Senator Lorraine Higgins wants to introduce a bill to jail trolls!

Little CuChulainn

DeVore wrote: »

So, I was right.

Last year, for instance, a man received a four-year suspended sentence after he posted vile sexual messages on a website about a woman. Paul Monaghan, from Kilrooskey, Co Roscommon, anonymously posted the woman's full name and address on the website and suggested she was offering sexual favours. The gardaí tracked him down using his IP address and he was successfully prosecuted for harassment.

Right about what? That isn't revenge porn, a threat to kill or an incitement to kill so it doesn't cover the three scenarios you mentioned. Nor does it cover any of the other scenarios I mentioned. And to top it off, it was done over an eight month period, so it was persistent negative behaviour which does indeed come under harassment as I've said a number of times.

Tony EH

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Personally I just want to see a return to a world in which things written on the internet were not taken seriously or personally, and people offended by them simply turned off the computer.

And it's definitely not just a case of adults being older and wiser either - I and others I know used online chatrooms etc when we were 10-11 (be honest, how many of ye actually obeyed the "no signing up before 13" rule?) and when f*cked up stuff was said, the standard reaction was "this is the internet, it's weird, just go with it" rather than "someone said something mean, time to question my entire world view and get incredibly upset and bitter about anonymous slagging matches".

Are people genuinely denying that we've somehow sleepwalked into a world in which many people's sensibilities have turned to complete egg shells? The internet was pretty much as widely used ten years ago and the first social networking sites were already well used by teens (anyone remember bebo?) yet people actually taking it personally and getting upset over online nastiness was incredibly rare. The attitude back then was "f*ck the haters", not "take every anonymous insult as an affront to your soul".

It's just another case of victimhood olympics that's been growing for the last 20 odd years. Everybody's "offence" is front and centre, whether real or imagined.

The problem is that we are turning even the possibility of an "affront" into a weapon and legislating for people's "feelings". It's politically correct defence mechanisms morphed into preemptive strikes and my suspicion is that these "internet" laws are more about a larger attempt to restrict people's movements, speech and activity online rather than an effort to truly affect change in the "bullying" of people on the web. I also question how broad these laws are and are going to be in the future.

TBH, most online shenanigans are remarkably weak when compared to what I would hear in real life when I was growing up. Chatrooms didn't exist when I was 10 and when someone said something nasty you simply got on with your life. These days, everyone logs their most mundane activity on their fucking blog or friendface or invokes Twitterati outrage and crap that should be forgotten about in a healthy manner is given an artificial life on the web for those who wish to indulge in such nonsense.

That's not to say that online bullying doesn't happen or isn't a real situation for some people. It happens. But in a large amount of cases it's simply a matter of not replying or just doing something else.

In cases where bullying is serious, there are already harassment laws in place to deal with that.

hatrickpatrick

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I'll start with the "inalienable right to free speech" type of crap that you advocate.

The Black Oil

I wonder if Lorraine will engage in a public debate on this.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/concerns-cited-over-proposed-social-media-legislation-1.2341729

A leading legal academic has described proposed legislation to create new offences for sending abusive messages on social media networks as ‘problematic’.

Dr Eoin O’Dell, associate Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin was speaking at a seminar organised in Dublin on Saturday by the Dublin Freelance branch of the National Union of Journalists on how to handle online harassment.

Dr O’Dell told the seminar that a wide range of potential criminal offences were already on the statute books in Ireland, and that both proposed bills were using bad provisions of existing laws to “make things worse”.

Senator Higgins’ bill would allow a court to make orders available even where no crime had taken place and no conviction could be made, which Dr O’Dell called “utterly bizarre”.

darkpagandeath

The Black Oil wrote: »

I wonder if Lorraine will engage in a public debate on this.

They want it problematic and very loose and broad. That's the whole point.

DeVore

I've been trying to get a debate with her but she strangely has gone all shy... for once. Newstalk couldn't get her to even come on AFTER me when I did the George Hook show.


Btw, in case any of you think I'm bandwagonning here... I've been bangin' this drum for over 20 years.

https://twitter.com/DeVore/status/640869710117126145

(but please... ignore the hair. Look, Duran Duran were huge, it was the 90's, everyone was high etc etc...)

Stheno

DeVore wrote: »

I've been trying to get a debate with her but she strangely has gone all shy... for once. Newstalk couldn't get her to even come on AFTER me when I did the George Hook show.


Btw, in case any of you think I'm bandwagonning here... I've been bangin' this drum for over 20 years.

https://twitter.com/DeVore/status/640869710117126145

(but please... ignore the hair. Look, Duran Duran were huge, it was the 90's, everyone was high etc etc...)

Kayaks you're the spot of Simon le Bon there!

DeVore

I actually didn't like Duran Duran, but it was the early ninties.... we were coming out of the big-hair eighties.

K4t

conorh91 wrote: »

I urge anyone who is undecided about Lorraine Higgins' Bill to re-read it, to read the submissions on her bill from non-lobbyists, and to carefully consider the protections they would wish should be available to every bullied child growing up in Ireland.

If after reading these submissions, you disagree with the Bill, fine. But there has been far too much misleading information on this topic to date.

The offence of malicious electronics communications could become a minefield. The first offence is fair enough and laid with good intentions imo.

hatrickpatrick

The thing is, bills like this don't actually matter in practise because of technologies like Tor, i2p, VPNs in uncooperative regions, etc. It's always going to be possible to circumvent the law online anonymously if you know what you're doing. The point is that people should be allowed to speak their mind using their own identities. Ireland's laws around online free speech are already too restrictive - look at the lengths Boards has to go to in preventing bad reviews of anyone who threatens legal action, such as the whole Oxegen debacle a couple of years ago. Websites based in other countries don't have to do that - this is allowed because Ireland's defamation laws are so incredibly outlandish. If Higgins and Eames get their way, harshly criticising politicians will become as difficult using one's own real name as legitimately bashing a company is on websites hosted in Ireland. You can bet that any laws dressed up as anti bullying laws will go much, much, much further than that. Hell, Healy Eames was saying not too long ago that the backlash to her "wiffy" remark was the kind of thing she wanted to target - as if mocking a politician's ignorance is something people shouldn't be allowed to do.

Madness.

My name is URL

The Black Oil wrote: »

I wonder if Lorraine will engage in a public debate on this.

proposed legislation to create new offences for sending abusive messages on social media networks as ‘problematic’.

Having people who have repeatedly been rejected by their constituents in elections, pushing through and lobbying for changes in legislation; is problematic.

K4t

@hatrickpatrick -Eames is a fool, but a dangerous fool. Agree with all of that even if it is slightly ott.

darkpagandeath

K4t wrote: »

The offence of malicious electronics communications could become a minefield. The first offence is fair enough and laid with good intentions imo.

Good intentions my eye, You will fast find disagreement with TD's Ministers senators political party's classed as bullying threats and alike. Boards would be shut down fairly fast for one. Any site or forum with a large discourse against the current regime.

K4t

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Good intentions my eye, You will fast find disagreement with TD's Ministers senators political party's classed as bullying threats and alike. Boards would be shut down fairly fast for one. Any site or forum with a large discourse against the current regime.

I think the OTT applies to you too :pac:

darkpagandeath

K4t wrote: »

I think the OTT applies to you too :pac:

Sure they wanted to put people on a list to be able to watch porn via your internet service provider, You fancy going on that list ? You know under think of the children.

expectationlost

The Black Oil wrote: »

I wonder if Lorraine will engage in a public debate on this.

she was on rte radio with O'Dell http://podcast.rasset.ie/podcasts/audio/2015/0904/20150904_rteradio1-seanorourke-internetab_c20841510_20841516_232_.mp3

hatrickpatrick

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Sure they wanted to put people on a list to be able to watch porn via your internet service provider, You fancy going on that list ? You know under think of the children.

Was this ever proposed in Ireland? It's been implemented in the UK (although again, blocking Tor and i2p is incredibly complicated and if China can't completely manage it after so many years of internet filtering I highly doubt UK ISPs have in just a couple of months) but I've never heard it proposed for Irish ISPs.

Trabejo

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Was this ever proposed in Ireland? It's been implemented in the UK (although again, blocking Tor and i2p is incredibly complicated and if China can't completely manage it after so many years of internet filtering I highly doubt UK ISPs have in just a couple of months) but I've never heard it proposed for Irish ISPs.

She can suck my bell-end and try get my extradited from the jungles of Colombia back to miserable Ireland. I am off to Dominos to get lava cake.

20Cent

expectationlost wrote: »

she was on rte radio with O'Dell http://podcast.rasset.ie/podcasts/audio/2015/0904/20150904_rteradio1-seanorourke-internetab_c20841510_20841516_232_.mp3

Jaysus

"Unless posts are defamatory it is very difficult to get a conviction under defamation law"

Should hope so!

Tony EH

Christ, the Labour Party have really let themselves go in recent years. Between Alan Kelly, Jobbridge, the Irish Water debacle and this nonsense, you'd think they were actively trying to lose votes.

tayto lover

Tony EH wrote: »

Christ, the Labour Party have really let themselves go in recent years. Between Alan Kelly, Jobbridge, the Irish Water debacle and this nonsense, you'd think they were actively trying to lose votes.

They don't have to try anymore.
They will be decimated in the GE.

The Black Oil

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

If Higgins and Eames get their way, harshly criticising politicians will become as difficult using one's own real name as legitimately bashing a company is on websites hosted in Ireland. You can bet that any laws dressed up as anti bullying laws will go much, much, much further than that. Hell, Healy Eames was saying not too long ago that the backlash to her "wiffy" remark was the kind of thing she wanted to target - as if mocking a politician's ignorance is something people shouldn't be allowed to do.

I don't blame politicians for being clueless about the internet and it's not the first time Eames has put her foot in it. The backlash, and then the backlash against the backlash can get a bit tedious. I think we've all seen that at some point. I would imagine most of the responses towards her were of the Picard facepalm variety, some social media mutterings are because are people bored in work and there's significant part of Irish culture that simply enjoys taking the piss. :P According to this article she said (at the time) we should be discussing more important stuff like Syria, Greece, which is merely a deflection tactic on her part. The wiffy thing was in July and part of silly season. If herself and Higgins get this thing passed, are they going to follow up with resourcing the Garda computer crime unit or whomever and play the long game with regards to sorting out cyberbullying i.e. with education, etc. There's a terrible habit in this country, of rushing towards legislation, in a band-aid solution type way.

Tony EH

This kind stuff is easy politics. It's something that doesn't really mean much to them and it makes it look like they're doing something, instead of tackling the really important issues that plague the country.

Bull**** like FPN's for cyclists, Jobbridge and this cyber bullying nonsense are pretty meaningless in the end, but they can be used to justify a politician's existence and pay packet/pension.

They don't even have to engage with much (or any) real opposition over their nonsense either, because it's deemed small potatoes by other parties.