Aussie sentenced to 3 years jail for trolling

[Al Vallario]

Australia are oversensitive on some issues, but I was actually speaking about the 'troll' in the OP. Just seems like a great big nob.

Obviously his actions were insensitive and intended to cause distress, but so are many peoples' actions on a daily basis. If comedians, for example, were banned from making insensitive, distressing jokes, they wouldn't have any material to work with.

If he had in his possession and/or was posting real child pornography, that is another matter entirely, but I would hate to live in a country where freedom of speech was so restricted as it appears to be in Australia. We have Section 5 of the Public Order Act here, but that seems to pale in comparison to the legislative instruments over there...

 

[J-FRO]

I think the main thing we're all missing here is that link on the bottom right.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/s...tar-wars-project/story-fn5fsgyc-1226041406402

 

[mufc802]

 

[Energize]

There is actually a fairly convincing argument for the banning of such material in terms of causal links... which also has undeniable moral aspects, but you would have to be totally blind to fail to see that a large aspect of making something criminal is partially based on the morality of the societies they are made in.

Laws should not be based on morals. This judge was incredibly ignorant, he is not an expert in psychology and has no authority to make such a false statement, the evidence shows that this kind of material results in less sexual offences being committed, this highlights why legislation should only be created by experts in the field and not judges, lawyers or MP's who have no knowledge of what they are legislating against.

 

[Biohazard]

Laws should not be based on morals.

If we don't decide things are right and wrong, there will be no laws.

 

[Vonhelmet]

Laws should not be based on morals. This judge was incredibly ignorant, he is not an expert in psychology and has no authority to make such a false statement, the evidence shows that this kind of material results in less sexual offences being committed, this highlights why legislation should only be created by experts in the field and not judges, lawyers or MP's who have no knowledge of what they are legislation against.

Genuine query with anticipation of your answer... What should they be based on if not morals?

 

[Energize]

Genuine query with anticipation of your answer... What should they be based on if not morals?

Harm.

 

[Nitefly]

Harm.

Haha I'm not sure that even Joel Feinburg was entirely convincing with that argument I'm afraid...

Basing it on harm alone is circular logic because in many cases one mans harm is another mans immorality. Harm is a good indicator, but it is not the only one - morality and retribution are two other tools that should be used to varying degrees.

 

[Biohazard]

Harm.

Which is a moral attribute in many cases, if not all over on top of violence.

 

[Energize]

Haha I'm not sure that even Joel Feinburg was entirely convincing with that argument I'm afraid...

Basing it on harm alone is circular logic because in many cases one mans harm is another mans immorality. Harm is a good indicator, but it is not the only one - morality and retribution are two other tools that should be used to varying degrees.

Basing laws on morality led to the outlawing of homosexuality and many other activities that people merely dislike with no evidence of harm, it makes for very bad lawmaking, resulting in tyranny of the majority and the suffering of minority groups.

 

[Deific]

Tbh I couldn't care less whether it was real porn or not that he posted. Anyone who feels the need to go onto tribute pages for 9 and 12 year old children who have been killed, and deface the page with the intent to cause hurt and offense, can rot for a lifetime for all I care. Would leaving them to rot for a life-time be a just punishment under law? No. Would it be ethically right? It might be argued - but what does that person have to contribute to society & do I want them in my community? Nothing and absolutely not. Throw away the key tbh.

 

[Nitefly]

Basing laws on morality led to the outlawing of homosexuality and many other activities that people merely dislike with no evidence of harm, it makes for very bad lawmaking, resulting in tyranny of the majority and the suffering of minority groups.

At no point have I advocated for law making based on morality alone. It's quite funny reading Lord Devlin's very convincing argument for using morality alone to keep a social moral standard... until you realise he was advocating for keeping homosexuality illegal.

The more liberal you get and the more your rely on harm alone the harder it becomes to justify things that should obviously be illegal. Where is the harm in provocative / instigating racism, for example? Where is the harm in viewing indecent images of children on the internet if you aren't actually harming them? You have to use pretty tedious arguments to show there is enough harm to justify them being illegal, but in reality it seems obvious that both should be criminal offences.

I wrote a whopping big essay on this and I'm really annoyed I can't find it. However, I'm fairly sure I concluded that harm is the best indicator but is not the only one, and liberals shouldn't be adament in only accepting harm as something to point to criminalisation because that leads to tedious legislation that has no bite.

Interesting subject

 

[dowie]

I think its probably more to do with his posting child pornography than trolling dead people.

That is rather misleading and makes it sound like hes some sort of peadophile.

The article indicates that he drew a penis on a picture of a child (which they've classed as child pornography) rather than posting something potentially even more disturbing.

Not that I'd condone what he's done - he's a sick sick person.

It is also a bit worrying that someone can get a 3 year sentence in a free country for what would essentially fall under freedom of speech/expression in somewhere like the US.

 

[Energize]

The more liberal you get and the more your rely on harm alone the harder it becomes to justify things that should obviously be illegal.

Such as?

Where is the harm in provocative / instigating racism, for example? Where is the harm in viewing indecent images of children on the internet if you aren't actually harming them? You have to use pretty tedious arguments to show there is enough harm to justify them being illegal, but in reality it seems obvious that both should be criminal offences.

I disagree, if there is no evidence of harm it should not be illegal just because we find it distasteful. Bizarre inconsistencies arise when laws are made not based on harm, eg a more harmful act being legal, but a petty one being illegal because people consider it immoral.

I wrote a whopping big essay on this and I'm really annoyed I can't find it.

That would be interesting to read I'm sure.

 

[Nitefly]

Such as?

Well, the most obvious example is viewing child porn on the internet when you aren't paying people to harm them and haven't committed any physical abuse yourself.

The most frequent reply to this is 'but you are giving traffic to the website', which is a bit of a crap argument really because it's totally incidental to the offender's intentions, the material can be uploaded to websites against the owners wishes and just because you give traffic to a website doesn't necessarily mean you endorse it.

You can construct the (weak) argument that viewing such material causes a harm because it makes someone more likely to offend, which is more of an opinion statement than anything and at best can only be shown by a loose connection that, shock horror, individuals look at such material before before they abuse children themselves.

It reality, we don't want people to look at such images because simply they are wrong and disgusting. As a society we don't want to tolerate individuals that enjoy such disgusting behaviour regardless of how 'harmless' their actions are. Furthermore, saying that the promotion of child porn in this way is 'harmful to society' is just a rewording of saying 'I morally object to the effect it has on society'.

It is incredibly hard to justify using 'harm' alone - it's far easier and more logical to accept the moral element exists. Good luck!

 

[Energize]

Well that's the thing I don't consider viewing child porn to be something that should obviously be illegal, precisely for the reason that there is not a strong argument for harm. It's your personal morals that say it should be illegal, not an objective harm based viewpoint. Personally I think that wanting to criminalise an act because you find it disgusting is far more abhorrent than the act itself. It is identical to the argument against homosexuality.

 

[Nitefly]

Well that's the thing I don't consider viewing child porn to be something that should obviously be illegal, precisely for the reason that there is not a strong argument for harm. It's your personal morals that say it should be illegal, not an objective harm based viewpoint. Personally I think that wanting to criminalise an act because you find it disgusting is far more abhorrent that the act itself. It is identical to the argument against homosexuality.

Well, you are the first person that has come out and said child porn should potentially not be illegal that I have come accross

There are merits to the use of morals, if you haven't done so already, read this:

http://faculty.berea.edu/butlerj/Devlin.pdf

The crux of his argument is that without enforceable moral standards, society begins to crumble. Yet they are obviously limited because as you rightly point out, immorality alone isn't enough to justify why some acts should be criminalised... or at least it isn't always enough.

I guess that the whole preservation of society issue is actually really rather relevant to this thread. Look at /b on 4chan and all that horrible madness that has occured - morals are sliding and behaviour is becoming dubious, recently we had individuals trolling that website of a bullied child that killed himself, now we have this in the OP. I'm not saying that such acts should be illegal, but I just thought it was interesting to show that there are, possibly, evils in not maintaining societies standards.

Other obvious examples include racism, harassment (can you quantify psycological harm when everyone is different and has different thresholds?) and drug offences (very tough to argue that anything should be illegal if you take a true liberal stance), but there are many more.

 

[Energize]

Well, you are the first person that has come out and said child porn should potentially not be illegal that I have come accross

I didn't say child pornography should be legal, there is a huge difference between looking at it and making it.

There are merits to the use of morals, if you haven't done so already, read this:

http://faculty.berea.edu/butlerj/Devlin.pdf

The crux of his argument is that without enforceable moral standards, society begins to crumble. Yet they are obviously limited because as you rightly point out, immorality alone isn't enough to justify why some acts should be criminalised... or at least it isn't always enough.

I guess that the whole preservation of society issue is actually really rather relevant to this thread. Look at /b on 4chan and all that horrible madness that has occured - morals are sliding and behaviour is becoming dubious, recently we had individuals trolling that website of a bullied child that killed himself, now we have this in the OP. I'm not saying that such acts should be illegal, but I just thought it was interesting to show that there are, possibly, evils in not maintaining societies standards.

Trolling/Bullying does harm though, it's not simply distasteful.

Other obvious examples include racism, harassment (can you quantify psycological harm when everyone is different and has different thresholds?) and drug offences (very tough to argue that anything should be illegal if you take a true liberal stance), but there are many more.

A general threshold level of psychological harm can be used, drugs should be legal on human right grounds so it should be impossible to legislate against them regardless of any justification anyway. So I don't see any issues with using a solely harm based approach.

 

[RDM]

It reality, we don't want people to look at such images because simply they are wrong and disgusting. As a society we don't want to tolerate individuals that enjoy such disgusting behaviour regardless of how 'harmless' their actions are. Furthermore, saying that the promotion of child porn in this way is 'harmful to society' is just a rewording of saying 'I morally object to the effect it has on society'.

What if the illegality of something that we find wrong and disgusting is possibly increasing harm? Pretty sure that some studies have shown that peadophiles being allowed access to (simulated) child pornography makes them less likely to act on their desires.

 

[Al Vallario]

Well, you are the first person that has come out and said child porn should potentially not be illegal that I have come accross

To reiterate, the argument is not that the production of child pornography ought not to be illegal (although that is a topic for another discussion), but that the mere possession and viewing of such material ought not to be. I agree with Energize on that point, and I am sure if asked and presented with the various arguments, this would not be a particularly unpopular view.

Put simply, I fail to see how the simple act of me viewing any image, without causing any harm to anybody, should be considered a criminal offence.

Suppose, for example, society perceived the production of wildlife documentaries to be immoral (and many of the arguments against child pornography may be applied to wildlife documentaries); should people then be prosecuted for viewing wildlife documentaries?