Freedom to offend online to be banned

Hitchens

Senators want to criminalise offending people online – and they’re dangerously misguided
http://jrnl.ie/2208065

Seems like Ms Eames wants to fix the internetty wiffy thingy :pac:

PopePalpatine

What's the chance that Healy-Eames would be offended by a pro-marriage equality or pro-choice user speaking out online? She's the sort who looks at Franco's Spain and envies their apparent "piety".

Omackeral

This offends me. I'm suing the Senator.

Luke92

Probably the best piece the journal have had in a while.

This can't be passed. Anyone can be offended by anything! The pro lifers will say the pro choicers are being offensive and vice versa.

I don't like reading pro life bull crap. But they should have the right to write what they like without having to worry about being punished for offending people!

darkpagandeath

Yeah what law covers being offended ?

Akrasia

Hitchens wrote: »

Senators want to criminalise offending people online – and they’re dangerously misguided
http://jrnl.ie/2208065

Seems like Ms Eames wants to fix the internetty wiffy thingy :pac:

Fedelma Healy Eames is the biggest gee bag in Irish politics


Sorry Mods, just getting the offending out of my system before she bans it.

BoJack Horseman

When children take their own life from online abuse & harassment something has to change.

It should be noted that while physical harassment is illegal, there is f*ck all legislation to inhibit it online.

Phoebas

Hitchens wrote: »

Senators want to criminalise offending people online – and they’re dangerously misguided
http://jrnl.ie/2208065

Seems like Ms Eames wants to fix the internetty wiffy thingy :pac:

Why are you linking to a general opinion piece rather than the bill itself?
Are there specific bits of the bill that you're particularly concerned with? Is there anything of value in it?

Personally I think that there is something in the 'harmful electronic communication' section (but I wonder if this isn't already covered by other laws already). The 'malicious electronic communications' section should be scrapped.

gctest50

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

When children take their own life from online abuse & harassment something has to change.
......

yip stop using the internet unsupervised

stop using it as a babysitting service - they end up a bit odd

Ave Sodalis

BoJack Horseman wrote:

When children take their own life from online abuse & harassment something has to change.

There's a difference between bullying and being offensive.

gctest50 wrote:

yip stop using the internet unsupervised

And who supervises the supervisors? Online bullying doesn't just affect young kids.

AndyBoBandy

"I disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

-Voltaire (I believe)

Phoebas

sup_dude wrote: »

There's a difference between bullying and being offensive.

The bill basically covers both.

Akrasia

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

When children take their own life from online abuse & harassment something has to change.

It should be noted that while physical harassment is illegal, there is f*ck all legislation to inhibit it online.

We already have laws that deal with harrassment and abusive behaviour

It's the non fatal offences against the person act 1997

Any person who, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, by any means including by use of the telephone, harasses another by persistently following, watching, pestering, besetting or communicating with him or her, shall be guilty of an offence.

(2) For the purposes of this section a person harasses another where—

(a) he or she, by his or her acts intentionally or recklessly, seriously interferes with the other's peace and privacy or causes alarm, distress or harm to the other, and

(b) his or her acts are such that a reasonable person would realise that the acts would seriously interfere with the other's peace and privacy or cause alarm, distress or harm to the other.

We already have a law to prevent online bullying and targetting of individuals by individuals.

The proposals by Eames would be the end of free speech on the internet for irish people.

Samaris

I've just read through the bill itself, and while one part I can get behind, the other is trickier, and far looser in its interpretation.

(2) For the purposes of this section an electronic communication shall be considered harmful where it –

(a) incites or encourages another to commit suicide; or(b) incites or encourages another to cause serious harm to themselves; or(c) includes explicit content of the other;

and it intentionally or recklessly causes alarm, distress or harm to the other.

OK, that's pretty clear, and there have been far too many cases of lowlifes ganging up on someone, including teenagers and younger, and telling them over and over that they're worthless and should kill themselves, etc. Revenge porn is another disgusting internet activity that I can't object to being criminalised. Those two points are actually, in my opinion, reasonable. They're disgusting and cowardly acts that have been made far easier by the internet and I don't think are specifically covered under any other act.

Malicious Electronic Communications

4. – (1) A person who, without lawful excuse, persistently shares malicious electronic communications regarding another shall be guilty of an offence.

(2) For the purposes of this section an electronic communication shall be considered malicious where it intentionally or recklessly causes alarm, distress or harm to the other.

That's the awkward point. Alright, it's a bit hemmed in by "without lawful excuse", which apparently excludes the case such as that of Mairia Cahill, etc. But it does seem far too open. There is also the question of how one polices the internet like that? We're talking across borders and across different jurisdictions.

I get the point of it, but I think they'd do better just keeping it to the first part, which deals with very specific (and sadly common) methods of bullying on the internet. The latter is rather like having the blasphemy law. It'd be a bugger to enforce, and it's waay too open to interpretation however anyone likes.


Edit: Good point there, Akrasia. That does actually cover the latter part anyway, and it is rather better phrased for interpretation by a court.

BoJack Horseman

gctest50 wrote: »

yip stop using the internet unsupervised

Tell that to a 17/18 year old!

Truth is folks, online abuse can proceed unimpeded by existing law.

Consider the emotional damage inflicted on people of any age by online harassment.

Blaming the victim for being harassed is rank stupidity.

darkpagandeath

Akrasia wrote: »

We already have laws that deal with harrassment and abusive behaviour

It's the non fatal offences against the person act 1997


We already have a law to prevent online bullying and targetting of individuals by individuals.

The proposals by Eames would be the end of free speech on the internet for irish people.

Exactly it's nothing to do with "save the children" how long till an opinion piece against the government is deemed offensive. People will be very foolish thinking the Irish Government would not be all over free speech like a rash. The Irony is they want all the big tech companies here, Do they not see how stupid they are looking. Is the Government becoming the Catholic church mark 2 ?

darkpagandeath

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Tell that to a 17/18 year old!

Truth is folks, online abuse can proceed unimpeded by existing law.

Consider the emotional damage inflicted on people of any age by online harassment.

Blaming the victim for being harassed is rank stupidity.

If only there was an option to block report any numerous ways of stopping the abuse. There is a distinct whiff again of f this kind of stuff that it's everyone else's fault and we need a nanny to stop this. A lot of it is part of being an adult. People are not nice that's not new, What is new is taking peoples coping mechanisms away “Your all special”. I'm sorry to break it but most of you will end up working a crap job hating it.

galljga1

Samaris wrote: »

I've just read through the bill itself, and while one part I can get behind, the other is trickier, and far looser in its interpretation.



OK, that's pretty clear, and there have been far too many cases of lowlifes ganging up on someone, including teenagers and younger, and telling them over and over that they're worthless and should kill themselves, etc. Revenge porn is another disgusting internet activity that I can't object to being criminalised. Those two points are actually, in my opinion, reasonable. They're disgusting and cowardly acts that have been made far easier by the internet and I don't think are specifically covered under any other act.



That's the awkward point. Alright, it's a bit hemmed in by "without lawful excuse", which apparently excludes the case such as that of Mairia Cahill, etc. But it does seem far too open. There is also the question of how one polices the internet like that? We're talking across borders and across different jurisdictions.

I get the point of it, but I think they'd do better just keeping it to the first part, which deals with very specific (and sadly common) methods of bullying on the internet. The latter is rather like having the blasphemy law. It'd be a bugger to enforce, and it's waay too open to interpretation however anyone likes.


Edit: Good point there, Akrasia. That does actually cover the latter part anyway, and it is rather better phrased for interpretation by a court.

How is anonymity tackled particularly when the host company is outside this jurisdiction? The laws we currently have in place are probably sufficient to deal with cyber bullying if the perpetrator is known but if we cannot force a company to disclose the perpetrators, they are a bit pointless.

Phoebas

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Exactly it's nothing to do with "save the children" how long till an opinion piece against the government is deemed offensive. People will be very foolish thinking the Irish Government would not be all over free speech like a rash. The Irony is they want all the big tech companies here, Do they not see how stupid they are looking. Is the Government becoming the Catholic church mark 2 ?

So you think we shouldn't try to legislate against online bullying of children for fear that it would the slippery slope to outlawing political opinion!

At risk of breaching the Act, you that is really stupid.

Samaris

galljga1 wrote: »

How is anonymity tackled particularly when the host company is outside this jurisdiction? The laws we currently have in place are probably sufficient to deal with cyber bullying if the perpetrator is known but if we cannot force a company to disclose the perpetrators, they are a bit pointless.

No idea! Really, any laws that govern the internet have to be introduced in a bloc of countries at once, whether it be the EU or the US for the English-speaking part of the internet. A tiny little place like Ireland with a tiny Internet "footprint" introducing laws is a bit like standing on a beach and threatening the sea with a small stick.

There -are- cases where it's a bit more cut and dried, Facebook for instance. So it may have a limited application.

Menas

We should have abolished the Seanad when we had the chance.

galljga1

Samaris wrote: »

No idea! Really, any laws that govern the internet have to be introduced in a bloc of countries at once, whether it be the EU or the US for the English-speaking part of the internet. A tiny little place like Ireland with a tiny Internet "footprint" introducing laws is a bit like standing on a beach and threatening the sea with a small stick.

There -are- cases where it's a bit more cut and dried, Facebook for instance. So it may have a limited application.

That is where I do not see the need for new laws of this nature. For "non-anonymous" sites, the persons involved are known so steps can be taken to sort things out. Why do we need new laws? If someone is slinging crap behind some anonymous userid on a non moderated site, existing and proposed laws are useless.Should we introduce laws to govern the sites themselves and block them from this jurisdiction for breaching our laws? I have mixed views on this.

Phoebas

galljga1 wrote: »

How is anonymity tackled particularly when the host company is outside this jurisdiction? The laws we currently have in place are probably sufficient to deal with cyber bullying if the perpetrator is known but if we cannot force a company to disclose the perpetrators, they are a bit pointless.

This legislation doesn't provide for any additional powers around that and I can't see us introducing any, given that we host a lot of Europe's social media data, so there would be wide implications.

As Samaria says, much of this isn't really anonymous at all.
A lot of stuff that is posted anonymously can still be investigated. For example, I'd say it would be possible to figure out the identity of many boards posters who have been around for any length of time.

Samaris

galljga1 wrote: »

That is where I do not see the need for new laws of this nature. For "non-anonymous" sites, the persons involved are known so steps can be taken to sort things out. Why do we need new laws? If someone is slinging crap behind some anonymous userid on a non moderated site, existing and proposed laws are useless.Should we introduce laws to govern the sites themselves and block them from this jurisdiction for breaching our laws? I have mixed views on this.

Mhrr, same. I can get behind the very specific examples they give in the "Harmful Communications" part, covering the three particular harmful communications (incitement to suicide, self-harm, and revenge porn), although I do agree that it'd still be very hard to enforce for the reasons you've given.

You know, I'd be very interested to hear the opinions of one of the high-ups on Boards, as a representative from the other side, a large, Irish-owned site that could potentially be affected by this governance from the outside.

darkpagandeath

galljga1 wrote: »

That is where I do not see the need for new laws of this nature. For "non-anonymous" sites, the persons involved are known so steps can be taken to sort things out. Why do we need new laws? If someone is slinging crap behind some anonymous userid on a non moderated site, existing and proposed laws are useless.Should we introduce laws to govern the sites themselves and block them from this jurisdiction for breaching our laws? I have mixed views on this.

Exactly, if you go on Anonymous sites that's your own problem. You would swear people have never heard of 4chan for example. If you can't take abuse I would steer clear of any anonymous sites.

galljga1

Phoebas wrote: »

This legislation doesn't provide for any additional powers around that and I can't see us introducing any, given that we host a lot of Europe's social media data, so there would be wide implications.

As Samaria says, much of this isn't really anonymous at all.
A lot of stuff that is posted anonymously can still be investigated. For example, I'd say it would be possible to figure out the identity of many boards posters who have been around for any length of time.

Agreed. I have no problem with open or moderated sites and have been subject to moderation during my learning curve on this site. It is the out of jurisdiction, anonymous, non moderated sites which I would like to see governed by new legislation which would allow the authorities identify users in certain circumstances.... or would I?
As you said, the fact that we are hosting a large part of Europe's social media data would present challenges if we were to introduce legislation of this nature.

darkpagandeath

Phoebas wrote: »

This legislation doesn't provide for any additional powers around that and I can't see us introducing any, given that we host a lot of Europe's social media data, so there would be wide implications.

As Samaria says, much of this isn't really anonymous at all.
A lot of stuff that is posted anonymously can still be investigated. For example, I'd say it would be possible to figure out the identity of many boards posters who have been around for any length of time.

It's very easy submit the user name to the Garda they do the rest. Well that's if the person has broken any kind of law.

SmilesInMass

Is this bill the reason I've been seeing stories about politicians being "bullied" and "abused" online popping up over the past few weeks?

It's the start of a slippery slope if this goes through. The reason the internet works is because, for the most part, it's a free for all. Whatever your viewpoint or opinion, right or wrong, you can post it without the worry of it being deemed too offensive.

darkpagandeath

galljga1 wrote: »

Agreed. I have no problem with open or moderated sites and have been subject to moderation during my learning curve on this site. It is the out of jurisdiction, anonymous, non moderated sites which I would like to see governed by new legislation which would allow the authorities identify users in certain circumstances.... or would I?
As you said, the fact that we are hosting a large part of Europe's social media data would present challenges if we were to introduce legislation of this nature.

How would you govern sites outside this jurisdiction ? Block is all you can do.

galljga1

darkpagandeath wrote: »

How would you govern sites outside this jurisdiction ? Block is all you can do.

Yeah, that is about it. Not sure that's the road we should take. Where do we stop? What's offensive? What's not?

zl1whqvjs75cdy

FHE should just be muzzled and shipped back to whatever ****e hole she crawled from. Gormless embarrassment to the country.

darkpagandeath

galljga1 wrote: »

Yeah, that is about it. Not sure that's the road we should take. Where do we stop? What's offensive? What's not?

And that's the crux of the issue. What may offend you may not offended me, What offends one group my not offend another it's all subjective cultural personal. There is no way of governing it apart from basic stuff like Incitement to hatred/Violence. stuff like that.

galljga1

darkpagandeath wrote: »

And that's the crux of the issue. What may offend you may not offended me, What offends one group my not offend another it's all subjective cultural personal. There is no way of governing it apart from basic stuff like Incitement to hatred/Violence. stuff like that.

Which brings us neatly back to square one: I don't think we need further legislation.

Boring username

Are we just having a go at Fidelma Healy Eames today because it is the trendy thing at the moment, or will we be challenging the mods here on boards.ie who are well able to ban people using the 'offensive' excuse?
There is one mod in particular who bans people and shuts down threads because they claim 'offence' when it suits them.

darkpagandeath

Boring username wrote: »

Are we just having a go at Fidelma Healy Eames today because it is the trendy thing at the moment, or will we be challenging the mods here on boards.ie who are well able to ban people using the 'offensive' excuse?
There is one mod in particular who bans people and shuts down threads because they claim 'offence' when it suits them.

Why not size 7 ?

Samaris

..So, if BOLD is shouting, is size 7 screaming at the top of your lungs?

Edit: Anyway, mostly we're just discussing the practicality and implications of such a bill.

darkpagandeath

Samaris wrote: »

..So, if BOLD is shouting, is size 7 screaming at the top of your lungs?

Edit: Anyway, mostly we're just discussing the practicality and implications of such a bill.

Zero practicality. if we start to go all China on the old internet watch all the MNC go bye bye.

Akrasia

SmilesInMass wrote: »

Is this bill the reason I've been seeing stories about politicians being "bullied" and "abused" online popping up over the past few weeks?

It's the start of a slippery slope if this goes through. The reason the internet works is because, for the most part, it's a free for all. Whatever your viewpoint or opinion, right or wrong, you can post it without the worry of it being deemed too offensive.

It's a 'chilling effect' on debate. If someone on the pro choice campaign decides to set up a blog exposing the hypocrisy of a member of the pro-life campaign (lets say a prominent figure who rallies against abortion but has had multiple abortions herself) the blog could be shut down on the basis that he/she

' persistently shares malicious electronic communications regarding another shall be guilty of an offence.

(2) For the purposes of this section an electronic communication shall be considered malicious where it intentionally or recklessly causes alarm, distress or harm to the other.

The 'lawful excuse' section essentially puts the burden of proof on the defendant to prove that he she had a good enough reason to post that content to justify the 'alarm, distress or harm' it causes to 'the other'.

The John Waters thread on the A&A forum on this website could be a target of this kind of legislation. Do the posters on here have 'lawful excuse' to have a thread specifically to mock this man's 'journalistic' output? We might not be 'intentionally' causing him harm or distress, but are we 'recklessly' causing alarm or distress or harm?

freedominacup

Phoebas wrote: »

So you think we shouldn't try to legislate against online bullying of children for fear that it would the slippery slope to outlawing political opinion!

At risk of breaching the Act, you that is really stupid.

You can't legislate against the online bullying of children. What you can do is control the sale of devices which can access the Internet to minors. You can legislate that all such devices are sold with the highest possible level of controls on what type of content they can access as default settings. If a parent then buys such a device and reduces these settings they have no one to blame but themselves if their child accesses sites or content which might be upsetting or unmoderated.

Parents need to parent not look for someone to blame. Parents of the current crop of teenagers don't have any excuses. We've been fluting around on the internet since college, we know what's out there and how to control access.

Bills like this are just playing to the cheap seats and placing means of controlling information in the hands of people with no compunction about abusing this control.

Phoebas

donkeyoaty0099 wrote: »

FHE should just be muzzled and shipped back to whatever ****e hole she crawled from.

Not a great argument against the curbing of freedom of speech.

biko

Ridiculing Senator Fidelma Healy Eames is not offensive. Her politics are offensive.


To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

Phoebas

freedominacup wrote: »

You can't legislate against the online bullying of children. What you can do is control the sale of devices which can access the Internet to minors. You can legislate that all such devices are sold with the highest possible level of controls on what type of content they can access as default settings. If a parent then buys such a device and reduces these settings they have no one to blame but themselves if their child accesses sites or content which might be upsetting or unmoderated.

Parents need to parent not look for someone to blame. Parents of the current crop of teenagers don't have any excuses. We've been fluting around on the internet since college, we know what's out there and how to control access.

Bills like this are just playing to the cheap seats and placing means of controlling information in the hands of people with no compunction about abusing this control.

We already have legislation covering offline bullying, so of course you can legislate against the online bullying of children. Its only a question of how far the legislation should go, how effective it can be and what, if any, additional powers go along with the legislation.

Now, the idea that the solution to online bullying is that you restrict access to devices or restrict access to the internet using content controls just doesn't sound realistic to me. We've had parental control software for ages now and it just hasn't been effective. Kids are, by and large, more au fait with the technology than the parents who are trying to place restrictions on it.

I do agree that this bill (and its sponsor) is playing to the cheap seats. That's not to say that we shouldn't attempt to legislate against severe forms of online bullying - the kind of bile that has led to suicides in this country.

Phoebas

biko wrote: »

Ridiculing Senator Fidelma Healy Eames is not offensive. Her politics are offensive.


To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

That rules out Fidelma. I've never read anything about her that wasn't critical.

darkpagandeath

biko wrote: »

Ridiculing Senator Fidelma Healy Eames is not offensive. Her politics are offensive.


To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

Would that be Redacted then

Cee-Jay-Cee

FFS the people of Ireland are fully to blame for this horses**t. They had a choice to get rid of this shower of idiot wannabe/failed politicians and they voted to retain them. We will have to put up with crass ill-thought out proposals from
arseholes until the question is put to the people again in a hundred years time.

osarusan

Eames always strikes me as somebody who just 5 minutes earlier was told about an issue for the first time by somebody whose position is an extreme one. She blindly accepts that version as the complete truth and starts her kneejerk campaigning accordingly.

I've never heard/read anything from her that convinced me she actually knew very much about any issue she was campaigning on - about either the issue itself or the current laws relevant to the issue.

SpaceTime

If she's successful many of us may be loosing our jobs too!

There's no way a social media or online business that has any kind of comments system could function in Ireland under that kind of legislation.

Bye bye Google, Facebook, Twitter HQs, ... Adios data centres ....
It would kill the likes of boards.ie and other forums. The journal comments section .. Waterford Whispers would have to operate in exile.

Basically this proposed law has the potential to cost tens of thousands of jobs, kill inward investment, destroy the country's reputation and send us back to the 1950s

It's pure hysterical, kneejerk nonsense!

darkpagandeath

Phoebas wrote: »

We already have legislation covering offline bullying, so of course you can legislate against the online bullying of children. Its only a question of how far the legislation should go, how effective it can be and what, if any, additional powers go along with the legislation.

Now, the idea that the solution to online bullying is that you restrict access to devices or restrict access to the internet using content controls just doesn't sound realistic to me. We've had parental control software for ages now and it just hasn't been effective. Kids are, by and large, more au fait with the technology than the parents who are trying to place restrictions on it.

I do agree that this bill (and its sponsor) is playing to the cheap seats. That's not to say that we shouldn't attempt to legislate against severe forms of online bullying - the kind of bile that has led to suicides in this country.

We already have law's, Education is key the more you make something sound secretive and bad the more lightly said children are going to get on it. Plenty one can do on current devices to curtail activity without impacting the wider experience. Children need to be able to come to you and say they are being bullied.

I worries me still that Ireland's first though it to start censorship up again, That worked out well in the past. I get the feeling FHE missed the old RCC calling and if there was no internet she would be telling us the ills of TV/Films/Radio.

catallus

Power abhors a vacuum; are the legislators simply to abdicate their responsibilities to the citizens by ignoring the lawlessness of those who hide behind the "anonymity" of the net?

Are they to abandon the beauty of the web to the whimsy of cowardly trolls and bullies?

For shame.

Unfortunately the knee jerk reaction of commentators in this thread is as predictable and disappointing as usual; the soulless rejection of responsibility; the failure to see that their stance makes them as guilty as the most evil blackmailer, the most heinous bully.

Phoebas

SpaceTime wrote: »

If she's successful many of us may be loosing our jobs too!

There's no way a social media or online business that has any kind of comments system could function in Ireland under that kind of legislation.

Bye bye Google, Facebook, Twitter HQs, ... Adios data centres ....
It would kill the likes of boards.ie and other forums. The journal comments section .. Waterford Whispers would have to operate in exile.

Basically this proposed law has the potential to cost tens of thousands of jobs, kill inward investment, destroy the country's reputation and send us back to the 1950s

It's pure hysterical, kneejerk nonsense!

Never a truer word spoken.

darkpagandeath

SpaceTime wrote: »

If she's successful many of us may be loosing our jobs too!

There's no way a social media or online business that has any kind of comments system could function in Ireland under that kind of legislation.

Bye bye Google, Facebook, Twitter HQs, ... Adios data centres ....
It would kill the likes of boards.ie and other forums. The journal comments section .. Waterford Whispers would have to operate in exile.

Basically this proposed law has the potential to cost tens of thousands of jobs, kill inward investment, destroy the country's reputation and send us back to the 1950s

It's pure hysterical, kneejerk nonsense!

^ times 1000 She probably would go for a 2 tier internet though :pac: