Joke Tweet Gets Man Arrested

from the funny-story dept

Tue, Dec 30th 2014 9:47am — Timothy Geigner

Joke tweets: the ones that land people in jail or under arrest typically aren't all that funny, usually aren't all that offensive or believable, and too often result in a massive overreaction that is more about emotions and cover-your-ass than about anything remotely resembling justice. From obviously not-serious jokes about blowing up an airport simply for being closed to obviously over-the-top sarcasm about the state of one's own mind, there's simply no reason why we must criminalize humor that deals with serious topics. Just because a joke is in bad taste, or isn't particularly funny, shouldn't make it illegal. Otherwise, the entire concept of comedy breaks down completely, where any topic of a joke can simply claim offense and have me the comedian arrested.

Yet it's happened again. Over in the UK, a 19-year-old man made a mildly offensive and mildly funny joke in the wake of a garbage truck driving over a 100 people after the driver lost control. And he totally got arrested for it.

The tweet said: "So a bin lorry has apparently driven in 100 people in Glasgow eh, probably the most trash it's picked up in one day".

Tasteless? Meh, I guess. Funny? Eh, perhaps a tiny bit. Criminal? Oh, possibly, according to the Northumbria Police, who informed the media that the young man, Ross Loraine, was being sought on suspicion of making a malicious communication. Loraine has since made bail and is presumably shaking his head vigorously at how silly this all is.

See, the problem with magically using the law to make something "offensive" into something "malicious" is that there are no literal limits on something so subjective. Suddenly you have the Danish cartoons situation on your hands, except that the self-censorship results from the actions of a state willing to be offended on behalf of its citizens. So much so, in fact, as to allow that state to levy criminal complaints against people for thinking some stuff is funny when other people don't. The lever that puts this insane machine into action appears to simply be "offense taken", which puts any semblance of free speech, not to mention humor, at grave risk.

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Filed Under: free speech, glasgow, joke tweet, jokes, malicious communication, offensive, social media, uk

35 Comments

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Violynne (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 9:30am

Shortly after the Challenger explosion, a local talk radio group known as Bob & Tom (now syndicated) made a joke that NASA stands for "Need Another Seven Astronauts".

Despite the bad taste, I laughed my ass off. Still chuckle at it.

To think such stupid "Communication Act" laws like this could put people saying things like this into legal trouble is more distasteful than any joke anyone could ever tell.
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Retsibsi (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 9:55am

Sorry, but why Northumbria Police? Glasgow would come under Strathclyde Police...
It's not even the same country.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2014 @ 10:05am

Re:
Because (according to the linked article) he is from Sunderland, not Glasgow. The accident was in Glasgow, but the tweeter was not (perhaps the headline should be corrected?)
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art guerrilla (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 10:14am

sweet geebus...
THIS is reason #56793795354219 why i prefer dogs to human beans...

and i thought it was not borderline funny, but just plain funny, period... (which *should* be besides the point...)
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Mike Masnick (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 10:16am

Re: Re:
Urgh. Apparently Tim is unaware of his geography on that side of the pond -- and ditto for the editors. Fixing the post...
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Michael, 30 Dec 2014 @ 10:34am

Re:
Based on Tim'e geography, I assume that police from about 400 miles away are coming to get you.
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Lurker Keith, 30 Dec 2014 @ 10:40am

Oh, come on!
How can the home of Monty Python's Flying Circus (UK in general) consider making that joke illegal? Hasn't Python done worse?

Last I noticed, the UK still pretends to care about Freedom of Speech, among other Freedoms. Wonder how long until they drop the masquerade?
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Baron von Robber, 30 Dec 2014 @ 10:43am

Gallow's and Dark Humor are verboten!!

You must find other ways of coping with tragedy.

- Ministry of Humor
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Quiet Lurcker, 30 Dec 2014 @ 10:49am

He's dead, Jim!
"[O]ffense taken"... puts any semblance of free speech, not to mention humor, at grave risk.

Uh, excuse me, but I think it's about time to start shopping for a headstone.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2014 @ 10:54am

Re: Oh, come on!
"Pretends" is right.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2014 @ 11:00am

ASBO
>Steve Kuncewisz, a solicitor specialising in media law, said the tweet could constitute an offence under The Communications Act.

I'm no expert in the law there, but it seems the tweet could also fall under "Anti-social behavior", an odd (to this American) and extremely broad method of enforcing social norms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_behaviour_order
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2014 @ 11:08am

If there's no law against being stupid and making idiotic tweets, one could argue there's no law preventing officials from being as equally stupid when applying whatever "law".

Fact is, the dude's an idiot.
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Retsibsi (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 11:11am

The trouble is that the report given above of the incident just refers to a garbage truck driving over a hundred people. It doesn't mention that the truck, though moving slowly, crushed 6 people to death.

From other reports the young man presumably realised afterwards just how offensive the tweet was as he deleted it very shortly after making it. Did he know people had died when he originally made it? I don't know. No doubt the facts will come out in due course.

As for the "malicious" communication I suspect it's a reference to the Malicious Communications Act of 1988 which covers
1)Any person who sends to another person—

(a)a [F1letter, electronic communication or article of any description] which conveys—
(i)a message which is indecent or grossly offensive;
(ii)a threat; or
(iii)information which is false and known or believed to be false by the sender; or
(b)any [F2article or electronic communication] which is, in whole or part, of an indecent or grossly offensive nature,

is guilty of an offence if his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should, so far as falling within paragraph (a) or (b) above, cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.
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andyroo, 30 Dec 2014 @ 11:15am

Funny
Probably a family member of one of those that were either injured or died in the accident reported this joke and let the police know that it was extremely offensive.

There are times to weep for those killed in accidents and there are times to be serious, I hope any news channel would never ever joke about a serious accident where people die. But twitter is somewhere that people will joke, it is an open forum and for the police to not actually realise that is not only sad but shows that the police need serious training on when to console victims and their families and when to go out and seek revenge on a would be comedian for joking about a situation that is very serious for many.

In this case i hope the Judge throws the book at the police and demands that they attend comedy pubs and comedy centres as punishment.

Saying that there are many trolls out there that are really just evil people who will use the open internet to attack and hopefully in their minds make the victims and their families feel bad, sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the two as it is a fact that trolls try to use humour to make other feel bad.
In this case i would say the police went over the top and are guilty of some type of crime against comedians but if this joker has done this repeatedly and sought out the victims and their families to ensure he is affecting them emotionally in some way then i agree with him being charged , I doubt this is the case but am sure the police will try to make it look like it
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2014 @ 11:34am

When a joke can land you in jail...
...osama bin lorry has won.

Punsters, on the other hand, deserve to be shot. Out of a cannon. Into the sun.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2014 @ 11:44am

Re: Funny
Screw it all. When the phoenix rises from the ashes of USA 1.0, we need to make sure the laws stay unambiguous and understandable to all 6th grade students who are going on to middle school. We can't allow abuses of procedure to convert the Judicial system into essentially a slave/convict storage for money game. Our crime rate is plummeting but the number of new laws is increasing at a rate high enough to keep the prisons full. Just like in the fall of Rome, our spending on the plebs is outpacing the income.

All of our policies that brought greatness hard limited copywrites, patents that actually benefited everyone after the initial restriction period was over, government paid research was also shockingly used by nearly all to better our lives. Now all of these laws have been turned on their heads and the base meanings have been twisted to leave the exact opposite result as what was intended.
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Who Cares (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 12:02pm

Re: When a joke can land you in jail...
Only if you buy me the sunscreen needed. I have a fair skin so I get sunburns easily.
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John Fenderson (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 12:39pm

Re:
"It doesn't mention that the truck, though moving slowly, crushed 6 people to death."

I don't see how that fact changes the fact that being arrested for tweeting a joke should be a thing that is possible.

As to the law, this points out the serious problem with these kinds of laws -- in my view, that tweet does not rise to the level of anything the law says. The closest fit would be "indecent or grossly offensive", but I don't see it as anything of the sort.

So the question becomes who decides what is "grossly offensive"? If that can only be determined by a judge, then there's a serious problem because you have to be able to read someone's mind to tell if something is illegal or not. If you can't tell for yourself if you're violating a law, the law is bad.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2014 @ 12:46pm

Re: Re:
So the question becomes who decides what is "grossly offensive"?

Due to political correctness, it is now anybody who cares to take gross offense, even if they only overhear some comment aimed at somebody else.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 1:05pm

Laws should be understandable by a computer.
...we need to make sure the laws stay unambiguous and understandable to all 6th grade students who are going on to middle school.

It's amazing how quickly the reading comprehension of a representative, lawyer or jurist will drop to below a fifth-grade level when his career depends on it.
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Anis Rehman, 30 Dec 2014 @ 1:53pm

Why so serious ? :p
I just can't get why people take social media so serious mannnnnnnnnnnnnnn its just virtual. For GOD sake we will have to admit this fact plz
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That One Guy (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 2:01pm

Re: Laws should be understandable by a computer.
'These strange, black squiggly things on the paper, I'm sure I know these... oh, that piece of paper has numbers on it, those I can understand!'
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John Fenderson (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 2:51pm

Re: Why so serious ? :p
The idea that there's a "virtual" space that somehow isn't part of the "real world" and therefore isn't itself as real, impactful, or meaningful is, in my opinion, completely fallacious. Social spaces on the internet are just as real as social spaces in meatspace.

That said, what baffles me is that there are people who take online social spaces as being more important than offline ones and deserving of restrictions that are correspondingly greater.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 3:06pm

Cyberspace > Meatspace
Because the written word means more than a vocal assertion.

And if it's recorded, it's sacrosanct and incriminating. Also if you ever change your mind and say something to the contrary, then you're a hypocrite.
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John Fenderson (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 3:36pm

Re: Cyberspace > Meatspace
The written word exists in meatspace as well.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 4:47pm

The written word
It doesn't germinate as quickly in meatspace as it does in cyberspace.
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Anonymous coward, 30 Dec 2014 @ 5:00pm

Reminds me of the time I met a man, heard his accent and asked him where he was from. "America's largest aircraft carrier," he said. I thought for a moment, and said tentatively, "England?" "Bingo," he said.

I repeated this at a bar once and this within earshot English dude's face got red and he started to freak out. I told him it was a silly joke. But he was offended. Some people will never have a sense of humor.
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Arioch (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 5:57pm

Re: Challenger
I saw a similar thing that showed a picture of the Challenger explosion with the caption "Things that they wished they never said, "Come on lads, let the lady have a drive""

Distasteful and sexist yes.. but illegal?

The one thing we do not need are Orwellian thought police
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Arioch (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 6:07pm

Re: Re: Funny
The entire world is waiting for the release of USA v2.1
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That One Guy (profile), 30 Dec 2014 @ 6:46pm

Re:
People who can't get jokes, and insist on taking everything seriously, no matter how absurd, are jokes.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2014 @ 8:23pm

Re:
Esactly. My need to offend other people at their expense supersedes their need to be respected. Honestly, it's a shame that some people can't figure this out. Good thing we have the Internet.
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John Fenderson (profile), 31 Dec 2014 @ 8:04am

Re:
Almost all jokes all have the potential to offend somebody, due to the nature of how jokes work.
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DOlz (profile), 31 Dec 2014 @ 8:28am

Re: Oh, come on!
"Last I noticed, the UK still pretends to care about Freedom of Speech, among other Freedoms. Wonder how long until they drop the masquerade?”

Just following our lead.
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nasch (profile), 31 Dec 2014 @ 9:39am

Re: Re:
there's a serious problem because you have to be able to read someone's mind to tell if something is illegal or not. If you can't tell for yourself if you're violating a law, the law is bad.

Excellent point.
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Uriel-238 (profile), 31 Dec 2014 @ 10:54am

America 2.0
I suspect that one of the advantages we hope to implement in USA 2.0 is a an update system that doesn't get jammed so easily.
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