Blasphemy law.

Turtwig

Trolls are common everywhere but I still don't get the justification or reasoning behind the specifics of this.

Dav wrote: »

I don't know why a very small number of members here chose to ignore my warning, but it is my responsibility to this site to ensure that when notified of potentially illegal content on it, that I must remove it.

I made a pretty clear warning about what I would do should such nonsense continue but that was ignored, so I'm not going to be permanently banning the parties involved for a week and I have removed the offending thread in it's entirety.

This is my job and I simply will not entertain being questioned about how it's done - my word on this site is, if you'll pardon the expression, law and whilst most of you will never have seen me stepping in anywhere on Boards taking this sort of action, I'm left with little choice in this particular instance.

The Blasphemy law in Ireland is a load of nonsense. No one wanted it, no one needed it and in my personal opinion it was little more than political smokescreen at a time when Ireland has real problems that need real solutions. As was mentioned in the thread, even the law makers themselves claim that it's unworkable. This is the sort of thing that's bound to make you feel anything but confident about your elected representatives.

The Defamation law in Ireland is equally a load of nonsense, it takes the notion of "innocent until proven guilty" and turns it completely on it's head and punishes anyone who would dare speak up about something negative and tells them that unless they have exceptionally deep pockets to pay their way to a high court victory, they have no entitlement to voice and anyone who helps them have a voice is just as guilty as they are despite having nothing to do with whatever issue is at hand.

Both of these *ARE* the law of this land and as a business that has its offices in the Republic of Ireland, Boards.ie Ltd is bound by these and every other law in the Irish statue. I as an employee of Boards.ie Ltd have an obligation to act in the company's best interests and keep us on the side of the law. Being compliant with this law is not up for discussion. When the company is officially notified about something that is in breach of the law (as we were by an email earlier today), we have to act or we become responsible for it and we are not going to court for your ignorance (I'm speaking directly to you valknut).

It's been a very long time since I've had to step in to After Hours to deal with this sort of thing - that's a credit to the community here and especially to the mods who've worked exceptionally hard to turn this forum from the downward spiral it was on, so I sincerely thank you all for collectively agreeing that this should be a place of sometimes serious and sometimes frivolous discussions of all kinds, but that there are ways and means to talk to to one another and about any given subject that keeps everything civil, legal and above all fun. AH used to cause us one serious legal threat a week, but now I really cannot remember the last time anything here caused us any bother, so if it seems like I'm coming down on this particular issues extremely hard, I am because I am not prepared to let the forum slip and let all your hard work start to come undone.

Thank you all for your time and whether you're happy about my actions or not, I do hope you can at least respect that 1) I have no choice and 2) I'm far more interested in seeing your community thrive rather than having its members (and by extension this entire site) once again branded as ignorant and petulant children because of a few bad eggs with some sort of axe to grind.

Regarding the bolded and underlined bits did you actually check with the boards legal team? It is rather odd that given the publications of blasphemy that were made by Atheist Ireland and others in attempts to be charged and punished under the law no such charges were brought. So I find myself confused here a lot. I'm just saying I think you made an error of judgement on the actual power of the law in question. Can we please have a clarification as to whether this was your own personal opinion or you have indeed made this decision in consultation with others?

I understand whatever you says goes, but I think we as members are entitled to a justification and, of course, to know where exactly the line is for what's acceptable?

Thanks,

Dades

Personally, I think there were was enough vitriol in that thread to warrant closing it without having to resort to referencing that sham blasphemy law. Sure, we have to ensure we don't facilitate the law being broken, but we can close threads here on the back of our own judgement.

Anything that suggests we should take that thing seriously make me a bit mad.

RDM_83 again

I agree completely and am unsure what has changed that has made this law suddenly of issue to the site considering its been in force for a number of years now and it was never used as a justification to restrict the more blatent CC bashing posters/threads. Additionally since this is clearly a sitewide not AH issue how does it apply to AA for example.

PS I am in favour of restriciton to some extent on this type of posting but fail to see the current justification as particularly valid and what triggered it given the behaviour that has been tolerated on this site in relation to other religions

Nodin

Dades wrote: »

Personally, I think there were was enough vitriol in that thread to warrant closing it without having to resort to referencing that sham blasphemy law. Sure, we have to ensure we don't facilitate the law being broken, but we can close threads here on the back of our own judgement.

Anything that suggests we should take that thing seriously make me a bit mad.

The thread wasn't just locked, it was deleted. Given the small number of posts that could be considered to have 'transgressed' I presume that was done to show who is "the law" and make an example.

Nodin

RDM_83 again wrote: »

I agree completely and am unsure what has changed that has made this law suddenly of issue to the site considering its been in force for a number of years now and it was never used as a justification to restrict the more blatent CC bashing posters/threads. Additionally since this is clearly a sitewide not AH issue how does it apply to AA for example.

PS I am in favour of restriciton to some extent on this type of posting but fail to see the current justification as particularly valid and what triggered it given the behaviour that has been tolerated on this site in relation to other religions

I'd suggest its down to the personal bias of the Admin rather than a real concern for the law, myself.

Wibbs

Jernal wrote: »

Trolls are common everywhere but I still don't get the justification or reasoning behind the specifics of this.

You and me and many others both J. If gobshítes are posting trolling guff then infract/ban them as per usual, but a blanket ban on such discussion? As I said in the AH thread one could have a theological and moral debate on the subject that could easily point out with solid theological backing that yes in our terms such things would be considered moral abominations and one could have an opposing side that could show with similar theological backing that this was a wrong/inaccurate take on things.

So Islam and some of the morality, particularly of it's founder are out of bounds. OK, then what about kiddie fiddler Catholic priest comments? Are they OK? Are they OK if backed up by stats that suggest there may be something to this? (ditto if one shows that well repugnant guff is going on today under the guise of medieval "truth" and "mores" in other faiths?) What about the Catholic church royally screwed up a nascent independent Ireland, with women being second class citizens and gay folks being oppressed and all that. Is that OK or will an email from the official clergy cut that down to size too? Or is it just the more exotic faiths that are sacred(no pun)?

I'm saying this as a card carrying, full on, unrepentant agnostic, the most hated of all points of view, both atheists and theists hate us equally for being lazy, sit on the fence cowardly bastards(with pretty good reason on both sides) , but what the ever living fcuk?

Dades

Nodin wrote: »

I'd suggest its down to the personal bias of the Admin rather than a real concern for the law, myself.

Small point - but Dav isn't an admin - he's the Community Manager. This distinction is why he sees the need to make a Big Deal out of this, for better or for worse.

Sarky

I hope tomorrow brings more clarity. Blasphemy is, like, 95% of what I do.

Cody Pomeray

Can I just aska question about reporting.

It seems to me that if nobody reported legally dubious posts, or if the report post function did not exist, a lot of the site's legal problems would disappear.

I have reported posts myself in the past which I thought were on legally shaky ground. But, upon reflection, if nobody had reported it, the likelihood of it becoming legally troublesome for the site would have diminished enormously.

On the other hand, if a post is reported and (erroneously, of through forgetfulness) no action is taken where it ought to have been taken, a liability may arise for the website.

So is the report post function a hindrance or a help?

Would your legal concerns not be diminished by ridding yourselves of it, or discretely discouraging it in relation to issues like blasphemy?

P_1

Sarky wrote: »

I hope tomorrow brings more clarity. Blasphemy is, like, 95% of what I do.

Yeah, not much we can really be told at a few minutes to midnight to be fair. I can imagine this being a major headache for the lads in the office tomorrow morning judging by the reactions in a few forums this evening.

BonsaiKitten

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

Can I just aska question about reporting.

It seems to me that if nobody reported legally dubious posts, or if the report post function did not exist, a lot of the site's legal problems would disappear.

I have reported posts myself in the past which I thought were on legally shaky ground. But, upon reflection, if nobody had reported it, the likelihood of it becoming legally troublesome for the site would have diminished enormously.

On the other hand, if a post is reported and (erroneously, of through forgetfulness) no action is taken where it ought to have been taken, a liability may arise for the website.

So is the report post function a hindrance or a help?

Would your legal concerns not be diminished by ridding yourselves of it, or discretely discouraging it in relation to issues like blasphemy?

If the report the post function didn't exist, it would be much harder for the site to catch troublesome posts surely? Mods can't read every post, it'd be an impossible job.

I assume most legal threats don't come in in reported posts, they're letters or emails based on posts still hosted on the site.

P_1

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

Can I just aska question about reporting.

It seems to me that if nobody reported legally dubious posts, or if the report post function did not exist, a lot of the site's legal problems would disappear.

I have reported posts myself in the past which I thought were on legally shaky ground. But, upon reflection, if nobody had reported it, the likelihood of it becoming legally troublesome for the site would have diminished enormously.

On the other hand, if a post is reported and (erroneously, of through forgetfulness) no action is taken where it ought to have been taken, a liability may arise for the website.

So is the report post function a hindrance or a help?

Would your legal concerns not be diminished by ridding yourselves of it, or discretely discouraging it in relation to issues like blasphemy?

I can't see that working. Take Last.fm as an example, one of the things it was criticized for (aside from the whole anonymous posting thing) was the fact that there was no mechanism on the site for reporting troublesome posts.

Dades

The reported post function has no bearing whatsoever on boards' liability in legal scenarios. Something is either posted or not.

What the removal of the RP system would do would make it harder to find and remove legally dubious content.

wes

I think the decision will have a chilling effect on discussions on the site, and I was rather surprised by the whole thing, as much the same sort of thing has been said on boards in the past, and it was not handled in this manner.

Now of course, I am not fully privy to boards legal concerns in this instance, and ultimately I respect that the management have made there decision on the basis of there own best interests, but I do find the whole situation to be rather odd.

Cody Pomeray

BonsaiKitten wrote: »

If the report the post function didn't exist, it would be much harder for the site to catch troublesome posts surely? Mods can't read every post, it'd be an impossible job.

It would be harder to catch troublesome posts, yes. It would be a balancing exercise between quality and liability.

I don't know what the current reliance is on reported posts. Maybe this site is too big.

I was just thinking of my own reporting history. If I saw something that appeared defamatory, for example, my instinct would be to press 'report'. In hindsight, that's in fact likely to increase the site's liability, in the event of the reported post being overlooked or erroneously given the all clear (which could easily happen, you can't expect that everyone reading those reports will be authorities on the complex maze of rules, legitimate defences and precedent in what Tennyson called the lawless science of our law.

Cody Pomeray

Dades wrote: »

The reported post function has no bearing whatsoever on boards' liability in legal scenarios. Something is either posted or not.

The e-commerce directive...??

Karl Stein

Can the Flying Spaghetti Monster be blasphemed?

Howard Juneau

In hindsight, if an email from a solicitor has been sent, the thread should have been locked until boards own legal team had been consulted. Then a decision made as to whether it should be deleted or reopened.

MagicMarker

I find it very hard to believe that, after in depth legal counsel, it was considered necessary to highlight this monumentally retarded law in such a way. If this is genuinely a concern for boards.ie then I may as well get to work on constructing that nuclear fall out shelter in me back garden, because it seems anything is possible now.

Filibuster

That was a weird post on AH. If boards.ie only allow nanny state approved discussion they might as well close up shop.

Sarky

Sarky wrote: »

I hope tomorrow brings more clarity. Blasphemy is, like, 95% of what I do.

Is the Esoteric Order of Dagon covered by the blasphemy laws? if not, you're all a bunch of.. er .. meanie faces.

Filibuster wrote: »

That was a weird post on AH. If boards.ie only allow nanny state approved discussion they might as well close up shop.

So are you going to put money forward to pay for all the fines and legal fees that boards.ie will accumulate?

Sarky

Deleted User wrote: »

Is the Esoteric Order of Dagon covered by the blasphemy laws? if not, you're all a bunch of.. er .. meanie faces.

Why bother with the legal route when the Deep Ones can come round to your house and smash your windows in? :pac:

Cookie_Monster

Charlie Rock wrote: »

Can the Flying Spaghetti Monster be blasphemed?

well he's just as real as god or any of the rest of them.

Overheal

Charlie Rock wrote: »

Can the Flying Spaghetti Monster be blasphemed?

Only when eaten. But even at that the FSM is kind of like the God Emperor of Dune in that its state of existences is infinitely divisible, yet also delicious.

Nodin

Overheal wrote: »

Only when eaten. But even at that the FSM is kind of like the God Emperor of Dune in that its state of existences is infinitely divisible, yet also delicious.

You ate the God Emperor? Ye dirty fecker ye.....

clairefontaine

I'm utterly baffled by this. Is this illegal as in J walking illegal or as in murder illegal?

I regularly make disparaging comments about nearly every religious figure there is, aside from the Quakers.

Seriously, how illegal is it? And who is responsible, the user or boards? Can't you guys get insurance and or get users to sign some kind of waiver?

And what the hell are you guys going to do when this stuff comes in?

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/libe/dv/11_revframework_statute_/11_revframework_statute_en.pdf

Penn

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

Can I just aska question about reporting.

It seems to me that if nobody reported legally dubious posts, or if the report post function did not exist, a lot of the site's legal problems would disappear.

I have reported posts myself in the past which I thought were on legally shaky ground. But, upon reflection, if nobody had reported it, the likelihood of it becoming legally troublesome for the site would have diminished enormously.

On the other hand, if a post is reported and (erroneously, of through forgetfulness) no action is taken where it ought to have been taken, a liability may arise for the website.

So is the report post function a hindrance or a help?

Would your legal concerns not be diminished by ridding yourselves of it, or discretely discouraging it in relation to issues like blasphemy?

As per Dav's post:

Being compliant with this law is not up for discussion. When the company is officially notified about something that is in breach of the law (as we were by an email earlier today)

The posts in question were reported and dealt with by the mods as per usual. But if an email was sent to Boards HQ, that's completely separate and has no bearing on the normal Report function.

Cody Pomeray

Penn wrote: »

The posts in question were reported and dealt with by the mods as per usual. But if an email was sent to Boards HQ, that's completely separate and has no bearing on the normal Report function.

I know, but I would just assume that reported posts with a litigious character cause more mod/admin headaches than emails to the site.

I'm not necessarily suggesting the report post function be abandoned, although it depends how useful it is.

No, I'm mainly asking whether it is not the case that the site's owners would prefer us not to report defamatory and blasphemous concerns. Boards.ie is protected so long as it is unaware of an illegal publication by a user.

Since Dav has made clear his opinions on blasphemy and defamation law in this country, the natural response is possibly not to report blasphemous and defamatory content, so it just doesn't become an issue for the site.

Because the consequence of defamatory or blasphemous content being made known to the site, and (for whatever reason, including oversight) no action being taken, are that a criminal/ civil liability will accrue to the site directly.

Protection is taken away when the site is made aware.

dr.bollocko

Dades wrote: »

Small point - but Dav isn't an admin - he's the Community Manager. This distinction is why he sees the need to make a Big Deal out of this, for better or for worse.

I have an issue with taking a community to task for the posts of one of its less regular and obviously more troublesome, newer, agenda driven members. We're not all collectively responsible for the outlying ranting of a few idiots drooling on their keyboards.

Dav

If you see it that way Dr B, then I'm really sorry, that wasn't the intention at all. However, when I say that something is to be done on this site, it's not up for discussion and the drooling idiots need to have that made clear. I don't want to be some sort of authoritarian overlord, but the blatant and deliberate way this was ignored actually made me cross. The AH Community hasn't done anything wrong here, I think I made that abundantly clear in my post last night (but I guess I didn't since no one seems to have got that) and I don't know how my enforcing Irish law is "taking them to task."

I don't know why "Boards.ie in complying with the law shocker" seems to be news to so many people. Compliance with the law (no matter how bloody stupid and unworkable it may seem) is not up for discussion. At all. I'm not going to be "nice" to an idiot because someone might take offence - the internet and especially this site, was a much, much nicer place when we didn't have to be nice or fair to idiots.

To clarify, reporting a post is still vital to this site running the way we want it. If we had no moderation and no means of reporting post, legally speaking, we'd probably be a lot better off, but all you have to do is look at places like YouTube's comments section to see how well that works out.

Reporting a post is not the same thing as notifying the office. We even say in our Legal Guidelines that if you find something that potentially breaches the law, you have to tell us directly as we would never ask volunteers to deal with it directly.

Dades

Over the years, I've sanctioned many posters and removed many posts from posters such as the one that kicked this off. The reasons given were for trolling, flaming, going off topic, being a dick - or any combination of same. We already have enough tools at our disposal to keep our house in order, and close any such thread and delete any 'issue' posts.

I understand it was an email regarding the legality that prompted the mention of it, but I figure we can look after our own house using our own rules, and not publicly cow to a law we all know to be offensive to free-speech and to those who've suffered at the hands of the religions who would benefit from its protection.

drkpower

Dav wrote: »

If you see it that way Dr B, then I'm really sorry, that wasn't the intention at all. However, when I say that something is to be done on this site, it's not up for discussion and the drooling idiots need to have that made clear. I don't want to be some sort of authoritarian overlord, but the blatant and deliberate way this was ignored actually made me cross. The AH Community hasn't done anything wrong here, I think I made that abundantly clear in my post last night (but I guess I didn't since no one seems to have got that) and I don't know how my enforcing Irish law is "taking them to task."

I dont think people are concerned by your taking some droooling idiots to task (we need more of that...!).

It seems to me that people are concerned that you have chosen yourself to define the boundaries of the blasphemy law, when noone knows where those boundaries are and where most legal commentators believe the law is all but unenforceable. You could simply have banned the drooling idiots and closed the thread.

By doing as you have done, you have likely open up a potential can of worms on any thread that discusses/lampoons/criticises religon. Also, by someone 'in your position' drawing the line in such a fashion, you may have actually put the site at an increased risk of legal ramifications rather than less (although in fairness, the risk of legal sanction arising out of this blasphemy law is ridiculously low).

Wibbs

Then someone had better go through the Atheism & Agnosticism forum with a fine toothed comb because on the basis of the AH thread it's breaking this law all over the place. The Cool vids and pics forum also had a couple of things potentially offensive to the potentially offended too.

Then again not so long ago we had a moderator of one of the spiritual forums appearing to condone wife beating, but that's alright like and it's very arguably a part of his faith. Not offensive or illegal at all.

Cody Pomeray

Dav wrote: »

Reporting a post is not the same thing as notifying the office. We even say in our Legal Guidelines that if you find something that potentially breaches the law, you have to tell us directly as we would never ask volunteers to deal with it directly.

I confess I didn't read your guidelines, and didn't know that.

Maybe it might help to emphasize this in some of the more contentious forums?

I think a lot of well meaning posters would think they were doing the right thing by reporting a post they see as defamatory/ incitement, etc, but obviously that might be doing more harm than good.

Dav

Calling the prophet Muhammed a sick pervert and paedophile in the manner which the numpty involved did was designed to do nothing more than insult and outrage and any Muslim person who read it would have been perfectly justified in being offended. That is why I acted. It was bigoted and intended to offend and so was pretty clear cut for me.

Wibbs wrote: »

Then again not so long ago we had a moderator of one of the spiritual forums appearing to condone wife beating, but that's alright like and it's very arguably a part of his faith. Not offensive or illegal at all.

We didn't have that at all. Not even slightly. We had a moderator of the Islam forum talk about and quote from the section of the Quoran that discusses that issue and a subsequent total condemnation of said section by the very same mod. Not once did he condone it, he was quoting it for the academic value of the discussion.

drkpower

Dav wrote: »

Calling the prophet Muhammed a sick pervert and paedophile in the manner which the numpty involved did was designed to do nothing more than insult and outrage and any Muslim person who read it would have been perfectly justified in being offended. That is why I acted. It was bigoted and intended to offend and so was pretty clear cut for me.

Oh dear....

I would suggest that you take a step back and have a think about all of this before you say too much on this. The line between 'calling the prophet Muhammed a sick pervert and paedophile' and critiquing the prophet and his followers for some of their actions can be quite a fine one. The line between 'designed to insult & outrage' and designed to do a million other things can equally be very fine.

I dont want to get into that debate but what i would say is that if you dont row back a bit fairly quickly on the stance you have taken, you will either need to close down quite a few fora on this site or police them extremely rigorously.

LeinsterDub

I'm entirely confused are these threads to be removed?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055075741
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054942944
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055853778

Should i refrain from post for fear of the ban hammer?

What difference does a email make? You/boards are aware of these threads ,if I report them or email you will you then delete them?

Dades

Would people please stop drawing attention to threads in A&A.
I'm less worried about Dav seeing them than a whole raft of eager new converts to blasphemy.

Dav

Had the post said "Muhammed was married to several women including a 9 year old girl" or indeed "Muhammed was a polygamist" there'd have been no problem and the post the OP made would have remained, but he deliberately chose his words to cause offence. If some people choose to be offended my making those factual statements, then they can take a running jump as far as I'm concerned.

I think this was one of the few clear cut cases of a breach of law for me. I don't see why we have to draw lines in the sand and not just use common sense for this - that's what I did here. I don't know how anyone can defend the manner in which the comments were made.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

LeinsterDub wrote: »

I'm entirely confused are these threads to be removed?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055075741
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054942944
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055853778

Should i refrain from post for fear of the ban hammer?

What difference does a email make? You/boards are aware of these threads ,if I report them or email you will you then delete them?

I fail to see the comparison.
One of those threads is quite obviously a humorous thread not claiming to be something that should be taken seriously.
Another of those threads is about Church scandals, nothing wrong on commenting on an ongoing or recent scandal in any church.
The other one is a thread about a poor unfortunate killed by a lion because his faith had him believe that God would protect him.
None of those threads would appear to me to be designed to cause outrage or insult to anyone, unlike the relevant posts in the now removed thread.
Context matters here, the context in the funny side of religion is far different than the context in which a poster claims that a specific religion and its adherents promote child rape and that its prophet was a perverted paedophile.

Wibbs

Dav wrote: »

It was bigoted and intended to offend and so was pretty clear cut for me.

By that metric then the A&A forum is also full of offensive posts.

We didn't have that at all. Not even slightly. We had a moderator of the Islam forum talk about and quote from the section of the Quoran that discusses that issue and a subsequent total condemnation of said section by the very same mod. Not once did he condone it, he was quoting it for the academic value of the discussion.

Rewriting history just a wee bit there Dav. If he had done as you say, then there wouldn't have been near the overall WTF about it at the time. What he actually said?

irishconvert wrote:

dlofnep wrote:

I mentioned it because Islam permits for a man to hit his wife.

Yes it does, under certain limited circumstances. It doesn't allow severe or regular beating of women. Women are allowed to divorce their husbands so if they are being abused then they can take this right.

irishconvert wrote:

I don't know, I haven't been in a situation where I felt it was appropriate. I stress that hitting a wife is to be regarded is a last resort.

irishconvert wrote:

To get to the stage of hitting your wife, you first have to be in a position where you are so annoyed you are no longer sleeping in the same bed as her.

Where's the oul "total condemnation" you speak of? Cos I can't see it. All I see is "it's a last resort, but applicable in such cases". Like I said you're rewriting history, a history that anyone can have a search of.

Oh and another (ex)mod of same forum was a bit wishy washy about condemning stoning adulterers to death.

KERSPLAT!

A lot of people have asked about the other threads/posts that they believed to fall foul of this law, so what is Boards stance on these threads/posts? I know you having questions hurled at you left, right and centre isn't ideal but I'd imagine that that is one of the more important questions. What is to happen all the other threads/posts that people find grossly offensive? Why is the abuse of other churches and religions not actioned in the same way?

Gatling

But surely if a chap was or actually did marry a 9yo in this day and age he/ they would be a pedophile so when some body jumps up and down quoting blasphemy laws incase somebody gets upset at another's persons god /demi god and doesnt seem right considering the law hasn't been contested in the last century at least

LeinsterDub

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

I fail to see the comparison.
One of those threads is quite obviously a humorous thread not claiming to be something that should be taken seriously.
Another of those threads is about Church scandals, nothing wrong on commenting on an ongoing or recent scandal in any church.
The other one is a thread about a poor unfortunate killed by a lion because his faith had him believe that God would protect him.
None of those threads would appear to me to be designed to cause outrage or insult to anyone, unlike the relevant posts in the now removed thread.
Context matters here, the context in the funny side of religion is far different than the context in which a poster claims that a specific religion and its adherents promote child rape and that its prophet was a perverted paedophile.

So if someone was to say a certain prophet was a perverted paedophile but then used it's super grand? Does the law take into account emoticons?

drkpower

Dav wrote: »

I think this was one of the few clear cut cases of a breach of law for me. I don't see why we have to draw lines in the sand and not just use common sense for this - that's what I did here. I don't know how anyone can defend the manner in which the comments were made.

It is not about defending the manner in which the comments were made. It is about your deciding to interpret the blasphemy law in such a way as to nail your colours to the mast as to what consitutes a breach of the law when you really dont know that the ingredients of the law have been breached. You just kind of feel that they probably were......

For instance, was outrage - in fact - caused among a substantial number of muslims by those comments?
And what is a substantial number of muslims....?:)
And what does 'outrage' mean in law?

Legal commentators have not reached anything close to a consensus on what it would take to breach this law. You have just publicised what you (and therefore arguably Boards) consider to be a breach of the law; that potentially puts you, the site and even its users at potential risk.

And worst of all, there was no need for any of it.

Penn

drkpower wrote: »

Oh dear....

I would suggest that you take a step back and have a think about all of this before you say too much on this. The line between 'calling the prophet Muhammed a sick pervert and paedophile' and critiquing the prophet and his followers for some of their actions can be quite a fine one. The line between 'designed to insult & outrage' and designed to do a million other things can equally be very fine.

I dont want to get into that debate but what i would say is that if you dont row back a bit fairly quickly on the stance you have taken, you will either need to close down quite a few fora on this site or police them extremely rigorously.

With respect, I saw many of the posts (which have now been deleted). I agree there can be quite a fine line sometimes. However, the posts in question were clearly on one side of it, and not the good one. The main poster was pursuing an agenda to continuously make those posts at every available opportunity. It wasn't part of a discussion.

IvySlayer

So any threads/posts referencing the fact that God is evil because he committed genocide is to be removed?

IvySlayer

Penn wrote: »

With respect, I saw many of the posts (which have now been deleted). I agree there can be quite a fine line sometimes. However, the posts in question were clearly on one side of it, and not the good one. The main poster was pursuing an agenda to continuously make those posts at every available opportunity. It wasn't part of a discussion.

Then he was a troll and needed to be banned. Not have the Blasphemy Police come in

Corkfeen

Dav wrote: »

Had the post said "Muhammed was married to several women including a 9 year old girl" or indeed "Muhammed was a polygamist" there'd have been no problem and the post the OP made would have remained, but he deliberately chose his words to cause offence. If some people choose to be offended my making those factual statements, then they can take a running jump as far as I'm concerned.

I think this was one of the few clear cut cases of a breach of law for me. I don't see why we have to draw lines in the sand and not just use common sense for this - that's what I did here. I don't know how anyone can defend the manner in which the comments were made.

Can you really call it a clear cut breach of the law if the law has never been enforced and is unlikely to ever be? There is no clear cut case if it's viewed to be unenforceable. It seems more like something that would just be deleted followed by banning the poster for a bit. Bringing the blasphemy law into it is just particularly odd.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

LeinsterDub wrote: »

So if someone was to say a certain prophet was a perverted paedophile but then used it's super grand? Does the law take into account emoticons?

That's a somewhat churish reply.
I was addressing the poster who linked three specific threads.
If a thread is by its very definition humorous then the context in which posters contribute is going to be different than in a serious thread.
That said, what was posted yesterday ( and I saw it and hit the report button myself) was vile in both its content and construction.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

IvySlayer wrote: »

So any threads/posts referencing the fact that God is evil because he committed genocide is to be removed?

You might need to specify which God.