to Canada. Yeah, Canada has problems, but at least there I can DO something. Where I am now there is no human rights bill, and people have even fought against getting one. I was shocked to find that out. Here, you have no right to free speech.
I've been pulled into my bosses office because one (or two) of my staff visited some banned political sites, and he got a visit from the national intelligence agency.
I've had guards and police tell me that I can't film or record audio.
I just really want to get back to a place where it isn't illegal to say what you think, or to read what you want.
I'm not sure that leaving is the key or will help. I think you may be better off trying to change things where you are. Once you're in a country where you aren't a citizen, the rules change. You're a guest. You don't have the same kind of power that you do at home.
4wd:
Not taking sides here, (because, quite frankly, I don't give a s**t), but how is this different from:
While standing in a street you point to a house and ask the person next to you, "Which c*** lives in a house like this. Write the answer on a piece of paper and put it in his letterbox.", oblivious to the fact that both the owner of the property and a policeman are within earshot.
By inference you have called the owner of the property a c*** which could be marginally considered as slander.
-4wd (April 17, 2012, 07:26 PM)
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It's very different.
First, tweeting is not analogous to putting a letter in someone's mailbox. A tweet isn't sent to a specific person - it is posted to your own account. A letter that is put in someone's mailbox is directed at them.-Renegade (April 17, 2012, 07:40 PM)
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In my example, you are not putting a letter in someone's letterbox - you are asking the public to do it. The same could be said for the twitter post, you are asking a question in public and directing them to send the answer to the person targeted.
Second, the tweet was directed at a politician....
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The tweet was directed at the public, (twitter is not a private Q & A forum), targeting the politician. If it was directed at the politician, it would have been an email or a question posted in a public forum specifically asked of him.
We have different standards there. Public figures are open to scrutiny in ways that private people are not.
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That may be so but the method used in this case of standing on a platform and shouting out, "That person is a c***!", really isn't the way to do it, (unless, of course, they deserved it and you're willing to accept the consequences of doing it that way).
What can I say, he got his 15 minutes of fame - why is he so unhappy.
Renegade:
We'll probably never see eye-to-eye on this. Oh well. To each his own.
That may be so but the method used in this case of standing on a platform and shouting out, "That person is a c***!", really isn't the way to do it, (unless, of course, they deserved it and you're willing to accept the consequences of doing it that way).
-4wd (April 17, 2012, 08:10 PM)
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If that isn't the way to do it, then what is? Not a good road to go down. Who am I or who are you (or anyone else) to tell someone what they can and cannot say?
It's a derogatory metaphor. That's all. Given that it was directed at a politician, it's difficult to imagine that it wasn't very well deserved at an absolute minimum. :P ;D
What can I say, he got his 15 minutes of fame - why is he so unhappy.
-4wd (April 17, 2012, 08:10 PM)
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Well, being arrested for speech perhaps? :P
40hz is very articulate and well spoken. I, on the other hand, and from time to time, tend to just puke out venom. Quite often we end up saying more or less the same things.
Now, should I be arrested because I didn't say things "the right way"? This, to me, seems somewhat ridiculous.
4wd:
We'll probably never see eye-to-eye on this. Oh well. To each his own. -Renegade (April 17, 2012, 08:49 PM)
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You're right of course :Thmbsup:
That may be so but the method used in this case of standing on a platform and shouting out, "That person is a c***!", really isn't the way to do it, (unless, of course, they deserved it and you're willing to accept the consequences of doing it that way).
-4wd (April 17, 2012, 08:10 PM)
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If that isn't the way to do it, then what is? Not a good road to go down. Who am I or who are you (or anyone else) to tell someone what they can and cannot say?
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The point I was making, (in my roundabout fashion), is that the word c*** is still considered an obscenity in quite a few countries and publicly inferring someone is one is likely to get you in trouble.
The correct non-obscene way would have been: 'Which vulva lives in a house like this. Answers on a postcard to #bexleycouncil.'
But, of course, probably close to half the population wouldn't know what that meant and the other half would have thought they read 'volvo' :P
Renegade:
We'll probably never see eye-to-eye on this. Oh well. To each his own. -Renegade (April 17, 2012, 08:49 PM)
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You're right of course :Thmbsup:
-4wd (April 17, 2012, 10:56 PM)
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Hahahaha~! Pretty much. Explanation below... ;)
The point I was making, (in my roundabout fashion), is that the word c*** is still considered an obscenity in quite a few countries and publicly inferring someone is one is likely to get you in trouble.
The correct non-obscene way would have been: 'Which vulva lives in a house like this. Answers on a postcard to #bexleycouncil.'
But, of course, probably close to half the population wouldn't know what that meant and the other half would have thought they read 'volvo' :P
-4wd (April 17, 2012, 10:56 PM)
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I see now what you mean.
We have fundamentally different ideas about what "obscenity" is.
Very often people interpret the commandment:
"Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."
To mean:
NSFW due to VULGARITY
Saying any of:
Fuck, damn, shit, piss, cunt, etc.
(God's name isn't "fuck" or "shit". That just kind of seems obvious to me. ;D )
Or using "Jesus Christ" or "God" in an ejaculation (it's a technical linguistic term), as in, "Oh, Jesus Christ!" or "Oh God!", do not violate the above commandment.
I don't take it that way. I take it that praying "in the name of the LORD thy God" for something vain, e.g. some trinket that you really don't need or cursing your neighbour to die, violates the commandment.
Consequently, I don't find, "F*** you!" to be violating that commandment, while I would find, "I hope that God strikes you dead," to violate it.
THE SHORT POINT
That's a round about way of saying that I do not find VULGAR language to be obscene.
What I *DO* find obscene is telling other people what they can and cannot believe or think or say.
So in this particular case, I don't find the tweet obscene, but find that his being punished/censored is the part that is obscene.
At the end of the day, we simply have very different ideas about what constitutes obscenity. I simply see vulgarity where you see obscenity.
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