See this new twist is why I took issue with Penrose' position earlier. I don't disagree that people who post bile towards grieving relatives ought to be shamed, and legally persecuted if an actual crime has been commited(at the least websites should be more pro-active in tackling such trouble makers), but the line is being blurred between that sort of thing(making posts about someones dead relatives) and what I consider something else.
Robbie Farah saying that the PM should get a noose for her birthday, the implication being that she should kill herself, is absolutely fair game, in my opinion. It's funny that it's that what he's said, seeing as I mentioend earlier my homepage is 'IsThatcherDeadYet.com', not too dissimilar in the offense stakes, is it? But we're talking about the PM of Australia, and a once PM of Britain, they're not vulnerable teenage girls.
But that's precisely where this troll propaganda coming from the media and politicians is leading us, towards an internet where political rhetoric and leanings - however crass and vulgar - are seen as no different to offensive, malicious stalking of ordinary people. What's more worrying is that individual opinions that stray outside of the accepted mainstream views will become more and more marginalised, and we've seen it already in Britain. The internet is the only outlet today for true free speech, without direct repurcusions, ridicule and bullying.
I can say online plenty of things I wouldn't offline. I can express my true feelings on Islam, Christianity(and all religions) racism, politics. Some of the things if I went about saying offline would lead to physical violence, which would see me either in hospital or in prison(on account of having to defend yourself to a degree a judge might not agree with). Offline, like everybody, I'll often bite my tongue. I won't tell certain people what it is I think of their beliefs because I quite enjoy my already lacklustre health and the freedoms I have outside of a prison cell.
Yet there are people out there, the media and politicians who would absolutely love if the internet was like the 'outside world'. So that people who think for themselves and go against the mainstream and say things that are "offensive" can be intimidated with threat and legally coerced out of expressing themselves. A few people in this thread have already hinted that's there game. They've noted that people say things online they wouldn't offline because they cannot be intimidated or threated on the internet. For Penrose that's obviously a negative, it sounds like he'd love if internet users could be bullied into a state of silence, but for most lovers of freedom the notion that people express themselves online in a more honest and frank manner than they would offline is a positive. People saying they think a politician should kill themselves, that's what the internet is made for, and with the ever increasing sanatisation and political correctness of society internet freedom to say what you think about politicians and others is needed more than it's ever been.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be the case, not in Britain, anymore.
You cannot say on Twitter if you are a brown Muslim that you think soldiers are hero-worshipped too much and that they have their hands dirty in the systematic killing of, at least, tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan people(despite it being an indisputable fact)... Say that and you'll be charged under a nonsense racism act as the msm pro-state scum cry blue murder. Yet, if you're a white neo-ceon, you can get on mainstream news and scream from the roof tops that somebody should literally kill Hugo Chavez, and nobody takes any notice(apart from me and other left wing fruit cakes like myself).
I don't see the hypocrisy anybody else is seeing here. Farah joking with a friend that the PM should get a noose is politically mild, politicians themselves talk like that all the time offline. It's completely different to what the psychopath said to Farah, which is vile and evil both in an online or offline context. The person who attacked Farah clearly has underlying mental issues and would probably best be sectioned, or at least reviewed. Farah has expressed political sanity. Apples and Lasagne. Although Farah is obviously a moron for going running to a person for help who he thinks shouldn't be alive in the first place, lmfao.
Don't make the public internet out to be something that it isn't.
The internet is a communications medium and there is nothing
inherently virtuous about it. To a teenage boy it is a world wide
database for porn, for a bike gang it is a users guide to produce
drugs, to a disenfranchised muslim it is the gateway to building
a crude atomic bomb without the need for attending university,
and for some people it is a place to talk about football. It is many
things to many different people and groups, but it is not intrinsically
good.
The internet isn't a licence to do whatever you want, and is very
much a part of the 'outside world'. The "internet" doesn't have
any magical properties, and it isn't a licence to say what ever you
want on twitter. I do agree that the internet is being used as a
propaganda tool to clamp down on free speech, by opportunists who
would like to clamp down on free speech in other paradigms. This
is the issue.
This statement, is ideological clap trap ->"The internet is the only
outlet today for true free speech, without direct repercussions,
ridicule and bullying." The internet is something that has evolved
from a packet switching experiment in 1969. The magical powers
you see are a product of the nuts and bolts of the internet hardware
being owned by sovereign nations (satellites, servers etc), and the flaws
in the evolutionary process. The public internet is built from protocols
that were written prior to the public internet being conceived of, and
extended in a hotch potch manner. Ideally it would be redesigned
from scratch, but this kind of thing has proved impossible, eg: Intel
and HPs attempt to kill x86 with Itanium.
As for sectioning or reviewing the bloke who attacked Farah in the first
place, that is madness. You may as well just endorse PenroseWarriors
crusade to gaol people for saying mean things in the playground.
In my opinion what was said to Farah was trivial in any communications
medium, and arguing about whether or not Farah is a hypocrite goes down
with it.
