There is no freedom of speech is Australia

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/7938759/facebook-troll-sentenced

A Queensland woman was given a three-month suspended sentenced for trolling a Facebook page dedicated to the memory of a woman who died not too long ago. The judge who sentenced her said that her action were sickening but what what's more sickening to me is the lack of freedom of speech liberties in Australia. This is just my three cents though.

IN OTHER BREAKING NEWS, THE SKY IS BLUE.

Personally, I think it's even more wrong that a person can go to jail for denying the Holocaust in many parts of Europe.

Actually in the U.S; the Westboro Baptist Church's right to do what they do has been affirmed many times, and I'm appaled by how the UK banned them from the country. Most speech violations in the United States are civil issues (libel, slander, sexual harrasment, etc.) and not punishable as crimes. "Speech codes" at colleges and universities also do not tend to hold up to constitutional muster well in the courts.

What the woman did was not creating an immediate danger nor were they calling for an immediate act of law-breaking or fighting. If this happened in the U.S; no crime would have been commited but the "victims" most likely could have sued for damages.

Went said:

Your freedoms end when they affect the freedoms of other people. And I honestly think that posting "offensive pictures, including a headless corpse and vagina" on a memorial website is not something that should be protected, mainly because their only effect is insulting the memory of the dead person and hurting the family's feelings without any clear reason. I don't know about the US, but that's perfectly punishable in my country.

Defamatory Speech
A statement that damages another person's reputation is considered defamatory and unprotected.

I myself consider mocking a dead person (without justification, as the own figure says) an example of this.

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Since the poster you're agreeing with is citing U.S. law, it should be noted that defamatory speech is not criminal here, but it's a civil issue. Defamatory speech is spreading false rumors that damage a person's repuation within their professional life or in their community. I agree that this family should be able to sue this woman, but in the U.S. criminal charges would be ruled unconstitutional with the quickness.

I'm with what Went said. We have the right to freedom of speech, but all our rights come with a responsibility. What she was doing was infringing the rights of other people, and that isn't right. If you think this means Australians have no freedom of speech, then you are agreeing that there is nothing wrong with posting pictures of headless corpses and female genitals on a page dedicated to a murdered girl. That's wrong.

Eliminator Jr. said:

I'm with what Went said. We have the right to freedom of speech, but all our rights come with a responsibility. What she was doing was infringing the rights of other people, and that isn't right. If you think this means Australians have no freedom of speech, then you are agreeing that there is nothing wrong with posting pictures of headless corpses and female genitals on a page dedicated to a murdered girl. That's wrong.

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What rights were violated? No one's rights were violated by the common freedom of speech exceptions used in the U.S. And no, I am not agreeing with what she did, nor am I saying it's right. I also don't agree with anti-war protesters, global warming activists, or the beforementioned Westboro Baptists Chruch; but does that mean I should seek to have them banned from expressing their beliefs just because I disagree with them or think that they're wrong or offensive? No. That would amount to government tyranny that should not exists in a society that claims to give its citizens freedom of speech and expression.

Pretty sure if someone posted a picture of a headless corpse or a vagina on a tribute page or site, I'd be pissed. Screw freedom of speech, that's just stupid.

PkMnTrainer Yellow said:

I see you agree with freedom of speech. Did you stop to consider that maybe freedom of speech is not perfect?

This is proof that Free Speech is flawed

Anonymity Protection from consequences Do whatever you want Free Speech + Audience = What now?




...In conclussion, heck yes there is a time to ban someone from expressing their "beliefs" (Or what they're pretending is their beliefs) because it's offensive.

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What you are proposing just opens the door to government opression. Who gets to determine what's considered offensive? Who decides what kinds of beliefs you can and cannot express? Are we to create a nationwide speech code in the name of political corectness? What's next? Shall we employ thought police to arrest people for having "offensive" beliefs?

No thank you. I'd rather live in a country where I have freedom.

She posted inappropriate material along with the trolling. I don't think it would have ended differently for that woman if she lived in Mexico

Went said:

I'd rather live in a country where people aren't allowed to anonimously (=cowardly) mock the memory of a dead person and their family without reason.

This said, why should we ban anything? Why should we ban abortion? Why should we ban murder? Why should we ban theft? That's just the Government opressing the people and our freedom to do whatever we want without caring about anybody else!

Governments were created by the people to set rules that help keeping the peace between us selfish humans, and a democratic Government is supposed to somewhat follow the preferences of the majority of the people. Not to mention that the Judges are the ones to decide whether an action is illegal or not, considering the circumstances and all and trying to be as fair as possible. I don't consider neither the Government or the Judges in a democratic country to be our default and biggest enemies, but some institutions created by us citizens to protect ourselves from abuse and crimes. And I do believe that this case fits that.

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A government's job is to protect its citizens not to control every aspect of their lives. The government's job should be to secure the safety of its citizens through enforcing criminal law and protecting them from foreign invasion. Speech doesn't cause criminal harm anyone except in the few exceptions that are used by the federal courts. Now some speech may constitute civil damages. The difference is making violations of a national speech code criminal constitute's government tyranny while making it a civil tort means that individual people claim they were damaged and have to show how they were damaged in each case.

PkMnTrainer Yellow said:

Quite honestly I think you need to think through this whole "freedom" thing, Freaky. You seem to speak with assumptions that it's a good thing when really outside of video games and movies it's a lot more complex and requires a system to help keep balance between freedom of speech and appropriate behavior. There are endless examples of what goes wrong with 100% freedom of speech on the internet. I daresay realistically we do not want the offline world to become like that.


And yeah... this


Why even bother having a government if this is the way you view them?

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Freedom of speech is a fundamental value of the American concept of freedom. It isn't the very first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for a reason. You said we should ban inappropriate speech but you haven't answered my question. Who gets to decide what speech is considered inappropriate? It all sounds good on paper but the same human selfishness you described will cause the people who decide what speech is inappropraite to abuse it, thus corrupting the entire idea. Look at communism, it looked great on paper with everyone's needs being taken care of and what not but look how human selfishness corrupted that. And I don't think the offline world will become anything like the online world. You lose the sense of anonymity when you have to say something IRL is a big detterent. And if that was true the United States would already be like that since we have freedom of speech.

FreakyLocz14 said:

Freedom of speech is a fundamental value of the American concept of freedom. It isn't the very first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for a reason. You said we should ban inappropriate speech but you haven't answered my question. Who gets to decide what speech is considered inappropriate? It all sounds good on paper but the same human selfishness you described will cause the people who decide what speech is inappropraite to abuse it, thus corrupting the entire idea. Look at communism, it looked great on paper with everyone's needs being taken care of and what not but look how human selfishness corrupted that. And I don't think the offline world will become anything like the online world. You lose the sense of anonymity when you have to say something IRL is a big detterent. And if that was true the United States would already be like that since we have freedom of speech.

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The government decides what speech is inappropriate. The government is elected by the people. Therefore it is the people who decide what speech is inappropriate in a very direct way. And it's just as easy to be anonymous offline as it is online, just put on a mask and change your voice and no one will ever know.