Keyboard warriors - will the jail sentences deter others?

Maerion I've just had time to read your post upthread at 16:32 as well as just above ie about how the Online Safety Act was set up and why.

Thank you - I think it's important it had cross party support.

Thank you growstuff for the link to the excellent Tribune piece. There it is, right at the start - the link back to the disinformation and misinformation that gained traction during the pandemic that was referenced in Dowden and Patel's White Paper. Not going to give oxygen to the names mentioned in the Tribune piece but it's the the ususal suspects. Interesting that one person prominent in that lives in the same county as the jailed keyboard warrior. Maybe just coincidence but local community networks have clearly played a big part in the unrest.

Good reading from a lot of posts.

Thank you

The article you posted Growstuff was an amazing and coherent description of how the far right, conspiracy theorists, and the disaffected, came together in the riots, and how it built up.
The far right now have tools to spread their ideas in Social Media in ways they previously had no access to. It's also a sobering reminder what part Farage played with his stunts - and what he said.

As Growstuff said above, "Unlike in China or some other countries, we in the UK do have the freedom to state our opinions.
The line is drawn when that opinion becomes incitement to do actual harm to other people and a great deal of that is clearly going on. I dont know whether prison will deter, but its certainly time - as I'm sure they are - to monitor these networks and act within the law against them.

Iam64- several of the judges' summation were filmed and are available to view. I watched some on the BBC website.
The judge explains the sentencing guidelines and expands this to tell the defendant why they might be subject to the bottom or top end of the sentence passed.

MaizieD

growstuff

Just been reading an interesting and thoughtful article about the riots:

www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/p/the-enemies-within-how-the-pandemic

My browser (safari) won't open this. Says the server can't be found.

Oh, scrub that. I copied and pasted the link. For some reason that worked

growstuff

Just been reading an interesting and thoughtful article about the riots:

www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/p/the-enemies-within-how-the-pandemic

My browser (safari) won't open this. Says the server can't be found.

Doodledog

Thanks for that article, growstuff. Well worth a read.

You're welcome.

Unlike in China or some other countries, we in the UK do have the freedom to state our opinions. The line is drawn when that opinion becomes incitement to do actual harm to other people.

Babs03

Margs

I think we are pretty close to having the parameters of what we may and may not post set arbitrarily by some faceless regulatory body that will not be accountable in anyway.

Big Brother is watching us alright. True, social media is an absolute uncontrolled Wild West, but scrutiny and censorship can easily take us to the opposite extreme. Witness North Korea, China, Russia - people are picked off and 'disappear' for expressing their thoughts.

This isn't going to happen.
We all have to obey laws, and there are already laws with regard to hate speech and inciting violence. Or would you prefer for these laws to be relaxed in order to allow true freedom of speech, which would also allow Islamic terrorist groups to spew their hate speech freely thereby inciting violence?
Where would you draw the line?
I am happy that there are laws regarding this and don't believe that in protecting the public like this we are going to end up like Northern Korea or China.

Where would YOU draw the arbitrary line?

And it's North Korea, not Northern Korea.

Thanks for that article, growstuff. Well worth a read.

Oh the misogyny idea is dreadful, I am pleased that a number of feminists have spoken against it. It will make zero difference to violence against women in my view.

Just been reading an interesting and thoughtful article about the riots:

www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/p/the-enemies-within-how-the-pandemic

Maerion thank you. I’m surprised at what feels like minimisation of offences during rioting. I’m pro alternatives to custody but the severity of disorder alongside the fact we need to rebuild good alternatives to custody, means it’s prison for many rioters or those inciting others on line

The Online Safety Act was passed into law on 26 October 2023 but it was part of the previous government’s manifesto to clean up online behaviour. The White Paper: the full government response to the consultation was published in 15 December 2020, presented by Oliver Dowden
 then Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Priti Patel then Secretary of State for the Home Department. The opening paragraphs say:

Our world is now a digital one. From connecting with loved ones, to the way we do business and deliver public services - almost every part of our lives is at least now partly online.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has shone a spotlight on the risks posed by harmful activity and content online. The pandemic drove a spike in disinformation and misinformation, and some people took advantage of the uncertainty to incite fear and cause confusion.

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-white-paper/outcome/online-harms-white-paper-full-government-response

That some individuals and shadowy organisation are using disinformation and misinformation to incite fear and cause “confusion”, or in this case violence, is exactly what happened after the tragic event in Southport.

I can remember watching several of the committee discussions on ParliamentLive.tv. and reading newspaper coverage of the progression of legislation. This should have been of interest to anyone interested in safeguarding in general and particularly for those who worry about the effect of online behaviour on children.

Yesterday, I was pleased to read that steps are being taken to protect girls and women from extreme misogyny under the Prevent programme:

www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/18/extreme-misogyny-to-be-treated-as-form-of-terrorism-under-government-plans

Read this and bear in mind that Farage and Oakeshott think Tate is an excellent role model for young boys.

As I have pointed out before, there was already the Malicious Communications Act 1988 which dealt with electronic communications offences. Some of the provisions of MCA have been superceded and strengthened by the Online Safety Act 2023. Under MCA, the maximum custodial sentence for conviction on indictment is two years.

Section 181 Online Safety Act 1983 now deals with messages which convey a threat of death or serious harm - which is what “keyboard warrior” Sweeney did. The maximum custodial sentence for conviction on indictment is five years.

Sweeney was given fifteen months and will probably only serve half of that. She got off very lightly.

Ignorance of the law is not a defence.

Throwing a can isn’t done from a keyboard so I don’t know what relevance that has to a discussion about keyboard warriors but the judge will have had the details of the case before him or her as it passed from Magistrates to Crown Court. They will have judged the facts of the case against the law under which the person was being charge and the sentencing framework for that law.

We may have had ongoing violence for several weeks if these court appearances and sentences weren’t delivered promptly. I think it does concentrate possible perpetrators minds if they can plainly see that they will have to take responsibility for the mindless type of rioting and incitement that we recently saw in town and city streets.

To be honest, she'll probably be released in a few months anyway.

ronib

growstuff I think 3 months would have been a fair time for the unfortunate 53 year old rather than 15 months. But what do I know?

I don't know either. Somewhere or other there will be a written tariff for violent disorder - or whatever the charge was - but it's not up to me.

This is exactly where GSM would have contributed a link to the judgement. If the Judge had seen 3 months as an appropriate sentence for violent disorder, I expect s/he woukd have given that sentence. It may be a lower sentence was outside the guidelines.
I don’t see the offender as unfortunate. Our police were subjected to such hostility and violence as they tried to keep the peace

That’s why the judge gives a summing up when sentencing. Obviously the news can only report some of them, but I think they are publicly available? The idea is that we all know, or can find out, what led to the severity or leniency of a sentence.

Indeed.
What do any of us know?

growstuff I think 3 months would have been a fair time for the unfortunate 53 year old rather than 15 months. But what do I know?

I think legal tariffs for sentencing are more than "guidelines". Moreover, I think there are also legal reasons for mitigation or leniency. Obviously there will be some degree of subjectivity (even judges are human and fallible), but the parameters for sentencing are quite narrow.

Grandmabatty I thought it was upto the judges themselves to interpret laws and sentence accordingly so from that perspective, it doesn’t matter which government is in power? The judges seem to be more concerned than I can remember over crimes committed by first time offenders. It’s judges who set sentences within guidelines surely?

The man imprisoned for ‘throwing a can and shouting ‘ at police was charged and convicted of violent disorder. Presumably, he pleaded guilty hoping for a lesser sentence
The Go Fund Me page set up to help pay his mortgage had a £2,500 donation from Andrew Tate.
Surely he realised he was committing at least public order offences / I’d usually want alternatives to custody but - riots get serious attention and our alternatives to custody services need rebuilding.
Also I believe the consensus amongst the majority on a prison discussion recently, was hmp should be reserved for violent offenders