Should making a joke, no matter how offensive result in you being jailed?

Don't know about jail but you have to be some sad **** to make jokes about kids being abducted/molested/murdered

 

No maybe you shouldnt be jailed for making a joke but how about this... If you're brave enough to make jokes about dead children from behind your keyboard then you should make it to the faces of the childs family and if you won't then jail them for cowardice. I personally can't stand keyboard warriors and they are one of the unsavoury downsides of the technological advancements we see in sites like Twitter and Facebook.

 

I've read the comments he made (a news site repeated them) and from what I can work out (unless they missed some things out) he set off making jokes which got him abuse so in order to pretend his twitter account had been hacked he posted a few deliberately over the top sexually suggestive posts to try to convince people he had been hacked. Even the latter posts were obviously not serious comments though, they were jokingly over the top trying to get a reaction. Was nothing you don't see on here almost every day to be honest.

I think one of his jokes went along the lines of 'I woke up in the back of a van this morning next to two young girls. I found april in an hopeless place'/

 

Agreed, it is muppet-like behaviour of the highest order, but a custodial sentence makes a mockery of so many things we hold dear in Britain I don't actually. know where to start. Surely. with the case having got as far as a prosecution, community service would have been entirely appropriate from every point of view , for what was at the end of the day extremely anti-social behaviour

 

He claims that he read a "joke" on the Internet, changed it and the posted it on twitter/Facebook. But it must have been pretty strong stuff because 50 people were outside his house and ready to hang him up and he was arrested at a friends.
I'm all for a right to express yourself, but what right has he to "joke" or degrade someone else's very oblivious suffering? Add to that to where did he post it? If he decided to post on a memorial site, then surely there has to be a punishment?
What's the difference between this and graffiting a grave or shouting abuse at a funeral? Just because the method is different, should the punishment be any less harsh?

 

Having looked into it a bit more jays spot on. Started with a joke the continued into depraved sexual commentary.

 

Also there is a case for stupid people deserve what they get, if you try trolling, always set up a fake account and don't use your own name!

 

MY big concern here is not the sentence, but the speed of sentencing. Within 8 days (at most) he has commited a crime, been apprenhended, questioned and sentenced. Surely just following due process it normally takes weeks or even months to get to court?

As for the "joke" - it has always gone on and always will. Just look up the story of Sweet FA (Fanny Adams) for an example of this from 200 years or so ago that is now a fairly common expression...

 

No.

 

It defeats me why people use Twitter and Facebook. Are peoples lives so barren, that they have to use such sites?

 

Mine is.

 

but Xerxes, isn't this site too no better than Facebook/twitter

a pc chatroom, twitter and facebook etc are just more elaborate versions thats all.

 

I agree with you mate

unless the joke is inciting racial hatred etc.

 

I think you will find that,

Racism and racial hatred is just fine, as long as you are not a white man.Then its totally not allowed.Well thats how it seems to me in this politially correct world we live in.

 

Oh the irony of posting that on a BBS ;-)

 

This would leave a better impression on him than going to jail.

 

Is that a Mr C drawing?

 

Least suprising post of the day

there you go... feel better now I've stroked your ego

 

Re: I agree with you mate

I'm intrigued by this. Do people really see jokes about race as more offensive than a joke about a murdered little girl? Are they more worthy of a custodial sentence? I’m not saying I agree with either, just wondering how people see each scenario on the ‘offensive’ scale.

 

Re: I agree with you mate

By pandering to the small numbers of the professionally offended to the extent that criminal charges can now be brought against some ignorant d*ckhead for saying something offensive (to some but not all) on one or more of the myriad pointless/inane social networking websites, it's clear we've well and truly opened Pandora's Box.

The sooner the powers that be grasp that we can't police people's thoughts and sensitivities, and then advise everyone to either have their say in response or simply ignore other's comments (like we used to be able to do when we had a grown up society rather than the perverse PC nonsense we have now) the better for all of us.