Japan Introduces Jail Time, Tougher Penalties For Online Insults (kyodonews.net) 84
A prison term of up to one year and other tougher penalties for online insults came into effect Thursday as part of Japan's efforts to tackle cyberbullying. From a report: The revised Penal Code also raised the fine for insults to up to 300,000 yen ($2,200), upping the ante from the current penalty of detention for less than 30 days or a fine of less than 10,000 yen. The statute of limitations for insults has also been extended from one year to three years.
Moves to amend the law gained traction after Hana Kimura, a 22-year-old professional wrestler and cast member on the popular Netflix reality show "Terrace House," was believed to have committed suicide in May 2020 after receiving a barrage of hateful messages on social media. Two men in Osaka and Fukui prefectures were fined 9,000 yen each for insults posted about TV personality Kimura before her death, but some expressed concern the penalties were too light, which led to the push for the legal changes.
Moves to amend the law gained traction after Hana Kimura, a 22-year-old professional wrestler and cast member on the popular Netflix reality show "Terrace House," was believed to have committed suicide in May 2020 after receiving a barrage of hateful messages on social media. Two men in Osaka and Fukui prefectures were fined 9,000 yen each for insults posted about TV personality Kimura before her death, but some expressed concern the penalties were too light, which led to the push for the legal changes.
do it from the USA where the 1st will protect you! (Score:2)
do it from the USA where the 1st will protect you!
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Until Japanese authorities subpoena Internet services for the identities of the posters. And trace them back to people living in their parents basements in Tokyo. (Are basements a thing in Japan?)
Re: do it from the USA where the 1st will protect (Score:2)
I think the equivalent in Japan is those apartments that somewhat resemble a storage closet with a bathroom attached.
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There is Libel and Slander laws, in the US, which are not considered free speech.
However Libel and Slander in the US will treat public figures to an area where they have a harder time defending against Libel and Slander. And in the era of YouTube, and Twitter, more and more people are becoming public figures, which opens them up to more attacks.
Re:do it from the USA where the 1st will protect y (Score:5, Insightful)
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Honorary mention and a hurrah [youtube.com] for John Oliver and the HBO Legal Counsel. When it comes to this protection, I LOVE the fucking U.S. of A.
I wonder if Bob watched that video.
Pissing off people like John Oliver has it's cost.
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Defamation is fairly hard to prove in the US, which is by design. The more obvious problem is that if the lawsuit is at least substantive enough to possibly go to trial, it can be very costly to defend even if the defendant is clearly in the right legally.
When you say "by design", are you referring to the designers making it damn near impossible to prove legally, or the designers who make it damn near impossible for victims to find justice? Hollow laws are ineffective against the worst kinds of abuse. They're not even a deterrent.
It's truly tiring trying to assume there is still a justice system in the United States when it's been replaced by a legal system, designed by Greed N. Corruption who can afford to win every fucking time.
There isn't even a point i
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Libel and slander laws typically don't cover insults in general - just false statements.
"John Doe molests kittens in his closet." could be illegal (if it's not true, since truth is always a valid defense).
On the other hand "Hey John Doe! You're ugly and I hate you you stupid bastard!" would certainly not be prosecutable as libel or slander as they're merely expressions of one's own opinions.
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What about "Is it true that you molest kittens in you closet?"?
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"John Doe molests kittens in his closet." could be illegal
The key here being "could be". If John Doe was a well-known animal rights activist and a reasonable person would not believe that he would molest kittens in his closet, then the statement is satire, courtesy of Campari Ad by Hustler [wikipedia.org]. Thanks Larry!
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What about encouraging or inducing suicide? In Europe that's often illegal.
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yeah until you say the magic no-no-naughty word or misgender/deadname someone.
mob rule is alive and well.
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you're just inspiring some smug .. person to come in and say:
>ackshually it just protects you from government censorship
>gottem!
censorship is wrong, whether it be at the hands of government, the establishment or a blue haired weirdo on twitter.
the other issue of course is the double standard on who you can disparage online, and the extreme variation in consequences for hurt feefees.
Censorship considered harmful (Score:5, Insightful)
At its core, free speech is about power dynamics: it's about guaranteeing those without power the right to speak out against those with it. Without that right, those with power are able to commit misdeeds and silence those who would raise the alarm to the greater public. As such, this right is absolutely essential in a free society, since without it, those with more power will necessarily strengthen their position over time and those without power will become increasingly marginalized, unable to even point out the problems they see.
I do think free speech is important even on privately-owned social media because of how central social media has become to public discourse: social media platforms are where an exceptionally large number of people go to discuss politics and ideology. If several social media companies collectively decide to silence a perspective (to "censor" it, if you will), that perspective is functionally dead in the public discourse. This is why companies like Meta and Twitter have such a huge amount of power over public discourse, and it's why I believe it serves a greater good to ensure people have free speech on those platforms.
I should note that my perspective doesn't have a basis in law in the US; the law states that these are private platforms owned by private companies who have a right to determine what is said and done on the platforms that they own. I personally see this as a deficiency in the law, although I admit I do not know the best way to correct that deficiency without potentially causing other large problems.
PS: Some might say "why not simply create your own social media platform?" That doesn't solve the fundamental issue that in the here and now, a large amount of the public debate happens on the existing social media platforms. There's also another related issue in that some (albeit not all) backbone providers like payment processors and ISPs have begun getting involved and "censoring" objectionable perspectives, which can make this process substantially more difficult, especially if we're talking about making a platform with the same potential scale as e.g. Twitter. There's also the fact that right now, most of the alternative social media platforms are simply "[social media platform] but for conservatives," with the same fundamental problems but with a red tint instead of a blue one.
So yes, I think there would be a great social good in creating a truly open social media platform that held as part of its charter that no perspective be silenced, but in the real world, things are what they are. I'm not sure government limitations on social media companies mandating free speech on their platforms is the way forward, I think that carries with it a lot of potential problems, but I am saying that I think the status quo in which free speech isn't a guaranteed right in the main realm of public discourse is problematic.
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I'm not sure government limitations on social media companies mandating free speech on their platforms is the way forward
I understand where you're coming from, but if the government has no place mandating free speech on large companies' platforms, then surely the same government shouldn't protect these large companies from the speech their users make on the said platforms. Here's where I'm coming from. Section 230 gives corporations all benefits with no drawback. I say change the law to give companies 2 choices.
Choice 1 would force companies to allow all user content on their platforms, free of censorship, as long as it's
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it isn't about what you can do, its about what you should do as an empathetic human being
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Oh, if someone fucks up royally they shouldn't be told because they're a special snowflake and everyone should get praise and a prize?
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If it results in death, poverty, maiming, market destruction?
i.e. Biden administration members
No, no reason to be nice. They got where they were because people were a false kind of "nice"
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At least we in the U.S. are lucky that only the mob will come after us. In Canada, the government will come after you with fines and jail if you don't pay the fines. [www.cbc.ca]!
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At least we in the U.S. are lucky that only the mob will come after us. In Canada, the government will come after you with fines and jail if you don't pay the fines. [www.cbc.ca]!
Have they settled their personal pronoun brouhaha yet?
I've finally decided on my personal pronoun:
I identify as nothing - do not refer to me.
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> In Canada, the government will come after you with fines and jail if you don't pay the fines.
As the article says, only if it crosses many thresholds. Like for hate speech laws. Its nowhere near what some are trying to make it out to be.
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Yeah, so many people in prison now for calling someone the wrong pronoun. There's so much persecution against cis white men that we might as well call this a new Holocaust. /s
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There's a principle of the matter. I know leftists who want to compel speech or use the state to regulate it to protect special peoples feelings don't have any real principles other than expanding their own authority, but its still important.
Give authoritarians an inch and they will only want another.
Fucking pathetic. (Score:2, Informative)
I thought their laws were mostly based on the ones we gave them in the 40s. I guess they didn't get the first and most important one.
There is no amendment that says you have a right to not be offended - Thank Fuck.
Re:Fucking pathetic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Japanese culture values politeness and general doing things to help the community. US is about Rugged Individualism and only focus on yourself.
This is probably due to differences in space, Japan everyone is kinda tightly packed, so being a jerk makes everyone suffer. While the USA is more spread out, and relying on others will not help a lot for some areas because no one else is around.
In the US if we see someone picking up trash on the street we will often assume that they were in trouble, having to do community service as a punishment. While in Japan if you see someone picking up trash on the street, you would seem them as an upstanding citizen doing their part.
On the flip-side Japan has a different set of standards around modesty. Where I can see a lot of US Citizens and Leaders passing or enforcing a whole set of laws for some extra skin that someone in Japan may show.
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That would explain why my dick got all pixelated when I took a piss in the Japanese airport.
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You can thank McArthur for that one. According to the story about how these laws got introduced, when McArthur got into governing Japan, he found out about how their culture and art related to sexuality. Then loudly proclamed "these people are perverted" and went about doing what any good Catholic would do when faced with such evil.
Censor the shit out of it.
And since Japanese are pragmatic people, they quickly figured out that it was only genitalia that was legislated to be censored. So if you have phallic
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Japanese culture values politeness and general doing things to help the community. US is about Rugged Individualism and only focus on yourself. This is probably due to differences in space, Japan everyone is kinda tightly packed, so being a jerk makes everyone suffer.
Well, they were kind of jerks in the 1930's and 40's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], and you might check with the families of the Korean "comfort women"
They didn't seem to have much problem doing those sort of things.
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They also have a government that can amend and revise their laws at a pace that is reasonable, instead of at the Congressional pace that could be bested by a snail, on top of a turtle, on top of a glacier.
Japan values politeness. Japan is democracy empowered to change Japanese law, as they are a sovereign nation. And they did. If you don't like it and are a Japanese citizen, vote accordingly. If you are not a Japanese citizen, too fucking bad - just the same as if other countries don't like dumbass Amer
Re:Fucking pathetic. (Score:4, Informative)
For example I know that the one Simpsons episode where the cartoon family travels to Japan (aired in 1999) is still banned there today for the depiction of the Japanese emperor Akihito was deemed disrespectful.
And there's quite a lot of countries that still follow similar traditions with their legal concept of the Insult [wikipedia.org] which supposedly does date back to royalty not wanting to take any criticism from commoners. However in these days in many European countries at least, where these legal principles still formally exist, it's difficult to win as a plaintiff.
For example politicians in Germany try now and then to shut up critics that way.
To my knowledge, they always fail. And since the party that loses the case sits on all the associated costs (not counting paying your own lawyer), there's a pretty good incentive to not just sue on a whim, as it'll likely cost you.
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There is no amendment that says you have a right to not be offended - Thank Fuck.
You're right, no one has a "right" to not be offended but TFA isn't discussing that - it's discussing punishments for persistent harassment which impacts the quality of your life, sometimes to the point of suicide (as mentioned in the article). I have every right to say "Waspleg is a raging douchecanoe!" in response to this comment because, as you pointed out, you have zero right to not be offended.
But you do have every right to live your life without continuous and focused harassment.
Should I started foll
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There is no amendment that says you have a right to not be offended - Thank Fuck.
You're right, no one has a "right" to not be offended but TFA isn't discussing that - it's discussing punishments for persistent harassment which impacts the quality of your life, sometimes to the point of suicide (as mentioned in the article).
We really need to make a law that puts people in jail for being impolite. That'll fix everything.
The problem with all this sensitivity is that who defines it. I know people who go batshit insane if you disagree with them. Like on anything.
They do not think that they are not being harassed. They fully believe they are being persecuted.
On the other side, I've had stalkers for years. It's just what happens in life. It's what has happened forever. Rise to a certain level, and some people will hate you
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https://kellywarnerlaw.com/jap... [kellywarnerlaw.com]
"(1) A person who defames another by alleging facts in public shall, regardless of whether such facts are true or false, be punished by imprisonment with or without work for not more than three (3) years or a fine of not more than 500,000 yen."
The new law simply adds non-public online forums in addition to traditional public meatspace ones.
"regardless of whether such facts are true or false"
So in Japan, the truth is defamatory?
Fascinating, and pretty scary. How about a jury that finds a person guilty of a crime? Have they defamed that person even thought they have found truth?
I'm called an idiot and an asshole in here most every day - And - it is generally true. But in Japan I can have these truth tellers put in jail.
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In many countries it can be, including the UK which is normally considered a free country. There's a magazine called Private Eye which has a long list of euphemisms such as "Tired and emotional" (inebriated), "Ugandan relations" (sex outside of marriage), etc, because even if technically true, and even if you have proof it happened, UK libel law can, in certain contexts, consider it defamatory.
Ah, so the words evolve. Kind of like how Youtube has certain words that will get you demonetized or a strike. So the sub "womanism" for feminism, "bedroom fun" for sex, "sausage" for penis, "biohazard" for Covid-19.
Very interesting. But now doesn't everyone know what the euphemism means, therefore the crime of factually saying someone is "drunk" is the exact same crime as saying they are "tired and emotional"?
This is because laws concerning defamatory speech are less about whether you've technically described something someone's done, and more about whether you've unfairly destroyed their reputation. Describing someone as drunk at a party can, for example, give people the impression you're a habitual drunk which can lead to social exclusion, even if the event was a one-off.
So if I note that a person was late picking me up for work one day on their entire life, it mean
I'm insulted they're doing this (Score:2)
I'm insulted they're doing this.
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You just insulted them. Jail time for you!!!
We live in strange times when calling a bully a bully gets you punished for being uncivil, and the bully gets away scot-free. This is political-correctness gone too far.
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You just insulted them. Jail time for you!!!
We live in strange times when calling a bully a bully gets you punished for being uncivil, and the bully gets away scot-free. This is political-correctness gone too far.
It really hasn't changed. When I was in Jr High, I had a bullying problem. While trying to deal with it through the school, the only thing I was told was that if I retaliated, I'd get suspended.
Eventually, you decide that retaliation was necessary.
When you are told it takes a bigger man to walk away from a fight - they forget to tell you that you get to be that bigger man several times a day. But if you put the bully in their place, you seldom need to be that bigger man again.
For crying out loud. (Score:2)
I would have been dead in the mid-nineties if I took internet put-downs seriously. I'm sorry if it's harsh, but sometimes the world, and the people in it, are mean as can be. You either find your own sense of self-worth and move on when that happen, or things get really, really bad for you.
I almost think it speaks to a lack of meaningful relationships in the rest of someone's life when internet slams make them self-harm in some way. All it takes is one real friend to make you realize all those people that o
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I would have been dead in the mid-nineties
But we didn't have Facebook likes, Slashdot moderation and the beginnings of a social credit score system back then. So odds are you'd never know.
All it takes is one real friend to make you realize all those people that only know the stuff you've put up online really don't know you well enough to judge your entire worth.
Yeah. Because it's harder to get away with a lot of the on-line stuff in actual meat-space. People that hate your guts don't want to risk their own reputation attacking you in real life. People that talk trash are usually disrespected and shunned. But on line, the cost is very low. They can either go AC or create some throw away pseudonyms from which to mount atta
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My point was more that if you wrap your self-worth in what the internet trash-talkers say, you've missed some fundamental part of being a human. People have always talked smack online. Hell, I remember the old newsgroups being absolutely BRUTAL at times. 99.99% of which made us laugh, and the rest being like, "Wow, that person must really hate themselves," and then moving on with our day. I just don't get taking it seriously enough to self-harm. Is there no support system in place for some folks in meat-sp
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My point was more that if you wrap your self-worth in what the internet trash-talkers say, you've missed some fundamental part of being a human.
You are completely right. We've raised a generation of people who cannot cope.
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I would have been dead in the mid-nineties
But we didn't have Facebook likes, Slashdot moderation and the beginnings of a social credit score system back then. So odds are you'd never know.
All it takes is one real friend to make you realize all those people that only know the stuff you've put up online really don't know you well enough to judge your entire worth.
Yeah. Because it's harder to get away with a lot of the on-line stuff in actual meat-space. People that hate your guts don't want to risk their own reputation attacking you in real life. People that talk trash are usually disrespected and shunned. But on line, the cost is very low. They can either go AC or create some throw away pseudonyms from which to mount attacks.
Did you perhaps grow up in a convent unsullied by life's indignities? After my parents moved to a new house in the early 1960's, I was subject to all manner of bullying. Hitting, punching even a whipping once until I put a bully or two in their place. One good thing it did was make me impervious to the online stuff, while others wring their hands and contemplate suicide because someone called them a cacahead.
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Did you perhaps grow up in a convent unsullied by life's indignities?
I guess so. Pre Internet, I found that most people would not risk an actual confrontation. Not so much now, with everyone able to become Anonymous Coward in order to hurl insults.
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Did you perhaps grow up in a convent unsullied by life's indignities?
I guess so. Pre Internet, I found that most people would not risk an actual confrontation. Not so much now, with everyone able to become Anonymous Coward in order to hurl insults.
There is a point to be made that the internet would clean itself up quite a bit if we had to use real names.
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I would have been dead in the mid-nineties if I took internet put-downs seriously. I'm sorry if it's harsh, but sometimes the world, and the people in it, are mean as can be. You either find your own sense of self-worth and move on when that happen, or things get really, really bad for you.
This. Somewhere, somehow, we got away from learning to handle bullies that we now think that we can make bullying illegal? Well good luck with that do-gooders.
Bullies are an uncomfortable fact of life, just like death and a few other unpleasantries. And they are everywhere. Schools and universities, the workplace, the streets, in churches, Macdonald's and Home Depot. Never know where you'll run into a bully.
There are of course the physical bullies, the internet bullies, some of which are the dreaded cr
Fumio Kishida is a busu warugaki (Score:1)
Prime minister and president of the Liberal Democratic party Fumio Kishida is a busu warugaki.
Also while we're at it, Donald Trump is a dickwad.
Joe Biden is - well he's just wrong about a lot of things. He's actually not a bad person, just goes along with a lot of ideas that don't actually work in the real world, and some that are immoral, such as his fight to keep schools and neighborhoods segregated.
Oh, Biden IS a perv. Much like Trump and Clinton.
Anyway, fuck Fumio Kishida.
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Oh, Biden IS a perv. Much like Trump and Clinton.
Most people men (and probably women) are pervs, and there is nothing wrong with it, to a point. It is total natural, in fact if men where not attracted to women the entire and vice versa the entire human race would cease to exist. It been happening for a long time when since the church made sex bad, now its the I'm offended crowd. It is just a way of making people feel ashamed for having perfectly normal feelings, and controlling them with it.
No, sexual assault is NOT okay (Score:2)
> there is nothing wrong with it, to a point. It is total natural,
No. It IS not okay for a 60+ year old man to make sexual comments to a twelve year girl.
It is NOT okay to grope your employees and put their hand on your crotch. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
It's NOT okay to caress a stranger's thigh right after she talked about being a bit of sexual assault.
https://www.thecut.com/2020/04... [thecut.com]
It is NOT okay to force one of your campaign staff down on a hotel bed after she shiver you away and said no.
http [wikipedia.org]
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>Oh, Biden IS a perv.
It's generally considered impolite to say bad things about dead people.
In other news... (Score:2)
...Japanese police were seen registering dozens of accounts on a forum called "Slashdot", on rumours that the money they'd earn off fines will be enough to put even the most junior police officers on the same financial level as the crime lords.
Sad what's happening to Japan. (Score:3)
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It's a difficult transition, but not without it's value. In my opinion Japan was grossly overpopulated. What other decent way is there to handle it than to allow the population to age?
For that matter, the US would have a rapidly aging population if we didn't allow immigration. Perhaps we shouldn't, but then we'd run into the same problems that Japan is facing...and without the grossly overpopulated system to start with. (Only mildly overpopulated.)
I.e. in my idiosyncratic opinion, the US would be better
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In my opinion Japan was grossly overpopulated.
But what do you use to base your opinion? I ask with honesty, since I don't see it that way. See, take a look at a list of countries by population density. It's comparable to many countries in Europe (the Netherlands are more densely populated than Japan, for instance.)
Also, Japan is relatively huge as far as island nations and archipelagos go, just smaller than California and as large as Norway or (unified) Germany. It is most certainly food sufficient, and, because of a long tradition of managing to li
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I lived in Japan for a couple of years. Of course, I was just a kid at the time. Yes, it's clearly true that wealthier countries can handle a dense population better than poorer countries. This doesn't mean it's the best choice.
P.S.: There are immigrant Koreans from centuries ago that are still not accepted by the Japanese as being Japanese. I can't really say that it's as bad as the way the US treats the descendants of its imported slaves, but it's not a lot better. (As I said, I was a kid at the tim
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Yes, I've been to the MidWest. I've also read about what's happening to the water table. And there are other reasons. E.g. I *like* a rich life-style, but I don't want to destroy the planet.
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It's actually just bringing Japanese laws into line with many European countries. Bullying someone so severely that the commit suicide is a crime in many European countries, and quite rightly so.
The bar is set fairly high with this new law. The maximum sentence will only be for cases where the victim suffers severe injuries, basically suicide or close to it. Low level trolling that is resolved by blocking won't be prosecuted, especially since there won't be hard evidence of a link between the trolling and a
Everything can be an insult. (Score:2)
It is all a matter of interpretation by the recipient, and this becomes a serious problem because many people these days will call anything they don't like to hear, or certain hard truths, as insult which in effect makes this law a very powerful gagging tool. There will also be a number of individuals, let's call them "gagging order trolls", who would sue everyone for anything for personal gain or to get rid of their opponents.
- I like VIM...
- MATE! THAT'S INSULTING! Get ready to hear from my laywer in a co
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oops (Score:1)
I'm sorry Mieko, your mother does not smell like elderberries.
Online Framing 101 (Score:2)
1. Find any online message written by someone you would like to frame.
2. Edit HTML in place via dev tools.
3. Take a screenshot.
4. Sue.
5. Pretend the accused edited the comment post-factum and removed the derogatory comment.
All the people behind this are idiots. (Score:1)
Now come and get me!
Seriously, this is where hateful woke puritanism is leading.
Anyone who wants to silence people they disagree with - on this site and elsewhere - needs to realise that.
This might be a nothing Burger (Score:1)
$2,200 (Score:2)
That's the cost of a VPN for 36.6 years.
Good thing I don't live in Japan (Score:1)