Chinese woman jailed over Twitter post
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/11/twitter-joke-trial-...
Something no one in their right mind would believe was anything other than a joke has landed the tweeter two lost jobs, a criminal conviction, a fine, and he now faces a lengthy and costly legal action to appeal.
http://www.google.com/search?q=paul+chambers+twitter
In particular:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/11/twitter-joke-trial-...
It shows how they punish it, but that statement is piss poor. Here in the UK (hi BBC, think you've heard of us, you've based here) we've seen an MP get suspended for saying something on Twitter. I don't remember reading that it was a sign of "how closely the British government scrutineses content on the internet". Oh, that's right, it doesn't fit the image of the story correctly.
Damn.
Inciting violence is just about as good.
Seriously, why do people think they can say things like that, joking or not? It's in the same category as yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre.
This is the problem: Too much change, too fast. Much of what we say online today was prohibited to do so on the only available broadcast mechanisms in the U.S. as recently as mid-1970s. Even once the laws and regulators started to relax it took some time as the contents providers pushed boundaries. Its only been in the last 20 years that people could "broadcast themselves".
China wrote its first laws to cover internet content less than 10 years ago. This is very new territory.
It's philosophies like this that cause people to get into trouble over inappropriate comments on facebook/twitter.
Online is far more public that just vocalising something out loud. Online is stored indefinitely. Online is searchable. Online is global.
I'm not saying this case deserved any punishment (I favour freedom of speech), but people need to be aware that what they say online is public. If you wouldn't happily say it in public, don't type it online.
She's encouraging racially based violence... I'm all for free speech, but this really crosses the line.
The closest American analogy I can think of would be for someone to encourage the Ku Klux Klan to "string 'em up!" Seriously, I have Japanese friends that won't go to China any more out of fear, which is probably something the Chinese government doesn't want.
There's quite a lot of violence against Japanese businesses, and sometimes people, in China these days. And that's a bad thing. The Japanese did bad things in WWII, but the younger Japanese had nothing to do with it. Not to mention, in the interim other Chinese have done much, much worse things to their fellow countrymen than the Japanese ever did.
Edit: A year in a labor camp does seem excessive, but yeah, publicly encouraging violence and rioting against a specific nationality of people is not okay, and probably should be a crime of some sort, though probably with a lesser penalty.
Twitter isn't a credible communications mechanism IMHO. It's for people to shout random things.
You simply can't judge intent in 140 characters. If I tweet "I am going to bomb london bridge tomorrow", there's no way to know if I'm just having a bad day, making a joke, or am a terrorist for some reason tweeting my intentions. (The last is extremely unlikely).
Even if I tweeted "All gays should be killed at birth", that doesn't in itself IMHO warrant any action. It could be some weird 'in' joke or meme. It could be that I'm gay and I wish I was dead because I'm having a hard day.... People get offended way too easily these days. Tweets are just words. They're not offensive because there's no connection or intent to harm.
People need to chill out and start applying common sense to life. 99.9% aren't terrorists. 99.9% of people are pedophiles.
The security theatre at airports doesn't make us any safer, prosecuting people for tweeting things doesn't make us any safer.
Drawing a parallel though, if someone prominent with influence did this in America what would the repercussions towards them be?
1. That person does not just "disappear."
2. The person is permitted to speak with an attorney without answering police questions
3. The police must file charges within a short time or release the person.
4. The person is entitled to a bail hearing.
5. The person is entitled to a public and speedy trial.
6. The finder of fact in the trial is a jury of citizens
But other than these things, its the same thing here as there.
However, China can't afford to jail people like they do in America, if they did they would need to throw 500 million people in there. See the incarceration rates us vs china. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...
In plain English, that tweet reads, You stupid anti-Japan racists, why do not you guys go to Shanghai World Expo and destroy Japanese Show? You guys are only be brave enough to destroy consuming goods imported from Japan.