Twitter crime: The state should not have the power to punish people for being offensive

Several years ago, in a conversation with a fellow student on my university’s online debating forum, I encountered a mentality I have long since grown familiar with. The dialogue had started amiably enough. On the question of whether or not religion was a force for good in the world, I had taken the position that it was not. My opponent posited that it had. Not much of interest so far, you might say. The cordial atmosphere got decidedly chilly, however, as the conversation progressed.

Student: “Those blowing themselves up and committing atrocities are using religion as an excuse for what they are doing.”

Me: “But you can find justification for all sorts of atrocities against non-believers, apostates and others in the Holy texts.”

Student: “How dare you say that! That is deeply offensive. Lots of us have faith and don’t go around doing the things you say that religious people do.”

Me: “No, I wasn’t saying that….”

Student: “I can’t believe you are being so insensitive!”

Soon afterwards the fledgling online forum where the debate had taken place was pulled down and I was dragged before the head of faculty and admonished for my “insensitivity”. Fifteen minutes of our subsequent politics lecture was also given over to a muddled talk on how it wasn’t kosher to “disrespect” the beliefs of other students. At the time something occurred to me that the late Christopher Hitchens had written in a reflection on the student rebellions of 1968. “We didn’t want the dean telling us what we could smoke or who we could sleep with or what we could wear, or anything of this sort,” Hitchens wrote. “Now you go to campus and student activists are continuously demanding more supervision, of themselves and of others, in order to assure proper behaviour and in order to ensure that nobody gets upset.”

This mentality has taken on a life of its own in recent years as it has become increasingly unexceptional to hear of individuals who have been carted off by the police for saying things which have in some way caused “offense”. A recent example was that of Liam Stacey, a 21-year-old university student who sent a flurry of offensive tweets into cyberspace as Fabrice Muamba lay in a critical condition on a football pitch. It started when Stacey posted “LOL, F*** Muamba. He’s dead” on Twitter. After this had earned him the considerable wrath of other Twitter users, who re-tweeted Stacey’s vile tweet en masse, he lashed out with a volley of guttersnipe racist abuse. Stacey was subsequently given a 56-day jail term. In a separate incident last month another man was arrested for “malicious communication” after allegedly sending Newcastle United defender Danny Simpson abuse via Twitter. And yesterday a teenager from Weymouth was arrested after tweeting Olympic diver Tom Daley, one saying “You let your dad down i hope you know that.” (Daley’s father passed away last year after a long battle with brain cancer).

A throat-clearing is required to make myself absolutely clear: to defend a person’s right to use vile language is not to defend the sentiment behind the words. Nor is it to defend those instances of sustained abuse that constitute harassment. However as George Orwell once said, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”. To point out that the language used by Stacey and others was abhorrent would be an understatement. It would also be to miss the point, for once you start to argue over which words a person should or should not go to jail for using you may as well be quibbling over whether or not a sick man should be turned over in bed.

One of the arguments put forward by those who believe in prohibitive speech laws is that while it might be ok to criticise ideologies and religions, insulting things which are innate, such as a person’s race, sexuality or gender, must be strictly off limits. At first this sounds entirely reasonable. You cannot help the way you were born and therefore you should not have to put up with abuse for it. And yet if you believe the law should get involved at this point you must set down some definitions of those characteristics which are “innate” and therefore off limits. Doing so in many cases is almost impossible.

Take sexism for example. Certain things are quite obviously sexist and accepted as such. Informing a woman that she deserves to be treated differently for no other reason than her gender is sexist. Most people would agree on that. Things get trickier, however, as you reach more contentious ground. What about the person who claims that some of the behavioural differences between men and women may be hard-wired biologically as opposed to being the result of differences in how male and female children are socialised? Would such a person be considered beyond the pale? Would it be acceptable to drag them through the courts on charges related to hate speech? After all, I’m quite sure a statement like this would upset a few people. Alternatively we might to settle on a definition of hate speech that includes only racial insults. But by what objective standard are insults based on a person’s skin colour more hurtful than abuse suffered because of a disability, or because a person is overweight? And how do you quantify hurt feelings without making them the exclusive preserve of a few arbitrarily selected groups?

This is in no way an attempt to play down the suffering of those on the receiving end of abuse, online or otherwise. Nor is it to make excuses for those who use the anonymity of the internet to blight the lives of others. But things like racism and prejudice are combated most effectively when the public reaction to those airing vile views is punishment in and of itself. The disgust shown by a large number of Twitter users to the comments of Liam Stacey demonstrates that as a society we are getting to that point, slowly but surely, without needing to hand the power to sanction people with unpalatable (and even repulsive) opinions to the state. After all, what makes us so sure those powers will never be used for more sinister purposes?

Follow James on Twitter @Obligedtooffend

Recent Posts on Notebook

• The Road to the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc - Majorca 70.3 Ironman
• The Retail Ready People project means the future of the high street is in your hands
• Don't get mad about Amazon and make the right ethical choice
• Chagos: Conservationists are swimming in murky waters
• Justin Webb on the medical advances in tackling heart disease

• JDSixsmith

  As I’m sure you know, Libertarian isn’t the same as Liberal. I think you’re talking from an exclusively American perspective. It seems a lot of the libertarian approach has been used by the right as a commercial tool to prevent regulation to protect people, the tobacco & food industries being particularly adept.

  But yes it has extended to the political right realising that if the government has no responsibility of care there are no rules therefore the most powerful prosper most. In a lot of ways very similar to crypto-fascism, with just a powerful police & military being the only things supported by the state. You only have to look at the continuing widening gap between the richest & the poorest to see how effective it’s been, even here in the UK.

• hayneman

  On the contrary, it’s you who’s dangerous RobertB. You clearly think that it’s ok to cause a stampede in a packed public place and to use foul, racist language in front of millions. Looks like the EDL will take anyone as a member these days…

• http://twitter.com/LouMcCudden Louise McCudden

  Sensible stuff James! I think the “police shouldn’t be involved, it’s free speech, defeat it with rational argument don’t ban it” etc line (which I agree with) only works if people are allowed to respond, call racism out as racism, say when they’re offended and explain why, challenge abusiveness, etc, as well though. Challenging people on their abusiveness isn’t violating free speech – it is part of it. It’s important that both the offenders AND the offended get their free speech. Which I’m guessing from your piece you agree with. This is the best way to keep it out of the hands of the police. Who probably have better things to do frankly than investigate rudeness.

• http://www.facebook.com/jamie.bloodworth James Bloodworth

  Absolutely.

• Carolus Campanus

  Congratulations, Jimmy, you have said something sensible for once. Pity about the old tosh that you have written on Cuba, but that’s the price you pay for being a Trot I suppose. It rots the brains. Still, at least you are on the mend. And I am sure that the tosh helped you get this gig.

  As a pat on the head for this piece I can now tell you that the reason why you got grief in university is that it was one of those old polys that have been allowed to degrade the name university for the last twenty years or so. Had you not been a bit thick you would have got decent A-Levels and could have done the old aspirational stroll into somewhere decent where they take these things in a more relaxed manner. Still, never mind…

  I used to write as The Exile by the way, if you are wondering who I am…

• http://www.facebook.com/jamie.bloodworth James Bloodworth

  I wasn’t wondering who you were.

• http://twitter.com/AzimRK Azim Dewji

  “But you can find justification for all sorts of atrocities against non-believers, apostates and others in the Holy texts.”

• Darren Anderson

  what, just ham…no mayo or tomatoe?! And may I add, this is offensive to vegetarians and Muslims & Jews- or at least to those with impossibly delicate sensibilities who can’t deal with the rather big, complex and diverse world. I should caveat that by saying, the vegetarians would have a point (the inhumane,cruel treatment and mass slaughter of animals for an ultimately bland & nutrient deficient product) whereas religion addresses such topical issues as the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden and some unattributed prose regarding a magician creating the world in 6 days (the 7th was to rest and finalise the platypus design, I understand).
  Right, back to work, and my tuna (whoops) & sweetcorn sandwich.

• Darren Anderson

  could you be The Exile again, like, in reality please?

• Carolus Campanus

  And lose the opportunity to taunt the lumpen polyocracy? Naah…