Australian man arrested over racist statements on Social Media

originally posted by: ChesterJohn
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

that is how it started in Germany in the 1930's and look what happened just a few years later, WWII!

Oh gosh that reminds me of a YouTube video I just saw about an old woman who learned the guillotine town hall found in the basement was the one that her little brother and sister who made a flyer questioning a German victory in Russia lost their lives to. The story is so close to anybodys "home", her siblings look just like our schoolmates, and if not for a janitor seeing their arms up in throwing position when scattering flyears, there would have been no running to a Gestapo to tattle which led to the unimaginable pass your pants minutes youre forced to watch your sister dismembered before your turn. I feel horrible for the fact people will think im likening the two in degree I am doing nothing of the sort. But seeing an ongoing tragedy like that had me thinking about free vs limited speech for two days and knowing a woman is alive and hurting in 2016 really made what i thought was just history something real. And where there's still living witnesses to the extremes of censorship the possibility it still could give one last fight is still a reality (totally off on a tangent but anyone who looks into it will see how real the story im referencing feels)

a reply to: Dark Ghost

That man is truly a racist, but being arrested for how a person thinks?... wow... Thought police on the way everyone. you better watch out what you have to say.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

There are already tons of countries with speech laws. Look at what Facebook,Microsoft,Twitter, and Youtube just did with the EU. Removal of hate speech within 24 hours.

The SJW's will love this, as they are a huge reason stuff like this is even able to happen. Now the different "officials" and "authorities" will start classifying all kinds of different viewpoints as "hate speech."

Now that the can of worms is open, the lid will never go back on.

Free speech is the most important right that we all MUST defend.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

I am an Australian an unfortunately if you say the tiniest thing that may be negative against Aborigines you could be arrested, essentialy si,milar to North American Indians, the state feels guity about their treatment

Why arrest him? Don't people know how to remove Facebook comments they don't like? Block people who offend? Report to Facebook? Report to FB group/page admins?

No, it's best to keep responding to the troll and rile him up so he offends me and others more. Then when I've wasted hours getting him well and truly angry and myself and others are at last critically ill from shock and trauma to our fragile snowflake feelings as a result, have him arrested. Good grief.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

As revolting as this tool's comments are, what's more upsetting is that there are now thought police in what used to be a free country. Not good. Just waiting for the same thing to happen here in the States.

originally posted by: Sargeras
a reply to: Dark Ghost

Ya pretty sad state of affairs in most of the west these days.

Glad I'm in America, where I might get fired, but I can't be charged criminally for "offending " others.

Or be arrested and charged for talking bad about migrants like in most of Europe.

Seems to me if you're a citizen and exercise freedom of expression and of speech that offends someone, it can lead to arrest and prosecution...if you're a Policemen and shoot a black person, nothing much seems to happen at all.

Talk nasty and you're for it...but shooting someone is not so bad.

Crazy world we live in folks.

a reply to: TheLaughingGod

The racist man wasn't arrested for disagreeing with the woman he called out. He was arrested for posting his racist comments on social media. Apparently there's a law in Australia that says public social media cannot be used to post racist comments. If the man broke this law, he should expect to be punished, just as if he violated any other law. I'm not saying it's a good law. I'm just saying it IS a law, apparently.

originally posted by: Spiramirabilis
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I bet you are familiar with no more than 1% of the laws in your country.

Cowardly statement Les - and meaningless

I'll bet you don't actually care about any of this - past your need to move your clan's agenda forward

But, you know - whatever - and for what it's worth

:-)

How is that cowardly? So you literally do know thousands and thousands of pages of laws? And that's just to get to the 1% figure. I bet we do care about this. If you want people to go to jail for saying the wrong thing I demand you turn yourself in for being an idiot right now.

This is crazy, but unfortunately I could see this happening here in the US.
A lot of people fear that hate crime laws are just a first step in that direction.

When you have no 2nd amendment,
You have no 1st amendment.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Australia doesn't have Freedom of Speech but has a law which prevents it called Section 18C. Basically you can't bag someones race or ethnicity. It only applies to minorities and not white people.

originally posted by: TownCryer
a reply to: TheLaughingGod

The racist man wasn't arrested for disagreeing with the woman he called out. He was arrested for posting his racist comments on social media. Apparently there's a law in Australia that says public social media cannot be used to post racist comments. If the man broke this law, he should expect to be punished, just as if he violated any other law. I'm not saying it's a good law. I'm just saying it IS a law, apparently.

No, you can't post or SAY, or write or draw anything deemed offensive with Austtalian Laws. There was a Historian arrested for questioning facts surrounding the Holocaust as in how many people from where. His book was banned and I believe he was locked up for 3 years.

originally posted by: schuyler
This silly argument begs the question. What ARE the laws in Australia? I know for certain that libel laws are different in the UK and more restrictive than in the US, but I don't know about Australia. The question is: Did this guy violate an Australian law, yes or no? His statement was pretty hateful, for sure, but was it illegal?

Yes Australia has a law against it called Section 18C

Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it unlawful for someone to do an act that is reasonably likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone because of their race or ethnicity. Section 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act contains exemptions which protect freedom of speech.

Section 18C - Racial Discrimination Law

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Think everyone can agree here that being arrested for something someone has said is pretty pathetic. This is all down to the idiotic members of public wanting to see justice for a stolen newspaper, life in prison! You get my drift.

Being arrested or even given anything close because of racism is nonsense on its own anyhow, even though I would never see going up to someone and saying something clearly racist is ever an ok thing. It is however ok to say something racist, afterall its your opinion to have a view about someone or a group of people. It is no ones business to tell you what you can and cannot think.

Sad convoluted political nonsense.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Spiramirabilis

Pretty much what I just said Les - what else you got?

Actually, quite a bit. Believe it or not I've studied it quite a bit in the hopes of writing about it, though I never posted or published it and no longer intend to. But for your pleasure:

Dog-Whistle Politics

Donald Trump has been called the Pied-Piper of Dog-whistle politics, which is fitting since the whole Republican party has been charged for engaging in dog-whistle politics for quite some time. The dubious insinuation in that charge is that Trump and the Republicans are speaking in secret code to racists, whom I wager are hiding in the bushes, like dogs, awaiting the long-awaited sound to bring in the coming race war.

The thing about a dog whistle is that only dogs can hear it. So when I am lead to believe that the right is engaged in “dog-whistle politics”, I have to wonder why these sounds seem to ring so loud in the ears of the left.

According to anti-conservative author Ian Haney Lopez’s book “Dog Whistle Politics”, when Nixon spoke of “Law and Order”, he was secretly passing messages to racist via inaudible code. To the racist hounds who were able to pick up on this covert racism, “Law” meant race and “Order” means anti-activism, as they tend to do.

When Paul Ryan had the audacity to link poverty to a “ tailspin of culture”, especially in the “inner cities in particular”, “of men not working” and “generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work”, the words magically morphed into the inaudible sound of a racist dog whistle. Rep. Barbara Lee’s recognized this inaudible sound as a “thinly-veiled racial attack”, and that when Ryan spoke of “inner-city” and “culture”, he surreptitiously meant “black”. According to Ryan, race never crossed his mind. Nonetheless, to the ears of racists, he was secretly speaking about black people this whole time.

Jimmy Carter knew all too well that the animosity against President Obama from the right was because he was a black man, and not because of his policies, as has traditionally been the case. Mark Potok from the Southern Poverty Law Center agreed. "I think what President Carter said is precisely what is going on. I am not saying that everyone involved in opposing healthcare reform is a Klansman in disguise, but it is the elephant in the room." Congressman Henry Johnson echoed his statements. "I guess we'll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside." The RNC chairman at the time and obvious racist Michael Steele denied the accusations.

Alex Hern, technology reporter for the Guardian, wrote on the subject of Republican dog whistles for the New Statesman. When a Mitt Romney aide commented that Romney would be a better president than Obama because be better understood the Anglo-Saxon heritage that Britain and America share, Hern’s ears started ringing. “This sort of statement is known in politics as a ‘dog whistle’,” he wrote. “To most people, it looks innocuous, if a bit weird, but to its target audience – in this case, racists – it reads as a perfectly clear statement that Romney is better than Obama because he is white.” And there you have it.

While it is probably true that there is a pack of racists out there making connections between such statements and racial stereotypes, the insidious assumption that the right are secretly speaking to racists in some sort of hidden inaudible code is a reckless and sloppy fantasy.

Rather, it appears the only racists able to both hear and translate the racist messages are the very same ones who always claim “dog-whistle politics”. To the extent that it is only they and perhaps some unscrupulous racists who are connecting irrelevant words to irrelevant racial stereotypes, it must be conceded that the dogs in tune to the racist dog-whistle are the very ones making such suspicious connections

I apologize to the OP, for this may be off topic.

Gj I think you crushed him with logic. Lets see him troll his way out of this one. Do you get it now Sprialham? The real racists are the ones who have played the race card till it wore to dust. Sorry your race card expired now you're just one of us

a reply to: Kalixi

But surely the definition is ambiguous isn't it?

I mean, one Man's offensive, is another Man's creativity, or anothers hilarity.

WHo defines exactly what is offensive to whom?

I get that some 'offensive' language is pretty obvious, or at least would be likely to cause offense, like racist comments and so on..but what about mother in law jokes, comments about fat people being salad dodgers, or talking about vivisection?

I know animal experimentation greatly offends a large number of people...as such it could be a target for this ambiguous law, even though vivisection is legal and sancioned by governments...offensive, according to this law, is offensive and therefore illegal.

Can of worms...i'm not conceerned about the colour of people's skin..i am rather concerned that the thickness of skin seems to be getting thinner with each passing year.

What ever happened to if you don't like it, don't listen to it, read it..watch it. Freedom fo speech means the people have the right to offend people's sensibilities..and those they offend have the right to explain why they are so, and either continue to listen, read or watch or choose not to.

He doesn't need to be arrested, he needs a good fist clubbing.

originally posted by: CB328
This is crazy, but unfortunately I could see this happening here in the US.
A lot of people fear that hate crime laws are just a first step in that direction.

What is there to fear? Treat your fellow man as you would want to be treated yourself and you'll never have a problem with hate crime or hate speech laws.

originally posted by: Dark Ghost
I don't condone any of the comments made by Nelson, but surely arresting somebody for making racist statements on social media is a step too far?

Edit Changed title and fixed some typos.

Absolutely, These sort of things are the beginning of the end. One does not have to like what another thinks or says even if it was intended to be offensive to a specific person or group it is ones right to express it nonetheless also in Australia. I have for instance seen so many black people make seriously hateful comments towards white people but i have yet to see any of them arrested for it. If at least that was the way things were going then more people could possibly agree with it (to some degree). But not because some mayor somewhere needed to get some airtime at the expense of someone on some cesspool social media site.