Man Jailed for Four Months Over Facebook Page Rating WomenChris | InformationLiberationAug. 22, 2012 |
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Offend people on Facebook, go to jail. Via ABC News (Aus): A central Victorian man who posted offensive personal comments about women on Facebook has been sentenced to four months in jail.The judge sure as hell did "send a message," he sent a message the government will jail you for your speech. Of course, they say he "took note" of his guilty plea, but rather than exhibit normal human empathy and reason, he chose to "act in his official capacity" rather than "as an individual," as Albert Jay Nock once described in "Anarchist's Progress" in The American Mercury (1927); § III : To Abolish Crime or to Monopolize It? Once, I remember, I ran across the case of a boy who had been sentenced to prison, a poor, scared little brat, who had intended something no worse than mischief, and it turned out to be a crime. The judge said he disliked to sentence the lad; it seemed the wrong thing to do; but the law left him no option. I was struck by this. The judge, then, was doing something as an official that he would not dream of doing as a man; and he could do it without any sense of responsibility, or discomfort, simply because he was acting as an official and not as a man. On this principle of action, it seemed to me that one could commit almost any kind of crime without getting into trouble with one's conscience.CNET reports the law he broke was "Part 10.6 of the Australian Criminal Code, Section 474.17: using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence; and publishing objectionable material online." What one person considers "offensive" is entirely arbitrary and differs from person to person. This law could be used to jail literally every citizen in Australia if the government so pleased. The UK government has a very similar law on the books, and they too regularly jail people for posting "offensive" tweets and even anti-war Facebook comments. The U.S. of course has similar laws, and new ones are being pushed under the auspices of "anti-bullying" legislation. Heck, Anwar al-Awlaki was assassinated in a drone strike for his speech alone, the U.S. even killed his 16-yr-old American son for good measure. How's that for offensive? _ Chris runs the website InformationLiberation.com, you can read more of his writings here. Follow infolib on twitter here. |