Tom Daley’s Twitter abuse: policing Twitter undermines freedom of speech
| August 1, 2012 | Posted by Jeremy Dobson under culture, national |
When Tim Berners-Lee appeared at the sublime Olympics opening ceremony, one salient phrase (referring to the web) circled around the 70,000 seats: “THIS IS FOR EVERYONE.” That means the Twitter “trolls” and cretins too.
Tom Daley’s troll should be ignored, not arrested.
On July 30th, when Olympic diver Tom Daley marginally missed out on a medal, one such cretin under the Twitter name @Rileyy_69 decided to rile Daley with the hateful message: “You let your dad down i hope you know that.” A disgusting thing to say from a terrible person; but, if we are serious about protecting free speech, he does have the right to say it.
Freedom of speech is an absolute right; it can’t be tossed aside or diluted when somebody says something nasty. Politicians often espouse freedom of speech as a “British virtue” but we have few provisions protecting citizens from arrest if they happen to have disagreeable opinions. Like the internet, freedom of speech is for everyone.
In spite of this, majority opinion won out. The troll, Riley, was first suspended from Twitter and then eventually arrested in Weymouth “on suspicion of malicious communications.” Daley fans and others who saw the comment in terrible taste (rightly so) unfurled their anger into elation at the thought of arrest (not rightly so). Perhaps Louis Walsh’s tweet is emblematic of the consensus: “Retweet this if you are happy that Rileyy_69 got arrested!”
Isn’t arrest somewhat extreme for ugly words? Freedom of speech allows for criticism and debate as well as counter-insults and ad-hominem attacks, but it does not allow for authoritarian intervention – free speech, when properly in place, counteracts a controlling state.
Paul Chambers: also wrongly arrested for 140 characters worth of speech.
We could learn a great deal from our American cousins. They have the first amendment to the constitution, which ensures freedom of speech. As such, arrests are fewer, cases of slander and libel are less prevalent and the police require a probable cause to make arrests. The law favours the citizens and not the police, regarding both the online dimension and reality.
This first amendment right is what both the British judicial and political systems lack. Riley’s abusive tweet is not the first example of an online comment turning into an arrest. Paul Chambers was arrested in 2010 for tweeting that he may blow up Robin Hood Airport because of their cancellation of flights. He was joking; it was a satirical, slightly childish jibe. Chamber’s last few months have turned nightmarish as he has successfully untangled himself from the UK’s labyrinthine legal system. With the help of celebrity backers (Al Murray and Stephen Fry – good on them) he successfully repealed his fines two and a half years later on July 26, 2012. The authorities shouldn’t have fined him at all, and wouldn’t have if our legislature revered and protected freedom of speech. When an absolute right, e.g. freedom of expression, is denied for one cretinous troll, it can then be denied for other non-malicious people such as Paul Chambers.
Our cold legislation is blind to irony, satire and humour, all of which free expression protects. Protecting these virtues – evoked in the comments of Paul Chambers – is paramount to a free society and yes, we may therefore have to put up with bigots such as Riley rather than arresting them. Likewise, we need to protect the internet and Twitter as a place for free speech, not one more place to fear arrest.
“Isn’t arrest somewhat extreme for ugly words?”
Well I’m not entirely sure about that. Can you not think of any examples where arrest would be appropriate? Then where do you draw the line?
I’m not making any comment about the case in question here, I don’t know what the person’s motives were, however I have found it quite easy to not make any similar comments in public, and am quite happy to see action taken against those who do. If he went to Tom Daley’s house and shouted this at him in person might he not be arrested for harassment? What is the difference?
Freedom of speech comes with some responsibilities if you want to live in a civilised society of 60 million people.
And there is a distinction between genuine ‘speech’ carrying some intelligible message and outright abuse such as this.
I suppose the obvious quote for this article is:
That would be a false analogy. Twitter is a stream of comments; and, not surprisingly, many of them would have been sent at Daley. If thousands of people went around to his house to praise on Daley and their was one dissenting insult then the situation changes somewhat.
Arrest would be appropriate for serious and realistic threats on a person’s well-being and perhaps serious libel – although those laws needs relaxing.
However, there is more and more cases of legislation which tries to control people’s opinions and comments. Frequent cases of proposed legislation against religious tolerance which provides a basis to not critique religion, for example.
Likewise, I don’t buy the necessity of ‘responsibility’. Freedom of speech doesn’t necessarily create a mouthpiece for morons, it can also allow them to be refuted, ignored and debated. In the Daley case, the moron should have been ignored.
Well what is the point of Twitter if you are expected to ignore certain comments? And it’s a bit late if you have already read them – I don’t have the instant amnesia gene. (Ok, what is the point of Twitter, period? But I digress.)
The fact is that you have now accepted arrest might be an appropriate course of action in some circumstances and so it really does come down to just where do you draw the line.
“Serious libel”? Who decides? That’s a potential minefield.
I don’t see freedom of speech as an absolute, as some people seem to do. When pushed, I don’t think anybody would seriously suggest we don’t need some limitation. Otherwise, how about an overt racist being allowed to broadcast his views on a national radio station at, say, 3am on a Sunday morning, so that nobody who didn’t agree with him need hear it? I’m thinking there of the Brand/Ross incident, when Freedomistas were indignant that hardly any of the people who complained would have heard the broadcast. That’s not the point.
Would a ’1st amendment’ type guarantee in British law enable you to make unlimited unsubstantiated allegations against anybody you fancy with impunity? I don’t think so.
No legislation in any way can control your opinion, it is yours and yours alone, but if your opinions are extreme, outrageous or potentially damaging to others you should not expect to be able to use any mass media, social, print or otherwise, to broadcast them. Save them for your mates down the pub.
“Frequent cases of proposed legislation against religious tolerance which provides a basis to not critique religion, for example.”
Not sure exactly what that means (is there legislation against religious tolerance – France has just banned the burka, which I disagree with totally by the way), but I doubt if Richard Dawkins (or me for that matter) is quaking in his boots about being criminalised for critiquing religion in a considered and rational way.
Voltaire has been mentioned. But would you really be prepared to die to defend somebody who is being personally abusive, or just talking complete bollocks?
As a Christian I totally agree with you Andy – any influential group, be it religious, political or the cult of celebrity should accept criticism and learn from it – it reminds us that we need to be held accountable for our actions and words. Some of the best debates I have seen are between the church and Dawkins or Stephen Fry – and I have not always been on the side of the church in said debates!
It is when little idiots like Riley/Reece start making threats and, quite rightly, are punished that the Freedom of Speech brigade jump to their defence, regardless of what they have said. Notice how the article above conveniently misses out Reece/Riley’s death threat tweets?
Firstly, I meant to say ‘proposed legislation against religious intolerance,’ (typo, my bad) e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4075442.stm . Secondly – regarding the death threat tweet – I had only discovered that in retrospect as it had been deleted.
However, as illustrated in the ‘12 Angry Men,’ how often does one throw around words such as ‘kill’ or ‘torture’ and not mean them? Sure, the tweet was stupid and nasty, but serious, no way.
Likewise, Paul Chambers could not have been deemed serious when ‘threatening’ Robin Hood airport. Brendan O’Neill (who I don’t often agree with) said it best: “…no reasonable person could possibly believe that this tweeter’s “threat” was a real one, when it was simply the crescendo to his infantile, bedroom-based sounding off.”
And yes, people on twitter, and such as yourselves, feign anger. You CAN see a comment, disregard its importance and move on with considering the necessity of involving the police. The police aren’t there to protect your sensibilities; they are there to deal with actual crime – not abstract speech issues.
““Serious libel”? Who decides? That’s a potential minefield.”
That’s the issue! If you want to arrest and censor, who becomes the censorer? Who has the moral qualifications to choose what should be said. The church, politicians, journalists, professors? Ha. It’s easier to do away with the role of the line drawer.
However, if words are more than the expression of ideas and could lead the material consequences, e.g. actual crime, than stepping in before it’s too late makes sense. Hence, acting upon actual serious death threats (not tweets for goodness sake) or suborning murder for money, as the Ayatollah did to Salmon Rushdie in 1989 for enacting his right to speech, i.e. writing a novel deemed offensive, is illegal and rightly so. These are actual issues where speech and violence are at crossroads. The stupid twitter arrests are only in the domain of speech.
The radio point is ridiculous. Everyone is allowed a voice, not a BBC microphone. Most loons go unnoticed because they aren’t retweeted or replied to by celebrities. By your logic (unless you give special right of way to public figures), all of these morons should also be arrested?
By mentioning Dawkins and Fry’s debates (both of whom I admire), you, sir, are trying discriminate between sophisticated criticism and unsophisticated criticism, education and ill-education, clever and stupid. The law has no place when deciding what constitutes a sophisticated comment.
Short-sighted? No. Deeply ideological.
That article is from 2005. I wonder what happened to the proposals.
But anyway:
“Critics say the reintroduced plans – which cover words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up religious hatred – will stifle free speech.”
I honestly don’t know what these unnamed and vague ‘critics’ are worried about. Just what is it they would like anybody to be free to say that would be banned under that criterion?
“Most loons go unnoticed because they aren’t retweeted or replied to by celebrities.”
What is your basis for saying this? State your source or research.
“By your logic (unless you give special right of way to public figures), all of these morons should also be arrested?”
Anybody making similar death threats should be investigated regardless of celebrity intervention. I don’t know why you would think otherwise. The sole criterion should be whether or not an offence has been committed.
“That’s the issue! If you want to arrest and censor, who becomes the censorer? Who has the moral qualifications to choose what should be said. The church, politicians, journalists, professors? Ha. It’s easier to do away with the role of the line drawer.”
Well in fairness it was you who wanted to draw some kind of line saying that only “serious” libel should be an offence. For me, libel is libel.
As has been the case in many short-sighted articles like this, only the insults about Daley’s father have been focussed on. The subsequent tweets by Riley/Reece have been ignored. Namely the death threats to both Daley and some of his defenders.
It’s fine to insult someone – you just have to grow a thick skin and roll with the punches. However – in the United Kingdom IT IS A CRIME to make a death threat. Read Schedule 12 of the Criminal Law Act 1977. Reece/Riley is guilty in the eyes of the law whether he intended to follow it through or not.
Clearly the Robin Hood airport comment was a joke and should never, in a million years have been taken seriously – he was just a victim of not being able to convey sarcasm over the internet. But when an angry young man threatens to hunt someone down and drown them in a swimming pool or put a knife down their throat then it should be investigated.
He has been interviewed and got away with a warning. I imagine he told the police he did not mean it and was just angry – and that is probably the truth but you can’t just say that you are going to kill someone with no hint of irony and think it will be OK.
Forgot to add – the law surrounding death threats extends to threats which the sender does not actually intend to carry out. If the sender’s intention was just to intimidate and frighten, rather than kill, then the same law applies – the punishment is less serious if this is the case, as has been demonstrated this week. Justice has been done. Let’s hope the little idiot learns his lesson. It saddens me, though, that I suspect he will not.
See above.
As for the Robin Hood incident, you might think it was a joke, but for people working there or their families there would be no way of knowing this AT THE TIME, and it might well have seemed more sinister and worrying. Don’t forget, it isn’t just the initial tweet, which few people will have read anyway to get the proper intended sense of it – even if it wasn’t so clumsy and infantile, but once the internet rumour mill gets going things get magnified out of all perspective. Ha ha, very funny. Furthermore, I understand that prior to 9/11 somebody said there might be a threat of hijacked planes being used as missiles, and it was ignored. They do say we should learn from history. It is just possible justice has been done, and the only ‘punishment’ Chambers deserved was a couple of years’ worth of disruption to his life. However, I strongly suspect that he, and others who might also have thought it would be ‘funny’ to do something similar, won’t do it again, even if he does undoubtedly think he is very big and very clever at this moment, even more than he did before the incident.
Considering you’ve resorted to criticising the BBC articles I leaked, as if I had written it, rather than my own article, than you are clearly desperate for arguments. Don’t forget these two things: as you’ve mentioned 9/11, the best way of dealing with difficult circumstances is to INCREASE liberty rather than curbing it. Secondly, the impetus is on you to explain what good can come from arresting these twitter offenders – no good has come of either situation; especially the Chambers controversy in which he lost his job and clean criminal record for a joke.
I refer to my previous comment…
“The subsequent tweets by Riley/Reece have been ignored. Namely the death threats to both Daley and some of his defenders.”
Your article is misleading – it seems to be saying, whether that is the intention or not, that the police were called in because Riley_69 said “You let your dad down i hope you know that.”
Untrue – the police were called in because of the death threats. Have you seen Riley_69′s angry, threatening and racist Youtube videos directed at numerous different internet users? It is clear that he is a disturbed individual in need of serious help.
I wholeheartedly agree with free speech, the freedom to voice one’s opinion. I do not agree with threatening or intimidating behaviour towards another individual. By its very nature making a death threat is to deny, or threaten to deny another’s free speech. I don’t care if the individual intends to carry it out or not – if anyone threatens me then they have crossed a line and deserve to be disciplined.