[Livia]

Originally Posted by MTVN

From what I've read the guy created a facebook event to riot in Northwich and then the only ones who actually turned up were the police. Let's not lose any sense of perspective here, these riots in Northwich did not exist outside of the world of Facebook, I fail to see how failing to start a riot deserves a 4 year jail sentence.

This is what the Chinese state media website Global times had to say: "The US and Britain used to criticise developing countries for curbing freedom of speech...Britain's new attitude will help appease the quarrels between East and West over the future management of the internet". I consider it a pretty bad sign when we have the backing of a notorious human rights abuser who's oppressive actions we regularly condemn

The same sentence that these two guys were given was also given to Tesfaye Bramble (Titus' Bramble's brother) who raped a 19 year old. The same for Rajinder Dutt who got 4 years for supplying £1.3million worth of heroin. Is creating a facebook page - or to use the official terminology "inciting disorder" - really on the same level as rape and drug dealing. People have killed and gotten less!

If you ask me this sentence represents a complete violation of free speech and it sets a very dangerous precedent if it is now possible to serve years in a prison cell because of an ill judged post on a social networking site.

Freedom of speech is something quite different to incement to riot. You're making it sound like these poor lads have been set up! And we don't know it was one ill-judged post on a social networking site. I'd be very - very - surprised if that's all there was to it. If that was true, the defence would have been all over the prosecution.

But hey - I'm not arguing with you any more today. I'm too chuffed for you at your A level results so I'm shutting my pie hole.

:-)