Internet troll gets 18 months in prison

[MontyVeda]

Ass Burgers or not... he did intentionally seek out tribute pages for young suicidees and posted enough unsavoury comments to land himself in prison. It's very different than posting the same sort of comments on his own blog.

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

1. We shouldn't let extreme cases like this which are basically about an odious individual harassing people, which happens to be carried out via a particular communication method, influence broader policy on communication rights, i.e. if this guy had done this by sending letters, we wouldn't seriously demand changes to the postal service. There was a similar mistake made by several people in reaction to the alleged use of Blackberry smartphones during the riots.

2. We also shouldn't start mixing up all kinds of different things like hacking, hate-speech, harassment etc. etc. as if they are all part of the same problem or even family of issues. This generally leads rather smoothly into the acceptance of broad and rather authoritarian regulation.

Yes, it was the targeted harassment of people when they are vulnerable that made this case particularly bad. And, I totally agree that there are a lot of issues that may superficially look the same, but are very different in practice.

 

[dellzeqq]

[quote name='swee'pea99' timestamp='1315935941' post='1839787']
That's insane. He's clearly a disturbed if not deranged individual, and a nasty piece of work toboot. But sending him to jail is as stupid as it is pointless. It's some idiot magistrate, totally cut off from the real world, trying to 'set an example'. As if anyone likely to follow such a lead is the kind likely to suddenly think: 'Ooh. Maybe I'd better not.' Cretinous.
[/quote]
I agree, and, further, I'm wondering if the sentence was shaded by the current panic about 'rioting', and, specifically, the supposed role of social networks.