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Is people's right to be offended killing free speech?

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  • #212
    RIGHTisRIGHT
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 726 ✭✭✭RIGHTisRIGHT


    walshyn93 wrote: »
    You're trying to claim it was worth prosecuting even though it was thrown out of court.

    Well sure why not the minor things like gangland murders and serial burglaries can wait on the long finger like they always have.


  • #213
    Annasopra
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,223 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    RIGHTisRIGHT wrote: »
    Well sure why not the minor things like gangland murders and serial burglaries can wait on the long finger like they always have.

    Whatabout whataboutery. We can all do a long list for whataboutery.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • #214
    RIGHTisRIGHT
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 726 ✭✭✭RIGHTisRIGHT


    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    Whatabout whataboutery. We can all do whataboutery.

    Where they sharks with frickin laser beams?


  • #215
    walshyn93
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,685 ✭✭✭walshyn93


    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    And you're trying to claim the page wasn't serious even though you saw no context or content.

    I don't think it was serious because it advocated feeding babies to sharks, a patently ridiculous concept. They may seriously dislike travellers, most people do, but to convict someone of seriously disliking travellers is thought crime. They clearly chose to express their anger in a - what they thought of as - humorous way.


  • #216
    Annasopra
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 41,223 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    walshyn93 wrote: »
    I don't think it was serious because it advocated feeding babies to sharks, a patently ridiculous concept. They may seriously dislike travellers, most people do, but to convict someone of seriously disliking travellers is thought crime. They clearly chose to express their anger in a - what they thought of as - humorous way.

    Again. Uninformed baseless assumptions when you have looked at no content or context.

    I feel genuinely very sorry for you now. It appears that your assumptions are fixed and that you are unwilling to inform or educate yourself.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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  • #217
    RIGHTisRIGHT
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 726 ✭✭✭RIGHTisRIGHT


    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    Again. Uninformed baseless assumptions when you have looked at no content or context.

    I feel genuinely very sorry for you now. It appears that your assumptions are fixed and that you are unwilling to inform or educate yourself.

    I never seen the Facebook page I will freely admit.
    But remind us all how many babies went splishy splashy with the sharks again?


  • #218
    walshyn93
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,685 ✭✭✭walshyn93


    Joeytheparrot wrote: »
    Again. Uninformed baseless assumptions when you have looked at no content or context.

    I feel genuinely very sorry for you now. It appears that your assumptions are fixed and that you are unwilling to inform or educate yourself.

    The burden of proof is on you. Don't be feeling sorry for anyone. I feel sorry for people who need to prevent others from saying things to avoid getting their feelings hurt.


  • #219
    RIGHTisRIGHT
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 726 ✭✭✭RIGHTisRIGHT


    walshyn93 wrote: »
    The burden of proof is on you. Don't be feeling sorry for anyone. I feel sorry for people who need to prevent others from saying things to avoid getting their feelings hurt.

    Speak for yourself I don't feel sorry for them at all I think these people will be one of the nails in the coffin of our way of life.


  • #220
    Samaris
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    I'm a bit lost as to who's feeling sorry for whom now, so I'll just decide to not feel sorry for anyone (in here anyway).

    As always, the internet helps to polarise between "I must be protected from anything mean that's said ever" and "You have to choose to take offence, no-one can give it" (If you really believe that, go up to the first black person you see today and call them them a n***** and then try to argue that you can't possibly give offence, you can only choose to take it. I suspect it won't last long). Obviously offence is subjective; some people have a higher tolerance for insulting comments than others, but I reckon it's a basic duty of living in a society to not be a raving doucheweasel.


  • #221
    Azalea
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,796 ✭✭✭Azalea


    walshyn93 wrote: »
    My personal belief is that she's a snide politician with no discernable values or core beliefs. The fact that she resigned without issue is evidence that she was poking fun at her constituents. Again not a freedom of speech issue, she resigned because she was politically damaging to her party and a party has a right to protect its image that way since public opinion is essentially the lifeblood of a party. The implication that anyone who flies an English flag is an EDL loon is a prejudice that sort of disqualifies her from representing that particular constituency.
    walshyn93 wrote: »
    Saying she grew up in a working class home is like saying some of my best friends are black. Plenty of working class people look down on other working class people, especially when they become part of the metropolitan bourgeois elite. In fact such people are probably more prone to snobbery than most.

    I agree with the second bit. In any other profession I wouldn't agree with her being forced to resign, but she's touring her own constituency and displaying her own prejudice in a subtle though not unnoticed way.

    She may have grown up in a council home (which at that time in Britain didn't man much) but by the sounds of it her mother wasn't working class so she didn't have a typical working class upbringing. I doubt her brothers worked on the building sites.
    All conjecture.

    If she had tweeted a picture that could be interpreted as (but not necessarily) making fun of black people or middle-class people I strongly suspect the same people slating her would be defending her, insisting there is no proof of prejudice etc. I know that is also conjecture btw but I'm not stating it as fact.

    It was a photograph, saying this is such and such town.


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  • #222
    walshyn93
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,685 ✭✭✭walshyn93


    Samaris wrote: »
    I'm a bit lost as to who's feeling sorry for whom now, so I'll just decide to not feel sorry for anyone (in here anyway).

    As always, the internet helps to polarise between "I must be protected from anything mean that's said ever" and "You have to choose to take offence, no-one can give it" (If you really believe that, go up to the first black person you see today and call them them a n***** and then try to argue that you can't possibly give offence, you can only choose to take it. I suspect it won't last long). Obviously offence is subjective; some people have a higher tolerance for insulting comments than others, but I reckon it's a basic duty of living in a society to not be a raving doucheweasel.

    That doesn't really disprove the theory. I'm sure there are many black people who would just laugh at you which would be the proper response. Any sort of violent reaction is unjustified.

    At the end you do what people who try to justify restrictions on free speech often do which is to resort to some vague standard that can mean anything to anyone.


  • #223
    walshyn93
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,685 ✭✭✭walshyn93


    Azalea wrote: »
    All conjecture.

    If she had tweeted a picture that could be interpreted as (but not necessarily) making fun of black people or middle-class people I strongly suspect the same people slating her would be defending her, insisting there is no proof of prejudice etc.

    It was a photograph, saying this is such and such town.

    And this is not conjecture?

    I and everyone else including you know what she meant by it.

    BTW I'm not suggesting she should have been sacked. I was just pointing out how ironic it was that someone who uses phony outrage for political propaganda purposes was the victim of it herself.


  • #224
    Azalea
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,796 ✭✭✭Azalea


    Nothing unreasonable or over sensitive or choosing to take offence, of black people being annoyed about getting called nig*ers. Getting violent - not good, but having a feeling is reasonable. The fault and responsibility lies with the person who has called them that.


  • #225
    Azalea
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,796 ✭✭✭Azalea


    walshyn93 wrote: »
    And this is not conjecture?

    I and everyone else including you know what she meant by it.

    BTW I'm not suggesting she should have been sacked. I was just pointing out how ironic it was that someone who uses phony outrage for political propaganda purposes was the victim of it herself.
    I edited my post to say I know my statement is conjecture.

    I and everyone else simply do NOT know what she meant by it. :confused:

    Where do people get off stating a suspicion is a fact?


  • #226
    walshyn93
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,685 ✭✭✭walshyn93


    Azalea wrote: »
    I edited my post to say I know my statement is conjecture.

    I and everyone else simply do NOT know what she meant by it. :confused:

    Where do people get off stating a suspicion is a fact?

    We're never going to have a jury trial to get to the bottom of what Emily Thornberry meant by that tweet, so why are you demanding such a high standard of evidence?

    There are two schools of thought and I happen to think one of them is naive at best. I think people have an instinct for knowing when they or someone else is being made fun of.


  • #227
    Azalea
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,796 ✭✭✭Azalea


    I'm not being disingenuous - I genuinely am baffled at the outrage over her tweet. Strikes me as verrrry selective. It's a photo of a home in a town where there was an election. Perhaps it was a dig at the far-right look of it - I'll certainly grant you that. But it is beyond me how it could be a dig at working class people. Unless it's correct to assume all working class people have far right leanings, which of course they don't.

    No proof either that she didn't have a working-class upbringing and that her brothers didn't work on building sites. I'm middle-class and my brothers and father worked on building sites!


  • #228
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,019 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #229
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.
    No, they don't:
    http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html#a19
    Permabear wrote: »
    However, "free speech" does not mean that a private employer, or a privately run service such as Facebook, has to tolerate your opinions to the same degree that the government does.
    If your opinions are not expressed in the workplace or on work-time, or on someone elses platform/property then that's exactly what free speech means.

    You keep switching back to talking about being in the workplace, on private property, whenever it suits your argument: But you're defending employers enforcing free-speech restrictions, even outside of the workplace and work time.


  • #230
    walshyn93
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,685 ✭✭✭walshyn93


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    We're all well aware of what what the American constitutional definition of freedom of speech is. "Congress shall make no law..."

    However the Irish constitution is meant to apply horizontally, meaning that it doesn't just regulate the relationship between citizen and the state. The constitution might not be robust enough to justify judge made law protecting employees from suppression, but legislation preventing employers from regulating the home life of their employees would absolutely be consistent with the constitution.

    Again you're misrepresenting the arguments being made. I think we all agree that employers have the right to regulate your conduct while at work, but someone saying things on Facebook doesn't contribute to a racist or sexist working environment provided they don't bring those views into the workplace.


  • #231
    StringerBell
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,334 ✭✭✭✭StringerBell


    Frankly, your question offends me sir.

    "People say ‘go with the flow’ but do you know what goes with the flow? Dead fish."



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  • #232
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,019 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


  • #233
    Azalea
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,796 ✭✭✭Azalea


    Thought it was just one tweet. And it was meant ironically - it was a dig at people who link being African to AIDS.

    Felt so sorry for her - her life was destroyed. It was a stupid thing to tweet though, even if ironic. Her employer, like it or not, has to protect its image.


  • #234
    KomradeBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,981 ✭✭✭KomradeBishop


    The idea that an employer should have the right to dictate what someone can or can't say in their life outside of work, is a pretty Authoritarian (bordering on fascist) one - but then, that is what supposed-'Libertarianism' whittles down to in the end, when you debunk all the utopian promises - Authoritarian employers getting to dictate the lives of workers, through a kind of Mussolini-style Corporatist-Fascism.

    The free speech debate seems to be one of the better ones, for highlighting the way 'Libertarians' are really just private-sector-Authoritarians.


  • #235
    Azalea
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,796 ✭✭✭Azalea


    Depends on who the employee is, how serious the statement is. What if a well known CEO made racist remarks publicly? The company's image would be damaged.


  • #236
    Custardpi
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭Custardpi


    The Justine Sacco case was utterly disgusting & an example of how vicious the self righteous jackals of Twitter can be. Only the most moronic of dullards would genuinely believe that the tweet was an honest belief about the transmittability of the AIDS virus. Yet these sanctimonious arseholes, spurred on by a writer from Gawker made it their business to pillory this woman almost to the point of madness. There's a great account of the incident in Jon Ronson's book "So You've Been Publically Shamed". I hope at least some of the hundreds of thousands who engaged in that feeding frenzy read it.


  • #237
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    Permabear wrote: »
    This post had been deleted.

    Yikes, this is where I'd part ways with you, I think. A tweet, one tweet (people then trawled through her account looking for other things that would be considered offensive), mocking white privilege gets picked up as racist by those looking for offence. She had no chance to respond or defend herself as she was on a plane while the Twitter Mob fed the fires of outrage with glee. IAC were left with little choice but to fire her by the end because of the publicity it generated but this is a pretty awful example of what you're getting at imo.

    It's the reason I refuse to engage with Twitter in any way, shape or form.


  • #238
    Custardpi
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,807 ✭✭✭Custardpi


    Actually I think the Sacco case & others like it might be damaging (it's hard to quantify these things so just speculating here) to Twitter's potential for growth as prospective users may view the platform as one where an offhand, fun remark to a friend can end up ruining one's life. Better off not setting up an account in the first place - obviously not good for Twitters long term expansion plans.


  • #239
    smash
    Closed Accounts Posts: 34,809 ✭✭✭✭smash


    The Sacco case is clear cut. She was a director of communications and stupidly brought race in to her already questionable comment. Without the "I'm white!" at the end she might have got a slap on the wrist, but the implication that only black people get aids is what put the nail in her coffin. Given her job title you'd assume she'd have more cop on!


  • #240
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,019 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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  • #241
    kunst nugget
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,375 ✭✭✭✭kunst nugget


    Custardpi wrote: »
    Actually I think the Sacco case & others like it might be damaging (it's hard to quantify these things so just speculating here) to Twitter's potential for growth as prospective users may view the platform as one where an offhand, fun remark to a friend can end up ruining one's life. Better off not setting up an account in the first place - obviously not good for Twitters long term expansion plans.

    Probably the reason why its growth has completely stagnated.

    http://www.govtech.com/social/Twitter-has-Stagnated-Can-Google-Help.html


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