purplerat wrote:

Corneel wrote:
ETA: the circumstances also make it quite clear that he is well aware that the whole nazi-salute thing isn't some innocent joke since he specifically chose it as the ultimate anti-cute.

In that case wouldn't it make the whole thing more anti-nazi than antisemitic? Even if you personally don't think so doesn't the legit question illustrate the problem with this type of anti-free speech legislation? Or do you just not care and would be happy seeing any speech just down merely for using certain phrases?

How is it a legit question? Nothing about that video is anti-Nazi. He never says "gas the Nazis", does he?

I think, given how easy it is to speak out against the Nazis it's as obvious as possible that he isn't being anti-Nazi with this video as it could be.

I would say that the one thing he says about the Nazis (that they are the opposite of cute) is not complimentary, but it's definitely not ambiguous that this is an anti-Nazi video.

video link currently available here if anyone wants to fact check exactly what he says:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Han8cU8nShE

Thommo wrote:

Rumraket wrote:I have no sympatheis for this man but what a preposterous fucking law. I can't stand this "I'm offended" culture some people exhibit. Some people are retarded assholes, just get over it already.

Is it preposterous?

Is it ok that someone can post youtube videos repeating "gas the Jews" as their almost sole dialogue under all circumstances, or is that dependent on context? If the latter, how far is this law (which is wide reaching and intended to cover harassment, cyber stalking, cyber bullying and so on as well) so far wrong?

I am pretty liberal when it comes to speech. Even hateful speech. Unless there is a clear connection with the intent to act upon a threat, or statement, no statement should by itself be illegal.
Suppose I was a racist douchbag. I should have the right to publish a book about how I believe the black race should be systematically erased from the planet. That is the freedom of the press.

willhud9 wrote:

Thommo wrote:

Rumraket wrote:I have no sympatheis for this man but what a preposterous fucking law. I can't stand this "I'm offended" culture some people exhibit. Some people are retarded assholes, just get over it already.

Is it preposterous?

Is it ok that someone can post youtube videos repeating "gas the Jews" as their almost sole dialogue under all circumstances, or is that dependent on context? If the latter, how far is this law (which is wide reaching and intended to cover harassment, cyber stalking, cyber bullying and so on as well) so far wrong?

I am pretty liberal when it comes to speech. Even hateful speech. Unless there is a clear connection with the intent to act upon a threat, or statement, no statement should by itself be illegal.
Suppose I was a racist douchbag. I should have the right to publish a book about how I believe the black race should be systematically erased from the planet. That is the freedom of the press.

Yeah, that's clear enough. I think you are *astoundingly* wrong (that you should have the right to say blacks should be erased from the planet unimpeded), but I'm happy to accept that you've made yourself clear and that any disagreement is just a matter of opinion.

My argument for why you're wrong would be looking at the real harm done by applying that standard - there are groups who say that Britain or America should be erased from the planet. They recruit people and those people plant bombs, drive vans into people, stab police officers to death with knives and all sorts of other heinous acts that are overwhelmingly more harmful than not being allowed to make videos where you say "kill all X" or "you should kill all X" over and over while laughing.

If you take (for example) Islamic extremism (and the extent of this challenge is not the same in the USA where the Islamic population is lower) you can't tackle that issue without being able to tackle its ideological leaders. And to be fair, the USA is quite prepared to kill hundreds of people a year with drone strikes to accomplish such goals anyway. I'm a lot more sanguine about restrictions on speech than that, in terms of assessing alternative approaches.

It's a sad state of affairs when an ill thought through joke can land you in prison. This man was obviously not inciting racial hatred or endorsing the Nazis. While the repetitive use of language in the video is uncomfortable, it's clear that Jewish people are not the butt of the joke, the dog and girlfriend are, and the joke is based around the ridiculousness of turning a cute dog into a Nazi. If anything, he's guilty of poor editing that included the repetitive use of the offending phrase. There's a particular member of royalty who once upon a time also thought that the Nazis were a fun costume to wear at a party, and I don't remember anyone accusing him of inciting racial hatred. Idiocy, yes.

As for casting aspersions about this man's relationship with his girlfriend, there's literally no evidence of that whatsoever. Contrary to some people's apparent experiences, plenty of couples regularly do things to tease each other and wind each other up, and it's typically a sign of a healthy relationship, not the controlling behaviour of an abusive partner.

It seems like a typical example of a courtroom trying and failing to judge comedy. Frankie Boyle described the experience of having bits of his routine read out in court completely devoid of context to be judged by people who it was never aimed at in the first place.

Thommo wrote:

purplerat wrote:

Corneel wrote:
ETA: the circumstances also make it quite clear that he is well aware that the whole nazi-salute thing isn't some innocent joke since he specifically chose it as the ultimate anti-cute.

In that case wouldn't it make the whole thing more anti-nazi than antisemitic? Even if you personally don't think so doesn't the legit question illustrate the problem with this type of anti-free speech legislation? Or do you just not care and would be happy seeing any speech just down merely for using certain phrases?

How is it a legit question? Nothing about that video is anti-Nazi. He never says "gas the Nazis", does he?

I think, given how easy it is to speak out against the Nazis it's as obvious as possible that he isn't being anti-Nazi with this video as it could be.

I would say that the one thing he says about the Nazis (that they are the opposite of cute) is not complimentary, but it's definitely not ambiguous that this is an anti-Nazi video.

video link currently available here if anyone wants to fact check exactly what he says:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Han8cU8nShE

I haven't watched it yet but let me ask you this. Do you think he's anti-semitic? Do you believe he's really advocating "gassing Jews" or otherwise inciting violence?
Or do you think he says that because Nazis are about the worst thing he can think of so he's using them to be provocative? (whether you think it's to a worthwhile end or not being irrelevant)

purplerat wrote:I haven't watched it yet but let me ask you this. Do you think he's anti-semitic? Do you believe he's really advocating "gassing Jews" or otherwise inciting violence?
Or do you think he says that because Nazis are about the worst thing he can think of so he's using them to be provocative? (whether you think it's to a worthwhile end or not being irrelevant)

I don't think he's anti-semitic (without expressing whether the video itself is). I don't think he's advocating violence. I don't think what he did should be illegal. I don't think he should have been prosecuted.

And yet, his video clearly isn't anti-Nazi. He says absolutely nothing worse about Nazis than implying they aren't cute.

Thommo wrote:And yet, his video clearly isn't anti-Nazi. He says absolutely nothing worse about Nazis than implying they aren't cute.

You think the dramatic music at the end and the big ominous picture of Hitler with a worried-looking dog are entirely neutral then?

See this is the problem with stuff like this. You end up being forced to artistically defend something with very little artistic merit.

Nice to see Tommy Robinson turned up to show his support. Because that's what you want when you're trying to convince a court you're not racist. An endorsement from the founder of a far-right group with a number of convictions for exactly the same thing.

I'm With Stupid wrote:You think the dramatic music at the end and the big ominous picture of Hitler with a worried-looking dog are entirely neutral then?

Yes, I think if you were making an anti-Nazi video, that's not what you'd do. I'm sure you can find a thousand jokes of that sort (e.g. Only Fools and Horses - Rodney's reaction to Damian).

I'm With Stupid wrote:See this is the problem with stuff like this. You end up being forced to artistically defend something with very little artistic merit.

Yes and no. I don't think the defence should be artistry. The defence is that he's not actually inciting hatred, he's not recruiting for a hate group or asking people to gas Jews.

The problem is that the law has been drafted to be able to prosecute people who are able to (ab)use that defence in other contexts, together with the (unassailable in my view) principle of innocent until proven guilty to actually hurt or kill people.

The question for me (and I have no ideal either that free speech is an unassailable absolute or on the other side) is the simple trade off in harm between this law and whatever the alternative law would be, and whether that would make prosecuting people damaging our society through extremist recruiting harder.

Thommo wrote:Laughing and saying gas the Jews over and over is less offensive than his avatar?

Chose the wrong smiley I guess. It was a comment about how inoffensive I found his antics in contrast to his being convicted for them.

I'm with I'm with stupid on this one. I thought it was more anti-Nazi than anti-Semitic. That is, it's only funny (presuming intent here) if you think Nazis are despicable.

Thommo wrote:

purplerat wrote:I haven't watched it yet but let me ask you this. Do you think he's anti-semitic? Do you believe he's really advocating "gassing Jews" or otherwise inciting violence?
Or do you think he says that because Nazis are about the worst thing he can think of so he's using them to be provocative? (whether you think it's to a worthwhile end or not being irrelevant)

I don't think he's anti-semitic (without expressing whether the video itself is). I don't think he's advocating violence. I don't think what he did should be illegal. I don't think he should have been prosecuted.

And yet, his video clearly isn't anti-Nazi. He says absolutely nothing worse about Nazis than implying they aren't cute.

Again, I haven't watched it, but I'll go out on a limb and say that if he'd made a similar video making fun of the dog being a Jew or gay or some minority then that video would be labeled as being anti-[whateverhemadethedoguptobe].

NuclMan wrote:

Thommo wrote:Laughing and saying gas the Jews over and over is less offensive than his avatar?

Chose the wrong smiley I guess. It was a comment about how inoffensive I found his antics in contrast to his being convicted for them.

I'm with I'm with stupid on this one. I thought it was more anti-Nazi than anti-Semitic. That is, it's only funny (presuming intent here) if you think Nazis are despicable.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm equally bemused that you find a chant of "gas all Jews" inoffensive, I guess. But I don't suppose it really matters.

"gas all Jews" seems to be about as offensive as it gets to me. But I definitely have a thinner skin than many.

purplerat wrote:

Thommo wrote:

purplerat wrote:I haven't watched it yet but let me ask you this. Do you think he's anti-semitic? Do you believe he's really advocating "gassing Jews" or otherwise inciting violence?
Or do you think he says that because Nazis are about the worst thing he can think of so he's using them to be provocative? (whether you think it's to a worthwhile end or not being irrelevant)

I don't think he's anti-semitic (without expressing whether the video itself is). I don't think he's advocating violence. I don't think what he did should be illegal. I don't think he should have been prosecuted.

And yet, his video clearly isn't anti-Nazi. He says absolutely nothing worse about Nazis than implying they aren't cute.

Again, I haven't watched it, but I'll go out on a limb and say that if he'd made a similar video making fun of the dog being a Jew or gay or some minority then that video would be labeled as being anti-[whateverhemadethedoguptobe].

I don't know how to react to you comparing the situation to a reaction that exists in your own mind. I guess we imagine it differently, or we imagine the imagined reasons for the imagined reaction differently, maybe?

I think if you take something neutral like dressing your dog up as a sailor it wouldn't be taken as a criticism of sailors, even the Daily Mail don't seem to be able to be outraged over that: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/artic ... liday.html so I'm not sure exactly how criticism is necessarily implied by having your dog behave some way or other.

I would also take the reaction of the "alt" and far right to this case as an indication that they don't feel it hostile to the far right agenda. It doesn't match what I'd expect from any kind of clear attack on Nazis.

Thommo wrote:

NuclMan wrote:

Thommo wrote:Laughing and saying gas the Jews over and over is less offensive than his avatar?

Chose the wrong smiley I guess. It was a comment about how inoffensive I found his antics in contrast to his being convicted for them.

I'm with I'm with stupid on this one. I thought it was more anti-Nazi than anti-Semitic. That is, it's only funny (presuming intent here) if you think Nazis are despicable.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm equally bemused that you find a chant of "gas all Jews" inoffensive, I guess. But I don't suppose it really matters.

"gas all Jews" seems to be about as offensive as it gets to me. But I definitely have a thinner skin than many.

To be clear, I wasnt offended by "gas all jews" in that context. I find the conviction itself more offensive in contrast. Maybe I'm not communicating my position as well as I could.

It's fine, I probably didn't need to elaborate on my reply. Thanks for your explanation.

Thommo wrote:Yes and no. I don't think the defence should be artistry. The defence is that he's not actually inciting hatred, he's not recruiting for a hate group or asking people to gas Jews.

That requires you to be able to analyse the text that he's created. If you can't analyse the artistic intention behind a piece of work, then you have no basis to determine its intention beyond merely taking the artist at his word. And courts are notoriously bad at being able to do this. Maybe if more people had one of those "Micky Mouse" media studies degrees.

I'm With Stupid wrote:

Thommo wrote:Yes and no. I don't think the defence should be artistry. The defence is that he's not actually inciting hatred, he's not recruiting for a hate group or asking people to gas Jews.

That requires you to be able to analyse the text that he's created. If you can't analyse the artistic intention behind a piece of work, then you have no basis to determine its intention beyond merely taking the artist at his word. And courts are notoriously bad at being able to do this. Maybe if more people had one of those "Micky Mouse" media studies degrees.

I disagree. I don't think you need a qualification, I think you need to live among humans to determine this sort of thing.

And I definitely wouldn't describe it as an ability to decide about "artistry". It's about context. It's about intent. It's about interpreting patterns of behaviour. It's about interpreting social queues. That's not art, it's just life or the dreaded "common sense".

Thommo wrote:

purplerat wrote:

Thommo wrote:

purplerat wrote:I haven't watched it yet but let me ask you this. Do you think he's anti-semitic? Do you believe he's really advocating "gassing Jews" or otherwise inciting violence?
Or do you think he says that because Nazis are about the worst thing he can think of so he's using them to be provocative? (whether you think it's to a worthwhile end or not being irrelevant)

I don't think he's anti-semitic (without expressing whether the video itself is). I don't think he's advocating violence. I don't think what he did should be illegal. I don't think he should have been prosecuted.

And yet, his video clearly isn't anti-Nazi. He says absolutely nothing worse about Nazis than implying they aren't cute.

Again, I haven't watched it, but I'll go out on a limb and say that if he'd made a similar video making fun of the dog being a Jew or gay or some minority then that video would be labeled as being anti-[whateverhemadethedoguptobe].

I don't know how to react to you comparing the situation to a reaction that exists in your own mind. I guess we imagine it differently, or we imagine the imagined reasons for the imagined reaction differently, maybe?

I think if you take something neutral like dressing your dog up as a sailor it wouldn't be taken as a criticism of sailors, even the Daily Mail don't seem to be able to be outraged over that: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/artic ... liday.html so I'm not sure exactly how criticism is necessarily implied by having your dog behave some way or other.

I would also take the reaction of the "alt" and far right to this case as an indication that they don't feel it hostile to the far right agenda. It doesn't match what I'd expect from any kind of clear attack on Nazis.

I guess I made the mistake of assuming that most people aren't neutral on Nazis.

Corneel wrote:Let's get him into prison and then we can make jokes about dropping the soap, because, hey! Free speech.

"Dropping the soap?" Oh my, I'm grossly offended by this electronic communication. Pack your striped pajamas; you can chat about these laws with Meechan when you meet him in jail.

Sendraks wrote:Look, about this dog?

Careful, Sendraks. If the wrong persons see it, your avatar could be considered a criminal communication.

I'm not sure why people are so confidant he's a good guy with a distasteful sense of humour. I don't know enough about him to say whether he is or isn't a Nazi. I just know he's unfunny.