Trolls --- You have been warned!

[vololiberista 205]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29678989

 

[HiFlyer 9,343]

How the frigging heck are they going to enforce that?!

 

More nonsense "look we're doing something" laws begging to get abused at will.

[vololiberista 205]

How the frigging heck are they going to enforce that?!

 

More nonsense "look we're doing something" laws begging to get abused at will.

They already do enforce the law quite effectively actually.  Already a number of people have been prosecuted for abuse on Facebook and Twitter. They're just increasing the the prison term. It's even an offence to re-tweet abuse.

If you use either you really have to be careful about what you say nowadays.

[Ron Attwood 3,464]

Two years in gaol? That seems harsh, considering that you can mug, burgle and kill people by dangerous/drunk diving and get away with a slapped wrist! <_<

[Daveo 36]

I'm sure next will be P.U.I. laws. Posting under the influence.

[HiFlyer 9,343]

 

 

They already do enforce the law quite effectively actually.  Already a number of people have been prosecuted for abuse on Facebook and Twitter.

 

I'm dubious. They might be able to do that in gated preserves like Facebook, but seriously enforcing that across the web? Good luck! (unless its so egregious as to be spectacularly criminal under other laws anyway!)

 

We have a troll/spam button here. Should Tom call the cops when its used?  :blink:

[vololiberista 205]

I'm dubious. They might be able to do that in gated preserves like Facebook, but seriously enforcing that across the web? Good luck! (unless its so egregious as to be spectacularly criminal under other laws anyway!)

 

We have a troll/spam button here. Should Tom call the cops when its used?  :blink:

Don't be dubious! There have been quite a large number of prosecutions resulting from bad mouthing on Facebook. If someone here bad mouthed to level that attracts prosecution then yes he should!

[HiFlyer 9,343]

Anything that bad is already covered under existing laws.....

 

Anything else....... Well, good luck putting just about every YouTube comment troll on earth in jail. (for starters)

 

Hint: They're going to need more cops!

[yidahoo 365]

There are not aiming to put every Youtube troll in jail, they are trying to reduce the number of highly personal and offensive attacks against individuals. In the UK they have been doing this for a while, a number of people have been prosecuted for hateful comments on Facebook memorial pages.

[HiFlyer 9,343]

I repeat then: a lot of people would be in jail if this was widely enforced. Have you ever been on the public channel of a MMO? Seen your average 200 page flame war? Played a FPS? Pretty much been almost anywhere on the web?

 

I think of things like this as "example legislation"

 

A few people get nabbed here and there as a warning, and pretty much everyone else ignores it. (speed enforcement)

 

Anything rising to the level of a true crime is already covered under other laws! (for instance, harassment laws)

 

Truthfully, I have heard/seen so much stuff that could be covered by this that I could probably single-handedly fill a prison. It would be a full time job!

[yidahoo 365]

Think stalkers on the internet,, not random trolls on forums, Thats what they are going for.

[HiFlyer 9,343]

Think stalkers on the internet,, not random trolls on forums, Thats what they are going for.

 

Already covered. In the USA there is a fairly widespread belief that before writing up new laws, it might be more efficient to try enforcing the existing ones first. Nearly every state has laws that already cover this. Follow-on laws, I personally tend to think of as usually being a legislator (or a group of them) having some knee-jerk reaction to something in the news and coming up with something that's usually sloppy, unnecessary and open to unenforceably broad interpretation to look like they are "doing something"

 

"California stalking laws prohibit harassing or threatening another person to the point where that individual fears for his/her safety or the safety of his/her family.[1] When those threats or harassment are communicated via the Internet, e-mail, text messages, the phone (either cellular or a landline), a fax machine, a video message, or any other electronic device the crime is commonly referred to as "cyberstalking". ... "Cyberstalking" was officially prohibited in 1998 when the California Legislature amended Penal Code 646.9 stalking. The amendment changed the definition of "credible threat (one of the elements of the crime of stalking in California)...to include "electronically communicated" threats.

 

 

[yidahoo 365]

The article is about UK law not US, perhaps you should read the article

[z06z33 763]

What has happened to people? Where I come from if someone talks bad about you and you take issue with it, you go and settle it like a man not go cry about it.

If someone is a jerk on the internet I just blow it off as its probably some fat guy living in his moms basement with doritos chunks all over his face. And hes just mad because the closest he's got to first base is when his mom used to kiss him goodnight.

I don't understand why on earth words hurt people so much these days, they are just words.

[Spartan0536 49]

I get that cyber bullying is a crime (at least here in the US), however thankfully we have the 1st amendment where our legal system is not allowed to arrest us and charge us with a crime if we are speaking our minds, the only way around this is if the person in question was making physical threats to another persons safety. Seems like if someone in the UK does not like what you typed you can go to jail for speaking your mind, or at least this is what I have seen from that article.

For the record I am NOT supportive of cyber bullying at all, however I do agree with my 1st amendment rights, this would make that british law illegal over here, but we are not talking about US law here, so I wish people in the UK all the best with this new law. I do wonder though if the UK is like the US in the fact that if you go to prison and when you are released is it near impossible to get a decent job like it is here in the US?