Freedom of Speech in the UK is GONE! - Where do you Stand Air?

[Forerunner 0]

Greetings Everyone I am making this thread because I have noticed the growing trend of people being arrested for exercising free speech in the United Kingdom which is quite worrying and Is one of the reasons I have 2 yearly Subscriptions with you.

 

Here is the most recent arrest for someone exercising their right to free speech.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jack-monroe-twitter-abuse-man-5548363

 

The man was quoted saying  “Your sick form of Lesbianism and militant queerism is destroying this country. Get out and give us Britain back! £VoteUKIP.”

 

 

Now I know some will disagree with what he said but he should have the right to say it as long as it isn't threatening in anyway which it was not.

 

I would love to hear other peoples comments on this and also hear what Air would do if someone had done this from behind one of their Servers and also Air's Stance on the matter of Diminishing free speech in the UK.

 

Regards.

[InactiveUser 188]

Less tabloidy source: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/18/jack-monroe-quits-twitter-over-homophobic-abuse

 

I agree that this one tweet, while hateful, should not warrant an arrest. However, you'd be wrong in claiming that this arrest was related to "exercise of free speech":

 

A man has been arrested after one of the UK’s most celebrated young food writers, Jack Monroe, was bombarded with homophobic abuse by someone claiming to be from the UK Independence party (Ukip).

So he didn't just send off one single tweet, he kept harassing her and that's clearly not covered under the exercise of free speech. He was not arrested for merely voicing his opinion.

[Forerunner 0]

I see yes he did harass her in this case but there are plenty of other cases which are just stupid such as the following.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/glasgow-bin-lorry-crash-twitter-4867313

 

His Joke although distasteful should not mean Arrest.

 

I would like to know if Air will do anything if someone behind an Air Server did something similar ( not that I plan to do so )

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

which it was not

 

If I insult you, won't you feel threatened in some way? I would if I were you.

 

While I also find it too excessive to arrest the man, I really would hesitate and think twice before granting freedom of speech to him who's got balls to insult others.

[psychlops 27]

I would like to know if Air will do anything if someone behind an Air Server did something similar ( not that I plan to do so )

 

If you're asking Air to be an internet censor or advocate, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed either way. 

 

Air offers anonymity... that's all.

 

Whatever views you might have on any subject, and whatever you post on the internet, the responsibility falls on YOUR shoulders, not theirs. And since the article doesn't say anything about a VPN service being involved, why are you even asking that question here?

[dwright 25]

Not only was he harassing her, but he was harassing her while pretending to be someone else. There is nothing to defend here.

[Stampy 3]

Well if Cameron is voted in again then expect VPN's to be blocked and be having to use OpenVPN over SSL

[cj00 1]

I can't believe people post this crap using their real name, how stupid can you be?

 

The only reason the police catch them is because these douche bags post from their Facebook and Twitter accounts with their faces/names on show for the whole world to see.

[Guest]

Arresting him for being a troll that's definitely dumb, however another poster here said he was outright harrassing her and I wasn't looking that close. It comes to no surprise to me that there are people against same-sex relationships, I'm lesbian myself and I must admit those comments didn't exactly make me cheerful. But there is a difference between trolling and harrassing, trolling is just mean but harrassment by default is intended to make the other part fear you and possibly others so for that reason I think it was a good move to arrest him, a screen shouldn't protect him against that. But again trolling and harrassing is 2 different things and I do support freedom of speech but I do not support freedom of terror

[TNT BOM BOM 0]

if u think the goverments (specially like UK or USA) is allowing the freedom of speech then u must be wrong... i think no one would forget wikileaks , anonymous , edward snowden , ....etc from ppl who were always fighting for the freedom of speech ...and many of them in jail. if u want to be free , dont let the goverment be in ur side. this is my advise and i cant say more because the evidences r many.

[greyhawk3 0]

The essential purpose of Freedom of Speech is that it makes it possible for individuals to criticize government policy and leaders w/o fear of retaliation.  It doesn't mean anything goes nor should it.  My concern is that technology can enable the immature and unhinged among us, to do their thing for too long under a delusion they are righteous...

[pj 72]

The essential purpose of Freedom of Speech is that it makes it possible for individuals to criticize government policy and leaders w/o fear of retaliation.  It doesn't mean anything goes nor should it.  My concern is that technology can enable the immature and unhinged among us, to do their thing for too long under a delusion they are righteous...

 

Hello!

 

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. There is no limitation or exception of such a right for "the unhinged" and "the immature", even if those adjectives were objectively, truly applicable to some person. Freedom of speech does not mean "anything goes", you're right, but this has no correlation to any definition or adjective used by a person or a set of persons to define any other person.

 

Kind regards

[go558a83nk 362]

freedom and liberty do not mean anarchy, yet people these days tend to think they do.

 

freedom can only go so far until it infringes on the rights of others.  here, for example, think of the personal drone of today.  more and more we hear of people flying their drones in ways that infringe on the rights of others.  a story out of the USA talks about a woman living in high-rise building seeing a drone outside her window.  this is too far.

 

no, freedom and liberty only work for the good of everybody if people are civil and ethical, if they do unto others what they would have done unto them.

 

that said, lack of freedom and liberty, because of an overbearing government, is no better.  the government are no doubt strongly lacking civlity and ethics and think of the common man as nothing more than bugs to be squashed or votes to be bought.

[greyhawk3 0]

 

The essential purpose of Freedom of Speech is that it makes it possible for individuals to criticize government policy and leaders w/o fear of retaliation.  It doesn't mean anything goes nor should it.  My concern is that technology can enable the immature and unhinged among us, to do their thing for too long under a delusion they are righteous...

 

Hello!

 

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. There is no limitation or exception of such a right for "the unhinged" and "the immature", even if those adjectives were objectively, truly applicable to some person. Freedom of speech does not mean "anything goes", you're right, but this has no correlation to any definition or adjective used by a person or a set of persons to define any other person.

 

Kind regards

 

I would agree that Freedom of Speech is a fundamental right, but free to do what ?  Free to criticize a poster on this or some other forum ?  When the drafters of the US Constitution were enumerating rights, they were concerned about Government power and prerogatives.  The OP suggested that Freedom of Speech rights are under assault bec some whack job decided to vent his spleen on another citizen and he was ultimately arrested for behavior not speech.  As I read about GamerGate, I'm appalled that there are some who've "weponized" tech, in order attack and otherwise make other citizens miserable and fearful.  Freedom of Speech ?  How often do we hear of the murder of a prominent critic of the govt being murdered or jailed in Britain or the US ?  Not trolling, but....

[Stampy 3]

 

The essential purpose of Freedom of Speech is that it makes it possible for individuals to criticize government policy and leaders w/o fear of retaliation.  It doesn't mean anything goes nor should it.  My concern is that technology can enable the immature and unhinged among us, to do their thing for too long under a delusion they are righteous...

 

Hello!

 

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. There is no limitation or exception of such a right for "the unhinged" and "the immature", even if those adjectives were objectively, truly applicable to some person. Freedom of speech does not mean "anything goes", you're right, but this has no correlation to any definition or adjective used by a person or a set of persons to define any other person.

 

Kind regards

This is why I have Multiple Yearly Subs with your Service. Your Efforts to protect Free Speech are second to none and no other provider comes close in my eyes.

[altae 22]

I also strongly believe that freedom of speech can only be granted as long as it does not insult or even threaten others. If the speech is factually or at least not insulting there are no limits. It's ok (not my opinion, only examples) to say things like: "I don't like gays, lesbians, politicians, the government, whatever,,,". It would even be acceptable to say that you hate such people. That's an opinion and thus covered by freedom of speech even if it's not nice (freedom of speech does not have to be nice).

But it's not ok to say things like: "All politicians are dogs, gays should be executed, lesbians should be deported...". It's insulting or even threatening and in the end the person who uses words like these could simply have said something like "To me gays or lesbians are disgusting or I don't like politicians, they only care for themselves" instead. Using harsh, insulting words is simply not necessary to express one's opinion. Or can anybody tell me anything that can only be said in insulting words? It is always possible to use halfway decent words instead of insulting ones. The only reason why someone uses harsh or insulting words is because he or she wants to insult someone. I'm completely ok with the authorities arresting and prosecuting people who go around insulting others. I don't like being insulted so why should I have the right to insult others? And those rules should also be applied on the internet.

Anything goes is the American understanding of freedom of speech. Luckily in Europe we have a different approach. What's more as of today I have not yet heard of someone that got arrested in Europe and/ or the USA only because he or she made use of freedom of speech. There are sometimes questionable actions by police forces in America or Europe but as sad as that is and as much as I disagree with police brutality and or misbehaviour the victims did usually do more than just saying things like "I don't agree with the government".

However what's definitely not ok is monitoring everything and everyone in order to being able to prosecute any (possible) offender out there. If a government introduces full time monitoring programs like the USA do that's far too much. In a free society you have to accept the fact that you simply cannot punish everybody who does something wrong without seriously harming general freedom of the society. Or in other words you have to accept that some people get away with their wrongdoing because a free society cannot protect anybody against anything without sacrificing it's freedom. He who sacrifices freedom for safety does not deserve neither of them. And that's where people like the makers of AirVPN come in. Such people give us the means of defending ourselves against monitoring programs that go far beyond what's reasonable in a modern, free and democratic society.

I'm sure some will disagree with my words but that's just freedom of speech at it's best