I disagree, it was harassment, it caused someone to attempt suicide. I think labelling it free speech and not harassment is what would be dangerous.

Are you saying he should be punished then? If so. What for? You think what he has done is essentially free speech - and in your books, that is not wrong.

One that needs counselling, advising and being made aware of the pain and suffering he has caused. A kicking or two wouldnt go amiss.

But banging him up for a few weeks where he will receive at most 6 hours a week of classes or sessions for 9 weeks is just a total joke.

It is a joke. He should have got much, much longer.

Does Asperger’s mean he has an inability to understand how others are feeling?

He got the maximum sentence available for the crime, just a shame the human rights people dont consider victims rights when they start their hand wringing and brow beating.

Should have been marched out the court to the nearest shopping centre and flogged before beginning his sentence.

God I miss those days.

With all due respect I think that girl's an emotional idiot and I don't think should be factored into a legal case. Technically I could attempt to kill myself because we're having a debate :tongue: but would that mean you're responsible? I know that's a completely different scenario but I still struggle to see what "crime" he's committed.

As for the freedom of speech argument and where that ties in with a ban from social networking - Facebook and other sites have much too lenient and blinkered policies towards trolls and flaming at the moment. I've seen first-hand instances of racism and harrassment and tried to report the user for it and there's simply no option to do it. That is worrying. I imagine this is merely for a peace-of-mind thing on Facebook's perspective so they don't get a lot of emails about false claims of abuse, but at the same time you're shutting your eyes to everything that IS harmful.

So yeah, I'd argue that more legislation is needed for the conduct of online users. Perhaps a warning system where only repeat offenders are banned and/or jailed. But to jail someone with a very vague and nondescript legal system is the very reason we're having this confusion :tongue: I just think in cases like these there's too much emotional influence over people. Yes he's a dickhead. But a criminal? I'm unconvinced, merely because he didn't issue any direct threats.

'Freedom of speech is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear'

People are going on at me like I'm defending his actions, I'm not but true free speech isn't all pretty and the idea within this topic that free speech is only okay as long as it doesn't offend anyone is ridiculous, that's not free speech and it always shocks me in these topics how quickly people are willing to throw away their rights so easily.

Freedom of speech isn't all sugar and rainbows but the societies that practice it benefit from it hugely. If we're so willing to throw it away to punish some moron with the brainpower of an amoeba then I'm not looking forward to what comes next. As I said before cases like this are a very slippery slope.

It's harassment, I can't believe you're calling it Free Speech. If someone was sending you hate mail, and standing outside the gate of your house eachday and verbally abusing you like this guy did online would you call that someone exercising their right to Free Speech? No. You'd call the police and say some weirdo is harassing you. @Shaun & Dezzy

The difference being that you can block people on Facebook whereas you can't in real life.

Care to address the post above and the points I made in that Dezzy?

You can't stop them from posting all sorts of crap wherever takes their fancy on the internet though....

and as for the real life comment: I'd say that these some of these same online bullies - my transfer that into real life.

Are you still of the same opinion then?.... free speech regardless of where it takes place?

So it's ok for him to make a youtube video about that dead girl and post it for millions to watch? Some girl he never even knew? That's harassment.

Online and Real life are two different things and completely incomparable. You can easily ignore stuff like that online while it's a completely different matter in real life. You can't hit an ignore button when you're walking down the street and if someone's up in your face like the examples you've given then they are obviously looking for it to escalate into something that is a punishable crime.

I thought about this too. I've seen a programme where they're sometimes unable to detect suffering and feel empathy

You cant really ignore anything online when you are aware of it, you know its there. Others know its there and could refer to it. So saying you can ignore stuff online is simply ignoring the truth.

You can avoid things online just as you can in real life, however this is then placing restrictions on yourself, restrictions that shouldnt have to be applied.

Exactly.

It depends on the extent to which he suffers, it was said in mitigation, to reduce any sentence, it doesnt actually need to be proven in court.

I always wondered why though, even if you don't feel empathy would you feel the need to cause hurt to people? He may not feel bad but does it make him feel good? What other motivation would he have?

Really.

So it's acceptable then for one person to refer to a gay person online in the manner I described?

It's acceptable then for a person to refer to a wheelchair bound person online in the manner I described.

More pertinently, given that you are a moderator of this forum: therefore your own personal thoughts on free speech will impact upon your moderation of posts..... or 'lack of' perhaps? Given that your opinion here is very much that "You can easily ignore stuff like that online while it's a completely different matter in real life".

You have achieved the almost impossible..... I am not only shocked, but disgusted and almsot speechless.

I'm not saying it was just because of that. Like he was clearly a bad seed as well.

But you don't have to engage in everything you see online just like you don't in real life. If someone is saying nasty things about you then WHY would you want to be emotionally affected by it when you don't have to be? It's not restricting yourself, it's not letting them win. People only troll for a response and your reply pretty much says to me to give them what they want. The way to deal with abuse is not to give them a response and that's a lot easier to do online then it is in real life, thus the two aren't comparable.

Even if that abuse is about your dead son/daughter and mocking it on their memorial pages?

Oh yeah i know I was curious is all, he may not feel empathy but he must feel the opposite of it. Do you know what I mean?

The same could be said by ignoring them especially online, you are letting them win. They have posted something offensive and by you simply ignoring it and leaving it online they have won.

However by reporting the offensive item/posting/thread then steps can be taken to ensure its moderated, and no that doesnt mean removed, but fairly moderated and dealt with in a proper manner.

Am quite surprised at your stance really given you are a moderator.