Free Speech in the UK

[ElectronicVice]

I'm sure a few people here might have heard about Mark Meecham AKA CountDankula, who taught his girlfriend's pug to do a nazi salute to the phrases "Sieg Hiel" and "Gas the Jews". Clearly this was done as a joke or a prank he was playing on his girlfriend he says as much in the video that he recorded. All of this would hardly be newsworthy except that he was charged and then found guilty of being "Grossly Offensive" he has yet to receive a sentence for his crime. For a lot of people in the UK this news is rather distressing as it seems to demonstrate that free speech is not something people in the UK enjoy.

I just wonder what people on here think about the situation? Is it good that a man could get prison time for making an offensive joke? Does it set a bad precedent moving forward on the types of lawsuits that can be taken to court in the UK? As someone who doesn't live in the UK I wonder what anyone who actually lives in that country thinks about this incident.

Here is a little article for some more details if you are interested: Nazi Pugs and free speech

[Iniquitous]

Here is the deal. 

You can say whatever you want. That does not mean you are free from consequences for what you said.  There are consequences for everything.

Try that shit in Germany. It would not end well for the person trying it - and with good reason.  It’s against their laws.

Personally, I find it sickening that someone who think that it is okay to “joke” about something like the Holocaust.  Why on earth would you want to joke about something like that??

I feel like he got his just consequences.  Next time, he’ll think before doing something so stupid.

[Oniya]

Okay, I've actually been thinking about this, and my actual problem with it is why he did it.  He wasn't 'doing it for free speech' (like some people would claim), and he wasn't 'doing it to be funny' (like he claimed to the judge) - he was doing it to be a dick.

Let's take the whole Nazi bit out of it for a moment.  He took his girlfriend's dog - not his own dog, mind you - to pull this stunt.  Presumably, he didn't ask her first, or we probably wouldn't be hearing about it.  He taught the dog to do something that wasn't likely to thrill her (otherwise, why not ask her?).  I don't know how many of you have tried to 'un-train' a dog, but it's not easy.  So she's got this dog with a 'learned behavior' that she's got to deal with now.

Let's say he'd taught the dog to jump up on the kitchen counter when the doorbell rang.  Dick move, right?  She's in the kitchen making dinner, doorbell rings, she's got to deal with the door or deal with the dog getting on the counter.  Bonus points if she doesn't realize the dog has learned the trick, and the dog runs into the kitchen after she's already getting the door.  Stimulus - response.  It's all Pavlov.

It's the whole 'It's just a prank, bro' thing, which reeks of 12-year-olds leaving flaming poop bags on people doorsteps.

[ElectronicVice]

Here is the deal. 

You can say whatever you want. That does not mean you are free from consequences for what you said.  There are consequences for everything.

Try that shit in Germany. It would not end well for the person trying it - and with good reason.  It’s against their laws.

Personally, I find it sickening that someone who think that it is okay to “joke” about something like the Holocaust.  Why on earth would you want to joke about something like that??

I feel like he got his just consequences.  Next time, he’ll think before doing something so stupid.

I probably should have phrased the quesiton better I suppose. Yes what he did was against the law as it is written in the UK. However its a law that is selectively enforced. The danger of a government creating regulations that allow them to jail people for offensive speech is incredibly dangerous. I mean who decides what is and isn't offensive speech? How to you gauge the level of harm that is done by someone being offensive? Can you even prove it was harmful at all? I think if you can't prove any of that any harm occured because of what someone said you should not be able to penalize them for saying it. Especially if you are a government and you control a country. I don't believe that anyone in any country should have to watch what they say else "Big Brother" comes to pay them a visit.

Secondly I realize lots of people don't like it when you joke about tragedy or terrible events. But I think when its done correctly it can be incredibly powerful. I mean firstly a joke about something like the holocaust could point out some awful truth about it but phrase it in a comedic way. So you wouldn't be laughing at the Jewish people who died but rather laughing at the horror of what happened during the holocaust and in doing so, those events lose some of their horror and power. That is just what I personally believe anyway.

We can argue about whether Meecham's joke qualifies as "good" until the cows come home, but I think he should have the right to make the joke without possibly facing prison time. I mean this is someone who is could be locked up, not for stealing anything, dealing drugs/arms, hurting/killing people, destroying things, I doubt you could even point to any amount of "harm" that was caused to anyone because of his joke and yet he could go to prison. That just seems insane.

Okay, I've actually been thinking about this, and my actual problem with it is why he did it.  He wasn't 'doing it for free speech' (like some people would claim), and he wasn't 'doing it to be funny' (like he claimed to the judge) - he was doing it to be a dick.

Let's take the whole Nazi bit out of it for a moment.  He took his girlfriend's dog - not his own dog, mind you - to pull this stunt.  Presumably, he didn't ask her first, or we probably wouldn't be hearing about it.  He taught the dog to do something that wasn't likely to thrill her (otherwise, why not ask her?).  I don't know how many of you have tried to 'un-train' a dog, but it's not easy.  So she's got this dog with a 'learned behavior' that she's got to deal with now.

Let's say he'd taught the dog to jump up on the kitchen counter when the doorbell rang.  Dick move, right?  She's in the kitchen making dinner, doorbell rings, she's got to deal with the door or deal with the dog getting on the counter.  Bonus points if she doesn't realize the dog has learned the trick, and the dog runs into the kitchen after she's already getting the door.  Stimulus - response.  It's all Pavlov.

It's the whole 'It's just a prank, bro' thing, which reeks of 12-year-olds leaving flaming poop bags on people doorsteps.

Except you could do something to be funny and also be doing something to annoy or "be a dick" to another person, couldn't you? I am not sure anyone can fully know what his reasoning was except himself. It wasn't a  free speech thing until the UK government decided they would make a trial out of a youtube shit-post video.

Sort of a weird point about the learned behavior thing. I suppose its true now that if she says "Gas the Jews" or "Sieg Hiel" around her dog it will do a nazi salute, but then all you have to do is not use those phrases. Which is only a problem if somehow those phrases appear in every day casual conversation with her dog around. Which seems doubtful.

Also a dumb youtube video doesn't even have as big an impact on a person's day as stomping out a flaming bag of shit would. As far as I know you can't get any kind of injury or infection from watching a youtube video. Even though sometimes I do feel real strange after I watch them.

[Blythe]

Eh, my general opinion is that there's no freedom of speech rights that give a person the 'right' to train another person's dog.

I think there'd be more of a moral gray area (though not much of one, given exactly what the dude did--it's fairly inexcusable) for actual discussion if we were talking about his own dog, but we aren't. There's no freedom of speech rights that give a person the 'right' to do weird offensive things to another person's pets and/or stuff.

[Oniya]

Eh, my general opinion is that there's no freedom of speech rights that give a person the 'right' to train another person's dog.

This is pretty much what I'm saying.  There's a saying that 'the right to swing one's arm ends at the other man's nose.' - in this case, his 'right' to train a dog to do a stupid thing ended where his girlfriend's ownership of the dog began.  If it was his dog/parrot/nudibranch - then we could discuss the moral grey area of the nature of his 'just a prank'.

(I have thought of a way this would be funny - again, assuming it was his own dog:  Train the dog to respond to 'The Allies are here!' by running under a table [hiding in a bunker] and playing dead.)

[Quick Ben]

The response to what he did is tyrannical, full stop. Let's please stop with ridiculous legislative and punitive overreach.

[Deamonbane]

I won't get back into this discussion considering that my previous response was uncivil.

I would like to however refer one's mind back to the Tolerating Intolerance paradox.

[AmberStarfire]

I get the whole 'not his dog' thing and the 'it's a dickish and insensitive thing to do' thing, as well as it being offensive.

I do find it concerning though that someone could be arrested and sentenced for what amounts to a matter between himself, his girlfriend and the dog (and nobody else, though I assume she likely called the police). I find the intrusiveness of police, governments etc and the control they exact over people to be quite honestly disturbing. I'm not in the UK, though I have lived in the UK before. Do I think he should've been arrested for that? No. He deserved to be called a dick by his girlfriend. Maybe even left if she had enough of a problem with it, but I view this as a personal matter that should've stayed that way.

[Deamonbane]

I get the whole 'not his dog' thing and the 'it's a dickish and insensitive thing to do' thing, as well as it being offensive.

I do find it concerning though that someone could be arrested and sentenced for what amounts to a matter between himself, his girlfriend and the dog (and nobody else, though I assume she likely called the police). I find the intrusiveness of police, governments etc and the control they exact over people to be quite honestly disturbing. I'm not in the UK, though I have lived in the UK before. Do I think he should've been arrested for that? No. He deserved to be called a dick by his girlfriend. Maybe even left if she had enough of a problem with it, but I view this as a personal matter that should've stayed that way.

I can agree with this.

[AmberStarfire]

At the time I replied there I didn't realise how widespread the video had become, but I still don't see it as something he should be arrested for.

[Soveliss]

I wonder if I could track the "male tears" account coming from the UK and have those who posted those pictures arrested... /sarcasm

Now, sarcasm aside, two possibilities exist: Either Dankula made a bad taste joke, and is not an actual nazi, and in this case a "dude, that joke got too far" and unsubbing should be the punishment for it, legal action sets a dangerous precedent, or he is an actual nazi making nazi propaganda, and legally punishing him would just, in the eyes of potential neo-nazi recruits, legitmize it by making him the underdog, as well as setting a dangerous precedent (let's be fair: nazi ideas are only censored because they are unpopular. I don't think kkk writings were being censored when they were still popular). Who decides what ideas are legal or not? To be fair, the best thing you can do to a bad idea is debunk it while it's on the spotlight. Censoring will:

1) drive it underground, meaning you lose the advantage of early warning (if your neighbor starts openly preaching nazi ideals, he's doing you a favor: never bring jewish/homosexual/anything the nazis hate friends near that guy, and don't interact with him).
2) Drive it underground, meaning you can't debunk it or show the problem (hard to prove there's a nazi problem if they're all in hiding.)
3) Censor it, and one day someone's gonna censor your unpopular ideas. That's how we deal with unpopular ideas right? Legal action? What? You don't like it when you're on the receiving end of it? tough luck.

[Kuroneko]

Secondly I realize lots of people don't like it when you joke about tragedy or terrible events. But I think when its done correctly it can be incredibly powerful. I mean firstly a joke about something like the holocaust could point out some awful truth about it but phrase it in a comedic way. So you wouldn't be laughing at the Jewish people who died but rather laughing at the horror of what happened during the holocaust and in doing so, those events lose some of their horror and power. That is just what I personally believe anyway.

There is no time or reason that the events of the Holocaust should ever lose any of their horror and power. Period.

[Atarn]

I'm sure a few people here might have heard about Mark Meecham AKA CountDankula, who taught his girlfriend's pug to do a nazi salute to the phrases "Sieg Hiel" and "Gas the Jews". Clearly this was done as a joke or a prank he was playing on his girlfriend he says as much in the video that he recorded. All of this would hardly be newsworthy except that he was charged and then found guilty of being "Grossly Offensive" he has yet to receive a sentence for his crime. For a lot of people in the UK this news is rather distressing as it seems to demonstrate that free speech is not something people in the UK enjoy.

I just wonder what people on here think about the situation? Is it good that a man could get prison time for making an offensive joke? Does it set a bad precedent moving forward on the types of lawsuits that can be taken to court in the UK? As someone who doesn't live in the UK I wonder what anyone who actually lives in that country thinks about this incident.

Here is a little article for some more details if you are interested: Nazi Pugs and free speech

1: You do realize the world is not under obligation to follow some American view of "Free Speech", right? A country which suffered under Nazi attack might be disinclined to allow that crap to fly. (Or they might elect them into power like some of my Neighbors have..Eh)
2: Rt? Russia Today? One of the worst propaganda outlets this side of North Korea? That's...Disconcerting.

[ElectronicVice]

1: You do realize the world is not under obligation to follow some American view of "Free Speech", right? A country which suffered under Nazi attack might be disinclined to allow that crap to fly. (Or they might elect them into power like some of my Neighbors have..Eh)
2: Rt? Russia Today? One of the worst propaganda outlets this side of North Korea? That's...Disconcerting.

1. Obviously no country is obligated to follow any such ideals, it just seems like the most fair way with the least amount of big brother. 1984 wasn't a book about how to run a successful state where people are happy and free. I am not really sure if you are trying to imply that the Nazi pug video wasn't a joke and was actually some kind of neo-nazi recruitment tool? Otherwise I am not really sure how the fact that the UK was attacked by the nazis really factors into how they came to the decision to do this to Meecham. I mean the attack didn't demoralize the British like the nazi's had intended it only strengthened their resolve to overcome them.

2. I had no idea what that new media outlet was about, it was literally just the first one that showed up when I searched "Nazi Pug Free Speech" on google. Besides which my stance on literally all news media organizations today is that they are all propaganda masquerading as news. They all do it, and most will deny that they have any kind of bias at all. At the end of the day everyone can get whatever flavor of "news" from wherever they like, I could have posted the article from literally any place that covered the story and someone would have a problem with it. So I just picked the first one.

[Oniya]

Found an article in the Washington Post.  First thing that came up when I Googled 'Pug video UK trial'.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2018/03/21/for-weeks-he-trained-a-dog-to-do-a-nazi-salute-the-man-was-just-convicted-of-a-hate-crime/?utm_term=.9f1c0382db79

Mark Meechan stared at the camera and described the training he had given to his girlfriend’s pug, Buddha.

“My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is,” he said in his Scottish brogue. “And so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi.”

[Orval Wintermute]

Personally, I find it sickening that someone who think that it is okay to “joke” about something like the Holocaust.  Why on earth would you want to joke about something like that??

Just ask Mel Brooks, who believes that the best way to destroy the power of the ideas behind Nazism is turn to Hitler and the Nazi party into a punchline.

Jonathan Pie does his usual job of summing up the situation
https://youtu.be/ti2bVS40cz0

[Oniya]

Turning Hitler himself into a punchline is one thing.  That lets you point at the silly, frenetic man who can't even have a full mustache and say 'Really?  You want me to follow that guy?'

Millions of people dying isn't funny.  Even one person dying isn't funny.  Mel himself said (referencing Blazing Saddles) that it's only funny after the guy escapes the lynching.

[Orval Wintermute]

Millions of people dying isn't funny.

It's not about turning millions of murders into a punchline but turning the idea behind those murders into a punchline. If someone punched you in the face, would you blame the fist or the brain that commanded the fist?

Even one person dying isn't funny.

darwinawards.com

[Lustful Bride]

I think a major problem with this is that its being used on some edgy dudebro on the internet rather than the real nazis and hatespeakers or against those of other similar hate groups.

This is a terrible first impression and I would be much more comfortable with it to they started off by trying and sentencing multiple different hate groups who preach real violence and showing that this is more for extremists of all types and that the government isn't playing favorites.

Instead its just some guy and it feels a little big brother ish. More so than it would if it went against whatever the KKK equivalent is in the UK or those guys in New York who walk around praising terrorist groups for striking at the "western Satan" and sent death threats to threats to the south park guys that one time.

[Orval Wintermute]

This is a terrible first impression and I would be much more comfortable with it to they started off by trying and sentencing multiple different hate groups who preach real violence and showing that this is more for extremists of all types and that the government isn't playing favorites.

Instead its just some guy and it feels a little big brother ish. More so than it would if it went against whatever the KKK equivalent is in the UK or those guys in New York who walk around praising terrorist groups for striking at the "western Satan" and sent death threats to threats to the south park guys that one time.

The Government shouldn't be involved with sentencing or prosecution of anybody, they can the rules but they shouldn't enforcing them as well so playing favorites shouldn't be an issue.

And about a month ago the co-leaders of Britain First were jailed for 'hate speech' offenses but there is a difference; Britain First were intentionally inciting hatred and violence, Count Dankula was aiming for dumb ass humor and unsurprisingly some people were offended. Also appears that leader of Britain First has his nose broken in prison. Person who tried to incite violence becomes victim of violence, what were the odds on that happening?

[RedRose]

Free speech is defined differently depending on countries.
In some, it doesn't exist at all.
In others, it is considered free - but some of the ickier stuff is illegal, and some books are censored/banned.
It seems in others, you can really say what you want, buy a Nazi uniform, or whatever.

[Eye of Horus]

The Government shouldn't be involved with sentencing or prosecution of anybody, they can the rules but they shouldn't enforcing them as well so playing favorites shouldn't be an issue.

And about a month ago the co-leaders of Britain First were jailed for 'hate speech' offenses but there is a difference; Britain First were intentionally inciting hatred and violence, Count Dankula was aiming for dumb ass humor and unsurprisingly some people were offended.

This is, IMO, the correct application of anti-hate-speech law - used to remove people who spread lies about and incite aggression against particular groups. This kind of speech does have consequences - not just in disgusting attacks like London Bridge and Manchester Arena, but also white-nationalist terrorism like the murder of MP Jo Cox, and the man who drove a van into Finsbury Park mosque (as well as targeting British Muslims, he claimed he was trying to kill the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn).

Britain, like various parts of Europe and the US, has been dealing with an upsurge of white nationalists who are to all intents and purposes Nazis (just replace “Jews” with “Muslims”, “immigrants”, “people of colour”, or occasionally “anyone with political views to the left of Mussolini”). It is, then, perhaps understandable that they want to make an example. But IMHO, while this prank with the dog was dumb, unfunny and evidently offended his girlfriend, it is not on the same level as Britain First’s paranoia-stoking hate speech. Luckily the conviction has generated public debate, and I’ll be very surprised if the guy sees jail time when he is sentenced on the 23rd of April.

[elone]

I can not imagine anyone being arrested much less prosecuted for what amounts to a David Letterman "Stupid Pet Trick". There are a lot of more serious You Tube videos to get upset about. Why in the world would any group get so worked up about this one. If you want to talk about white nationalist fascists, fine another video. If anyone should be upset, it is the girlfriend. Also who is going to go around shouting Heil Hitler, or whatever to get the dog to raise  paw.

I am not in Britain, but if this is anti-hate speech then someone needs to write a new law. Go look at what goes on in other countries, this is just trivial and not even worth discussion. IMHO.

[Saria]

Who decides what ideas are legal or not? To be fair, the best thing you can do to a bad idea is debunk it while it's on the spotlight. Censoring will:

1) drive it underground, meaning you lose the advantage of early warning (if your neighbor starts openly preaching nazi ideals, he's doing you a favor: never bring jewish/homosexual/anything the nazis hate friends near that guy, and don't interact with him).
2) Drive it underground, meaning you can't debunk it or show the problem (hard to prove there's a nazi problem if they're all in hiding.)

That is one of those lovely theories that just feels right, but does not jibe with either reality, or with research.

In fact, even without the evidence of reality or research, it doesn't even stand up to basic scrutiny. Just think about it:

If your neighbour starts openly preaching Nazi ideals, he may be doing you a favour (if you say so)... but he's certainly not doing your Jewish (or gay, or whatever) friend any favours. To put it bluntly, you're being rather self-absorbed; you're making it all about you, and simply not thinking about it from the perspective of your friend.

Your argument is that it would be "good" if your Nazi neighbour is open about their hate because it gives you the heads up you need to shield your Jewish friend from the hate. But... stop for a second and think about what you just said. What you're ultimately saying is that you are going to be the one responsible for censoring the Nazi's bullshit to shield your Jewish friend from it, and that's why you want to hear it - so you have the information you need to able to take on that responsibility. But... wait a minute... if the Nazi was "driven underground" (so they wouldn't dare spout their Nazi shit openly)... then no-one would hear their shit at all! You wouldn't need any "early warning" because you wouldn't need to take on the responsibility of censoring the Nazi's crap to protect your Jewish friend. If the Nazi was being censored already, you wouldn't need to do it.

You want this "early warning" so you can be the hero for your Jewish friend... but your Jewish friend won't need a hero to protect them from Nazis if the Nazis really were driven underground. Your whole argument, ultimately, is about you. Your Jewish friend - the real victim here - is just a prop to justify you needing to hear the Nazi's crap. But you're not going to be around every Jewish person your Nazi neighbour might run into, 24/7... and even if you were, if you think that you can figure out your neighbour is a Nazi, but a Jewish person - who has lived their entire life with this threat hanging over their head and are thus very good at sniffing out Nazis - won't be able to detect that your neighbour is a Nazi even before you do, you're really out of touch with what it means to live life as a targeted minority.

As for the argument that you can't debunk it if it's driven underground... look... I don't know who you are... I don't know your background or what kind of bigotry you've had to face in your life... but clearly you haven't faced the kind of discrimination most targeted minorities do. Because if you did, you'd know how amazingly stupid it is to believe that you can actually "debunk" the ideas of bigots. You can't debunk extremist beliefs; it's like trying to talk down a hurricane.

Letting hatemongers spout freely helps no one but the hatemongers. That's not even just theory, there's actually science behind that. The best thing America ever did to combat racism was make it socially unacceptable to be openly racist. Same with homophobia - there is plenty of evidence that social stigmatization of intolerant views works wonders for increasing tolerance.

One of the clearest research examples I've seen was a study on racism on Reddit. Reddit is one of the most perfect examples of how much bullshit the "free marketplace of ideas" theory is. When racists started camping out on Reddit, the "free marketplace" didn't shut them down... they just didn't fucking care, and kept on being racists, and that emboldened other racists, and soon Reddit was seething with racism. But then Reddit cracked down on them, shutting down some of the worst forums, and banning some of the worst offenders. That finally put a damper on the racism. Without places where racists could reinforce each other, the racist attitudes and behaviour started to wither away. (Granted, Reddit barely scratched the surface of its cesspool, but even what little it did had a measurable effect.)

So no, attempting to "debunk" hateful ideas does not work. The haters don't care (quite the opposite, they're just looking for suckers to "debate" them so they have yet another platform to vomit up their shit from), the victims are being victimized the whole time you're doing your masturbatory "debunking", and new recruits are emboldened when they see people actually getting away with pushing ideas even shittier than theirs - they don't care if you manage to muster a more rational case for why the haters are wrong; they're won over by the thrill of being edgy and pushing people's buttons.

And censorship of hateful ideas does work. The evidence is in. At the very least, it makes life better for the victims, because they don't have to hear the hate all the time. But it also disrupts the ability for hate to spread, fester, and grow. Most haters are cowards, and wouldn't dare to flaunt their hate if there were actual social or legal consequences.

But there is one last, very important misconception I have to address:

3) Censor it, and one day someone's gonna censor your unpopular ideas. That's how we deal with unpopular ideas right? Legal action? What? You don't like it when you're on the receiving end of it? tough luck.

Inevitably when someone argues for clamping down on hate speech, even after they've provided all the evidence that shows it works, you'll always get the same, tired, old straw-man slippery slope objection flung up. "But if they ban Nazis, won't they ban anything offensive or dirty or unpopular next? Won't they... *gasp*... ban the things I want to say?"

I can't speak for other countries - I don't know how hate speech is defined in the UK or US. But in Canada, whether something is hate speech or not has literally nothing to do with whether it's "unpopular". Or "offensive" for that matter.

I don't know what you think is really wrong with Nazi ideas, but it is not that they are unpopular. Nazi ideas are problematic because they have demonstrably led to the systematic killing of six fucking million people... not because the ideas are out of fashion this season.

Canada has very strict hate speech laws... but we also have very strong protections for free speech, and there is no conflict there. You can say anything "unpopular". You can be as offensive as you like. Go right ahead, you're protected by law (actually, better protected than in the US, in many cases - for example, you can't be fired in Canada for advocating an unpopular political position, but you can in the US). So if unpopular and offensive speech is allowed, where exactly is the line for hate speech and other speech that isn't allowed? The answer is simple, and - to me at least, and it surprises me that it's not the same for others - obvious: The line is threats.

To be worthy of censorship, something has to be threatening, either directly or indirectly. It has to be dangerous. There has to be a very real, very plausible concern that if the idea is ever acted on, people will die, or at least suffer horribly somehow. And there has to be a very real, very plausible concern that someone just might think the idea is actually worth acting on. If those things are true, and only if those things are true, then the idea should definitely be worthy of consideration for being censored or banned - especially if the idea has no other intellectual or societal benefits. There is no rational argument for why we should allow those ideas free rein in our society. Taking free speech to such an extreme that even that shit has to be defended is taking free speech to an absurd extreme that isn't justified by reason.

Hate speech not "speech someone doesn't like". Hate speech is "speech that might get someone killed".

So, no, no one's going to come and censor your unpopular ideas... unless your ideas happen to also be about advocating genocide. But in that case, whether they're popular or not won't matter one whit.