Joey Barton

[Cellarite]

There is a difference between shouting on a street corner and doing it online with thousand/millions (?) of followers.

Obviously the personal one may be worse at the time, but when it's done it's done (unless somebody records it and posts it online!), however bad.

When somebody with a large following online does it, there may not be the initial hurt, but there is a continuous echo caused by everyone continuously retweeting/replying/forwarding that message. That can go on for months even.

I don't know what the answer is, should people not be arseholes? Yes. Should people have thicker skin? Sometimes, yes. But we're in a day and age where people are told to consider each other's mental health, and we don't know the state of mind of the person on the receiving end at any time.

I don't know what the answer is either. I think Joey Barton is a prick and he's gone too far on a number of things on Twitter. I think by the same token, Bluemoon (me included) have gone in on the likes of Carragher and Ferdinand for exactly the same thing that Aluko got it off Barton for. It's a complicated subject that I don't really have a definitive opinion on.

I agree entirely with your third paragraph but as with so many things, it's difficult to point out where the line is that Barton crossed. Of course the Fred / Rose West comment was over the line, and repeating his point over and over again was him being a twat but I'd like to know how they decided exactly when it was deemed to be too much and worthy of charging him.

Again - I'd like to point out that I think he was out of order, but his defence will surely be that he has given an opinion online like millions of other people do.

 

[M18CTID]

Free speech bellends?

Define “hate speech” and please be specific.

And, no-one is saying it’s OK to do anything illegal. Rather, a few people seem to be saying words shouldn’t be illegal. They can be disgusting, abhorrent, unseemly, etc., but illegal?

Again, who decides and why? Be careful what you wish for!

I know you don't live over here so you might find this difficult to comprehend but as with everything else that is potentially illegal in this country, the police and the CPS decide. It's as simple as that.

Are you saying that malicious communications shouldn't be an offence? Are you saying that the likes of Joey Fucking Barton should be free to say whatever the fuck they want and to hell with any consequences further down the line? Are you saying that Caroline Flack warranted being hounded by the tabloids to the point that she ended up taking her own life?

 

[Cellarite]

Technically, no you wouldn't but the chances are that you'd get away with it because you don't have the reach that Barton has for it to get brought to the attention of the authorities. Not that everyone with next to no followers tweeting offensive shite from their bedroom gets away with that kind of shit. This was 12 years ago by the way:

Tom Daley Twitter abuse: Boy given warning and bailed

A teenager arrested over a malicious tweet sent to Team GB diver Tom Daley is given a warning by police.

www.bbc.co.uk

I get it, and I'm not in Barton's corner, far from it. I had a scare years ago on here when I got into an argument with a well known comedian who supports City. What started out as a laugh quickly turned into a huge debate on here. Some saw that I was just trying to give him a bluemoon welcome and said he should grow a thicker skin, some turned on me and said I was being a dick just because he was famous. A bit older and wiser now, I can see both sides but at the time, I couldn't see what the problem was.

I overstepped a line unwittingly and ended up panic stricken one morning in work when I thought it could end up with the police knocking on my door. It was a lesson to me and I've tried to remember it on Facebook, Twitter and all social media platforms (except the Liverpool threads on here) ever since.

 

[M18CTID]

I don't know what the answer is either. I think Joey Barton is a prick and he's gone too far on a number of things on Twitter. I think by the same token, Bluemoon (me included) have gone in on the likes of Carragher and Ferdinand for exactly the same thing that Aluko got it off Barton for. It's a complicated subject that I don't really have a definitive opinion on.

I agree entirely with your third paragraph but as with so many things, it's difficult to point out where the line is that Barton crossed. Of course the Fred / Rose West comment was over the line, and repeating his point over and over again was him being a twat but I'd like to know how they decided exactly when it was deemed to be too much and worthy of charging him.

Again - I'd like to point out that I think he was out of order, but his defence will surely be that he has given an opinion online like millions of other people do.

If that's his only defence then I'd wager that he's going to be found guilty. And if that's all he claims he was doing then he might want to explain why he deleted some of his tweets. After all, if he believes he's done nothing wrong then surely he'd have kept those tweets up.

 

[BlueHammer85]

I don't know what the answer is, should people not be arseholes? Yes. Should people have thicker skin? Sometimes, yes. But we're in a day and age where people are told to consider each other's mental health, and we don't know the state of mind of the person on the receiving end at any time.

well said.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

I know you don't live over here so you might find this difficult to comprehend but as with everything else that is potentially illegal in this country, the police and the CPS decide. It's as simple as that.

Having grown up there, it’s not hard to comprehend FOR ME, but appears more difficult FOR YOU, as I’m talking about writing the legislation. Who decides what’s made illegal by legislation. The police & CPS only carry out the laws as written.

Are you saying that malicious communications shouldn't be an offence? Are you saying that the likes of Joey Fucking Barton should be free to say whatever the fuck they want and to hell with any consequences further down the line? Are you saying that Caroline Flack warranted being hounded by the tabloids to the point that she ended up taking her own life?

I’m saying that ANY curtailing of free speech should be minimized as much as possible to ensure people are not censored in what they are allowed to say.

Even with the First Amendment, there is not carte blanche in America. The usual exception quoted is”yelling fire in a crowded theatre, without a fire being present.”

However, when it comes to personal insults, slander and defamation are your legal options.

 

[M18CTID]

I get it, and I'm not in Barton's corner, far from it. I had a scare years ago on here when I got into an argument with a well known comedian who supports City. What started out as a laugh quickly turned into a huge debate on here. Some saw that I was just trying to give him a bluemoon welcome and said he should grow a thicker skin, some turned on me and said I was being a dick just because he was famous. A bit older and wiser now, I can see both sides but at the time, I couldn't see what the problem was.

I overstepped a line unwittingly and ended up panic stricken one morning in work when I thought it could end up with the police knocking on my door. It was a lesson to me and I've tried to remember it on Facebook, Twitter and all social media platforms (except the Liverpool threads on here) ever since.

That thread has completely passed me by so I can't really comment on the specifics of that, suffice to say that I doubt you were showing anything like the level of malicious intent that Barton has showed on this and many other issues.

 

[M18CTID]

Having grown up there, it’s not hard to comprehend FOR ME, but appears more difficult FOR YOU, as I’m talking about writing the legislation. Who decides what’s made illegal by legislation. The police & CPS only carry out the laws as written.



I’m saying that ANY curtailing of free speech should be minimized as much as possible to ensure people are not censored in what they are allowed to say.

Even with the First Amendment, there is not carte blanche in America. The usual exception quoted is”yelling fire in a crowded theatre, without a fire being present.”

However, when it comes to personal insults, slander and defamation are your legal options.

Laws like this don't get made up just for the purpose of silencing people. There has been a huge debate for years about online abuse and the potential catastrophic consequences of that, and as such laws will have been brought in over time to deal with it. And there should be laws around malicious communications because it's no different to bullying. In fact, it could be argued that it's worse than one on one bullying if those behind it have hundreds of thousands of followers because the pile-on then becomes far more widespread.

 

[Cellarite]

That thread has completely passed me by so I can't really comment on the specifics of that, suffice to say that I doubt you were showing anything like the level of malicious intent that Barton has showed on this and many other issues.

I might have unwittingly claimed to have fingered his wife's bumhole his wife outside Victoria Station though and that's where I thought I might've gone too far.

 

[M18CTID]

I might have unwittingly claimed to have fingered his wife's bumhole his wife outside Victoria Station though and that's where I thought I might've gone too far.

Why is that thread not in the Classics section? ;)