After Cracking Down On Tens Of Thousands Of Enemies, Erdogan Says He's Dropping His 2000 Lawsuits Over Insults

from the say-what-now? dept

For the last few months we've poked fun at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has ridiculously thin skin. As we noted, he had filed upwards of 100 lawsuits per month against people for "insulting" him -- and this included things as ridiculous as posting a meme on social media that compared Erdogan to Gollum.

Of course, more recently (as you've heard) there was a coup attempt in Turkey, which failed, and Erdogan has spent the last few weeks basically using the coup as an excuse to crush all his enemies.

In the first 48 hours, around 7,000 people were detained, arrested, or dismissed from their jobs. That number has been rising constantly, reaching around 66,000 people from all layers of society, but consisting mostly of government employees.

Add to that the family members of those arrested and dismissed and you will reach a number of 250,000-300,000 potential new opponents, most of whom were not involved with the "other" side or had no direct links with it. The memory of the killings, the hatred, and violence, the split in the army and government agencies about who was on which side -- all of this is truly traumatic for the Turkish nation.

And now, having done that -- including having shut down much of the media in the country and arresting a ton of journalists, Erdogan is apparently in a good mood. He has announced that in a "show of good will," he's going to drop those thousands of cases against people for insulting him.

Uh... thanks?

Of course, he notes that this is a "one-off," meaning he can start bringing more cases pretty soon. Besides, it hardly seems like a gesture of goodwill when it follows destroying the lives of 100s of thousands of people to further entrench your own political power and interests. Of course, he also has a message to anyone with an opinion on all of this:

"Some people give us advice. They say they are worried. Mind your own business! Look at your own deeds."

Yeah. Perhaps Erdogan should look at his own deeds as well.

Filed Under: coup, goodwill, insults, recep tayyip erdogan, turkey

Dish Sues Tribune Because It Called The Company 'Dishgusting'

from the self-inflicted-mortal-wound dept

For years now, consumers have been stuck in the middle of increasingly-ugly carriage fee disputes between broadcasters and cable companies. Usually they go something like this: a broadcaster demands a massive rate hike from cable companies to carry their channels. Cable TV providers balk, and the broadcaster pulls access to the channels in question until the cable provider pays up. Consumers not only lose access to content they're paying for (refunds are never provided), but they're also hammered by ads from both sides trying to get consumers to call and bitch at the other guy for being greedy.

Fast forward a month or two, a new confidential deal is struck, and the rate hikes are immediately passed on to consumers. Yes, broadcasters are predominately at fault for demanding insane price hikes at a time when consumers are cutting the cord. But cable providers aren't faultless either. They quite frequently are broadcasters themselves (as with regional sports networks or Comcast NBC Universal), and when they aren't -- they're usually just as busy tacking on their own wide assortment of misleading fees and hardware charges.

In short, everybody in the chain is violently milking a dying cash cow, oblivious to the actual needs of the consumer.

Earlier this month Dish Network balked at a price hike demand from Tribune Broadcasting, resulting in Tribune pulling Dish customer access to 42 local Tribune channels in 33 markets across 34 states and the District of Columbia. That resulted in Tribune creating a salty new website accusing Dish of being a "regulatory profiteer" and urging Dish customers to switch to another pay TV provider -- pretty standard for these kinds of inane disputes. The website also makes some not-particularly-creative use of the Dish brand name, accusing the satellite TV provider of being "dishgusting" and "dishturbing": In the escalating arms race of stupidity, Dish has now sued Tribune Broadcasting (pdf), claiming that the website and advertisements that publicize the feud are causing serious harm to Dish:

"Tribune’s publication of the misleading and deceptive statements on its channels and these websites causes actual harm to DISH. Among other things, DISH’s subscribers flood DISH’s customer service lines with questions about the Tribune messages, some subscribers cancel their DISH subscriptions, and DISH’s goodwill as a reliable service provider is eroded. Tribune is therefore deliberately and purposefully interfering with DISH’s contracts with its subscribers as well as with DISH’s prospective economic advantage, both through current subscribers who terminate their agreement with DISH and through prospective subscribers who elect not to sign up for DISH services."

To Dish's credit, they're one of the only pay TV providers standing up to broadcast rate hikes at a time when customers increasingly have made it clear they want cheaper, more flexible channel lineups. Also to their credit, Dish is one of the only companies with the guts to actively offer a product that makes this happen (Sling TV), despite the obvious risk of cannibalizing its own, more profitable legacy TV customer base. But Dish has been involved now in fifteen blackouts of this type in the last three years, and it's not doing much to slow down broadcaster rate hike demands.

And while broadcasters do deserve the lion's share of blame for these fights, the idea that anybody in the broadcaster cable TV chain actually cares about the customer is a stretch. No matter which side "wins" in these ugly public feuds, the consumer always loses. They lose access to content they pay for, never see refunds, and generally see rate hikes no matter what the final contract looks like. Cable TV providers then tack on some misleading below-the-line fees of their own (like the "broadcast TV" fee, or usage caps if they also offer broadband) to ensure they're not the ones footing the bill.

Ultimately, these fights only illustrate how the legacy pay TV sector is utterly tone deaf to consumer desire despite years of warnings on the wind. Cable TV executives see the giant meteor (cord cutting, streaming TV competition) coming, but they just think the best possible response to the looming cataclysm is a one-two punch of denial and speeding up the rate at which they gouge paying customers. These are dinosaurs drinking cocktails ahead of the disruption apocalypse.

Filed Under: carriage fees, defamation, dishgusting, insults, transmission fees, tv
Companies: dish, tribune, tronc

Two Courts Throw Out Turkish President's Bid To Obtain An Injunction Against German Media Boss

from the but-it-ain't-over-yet dept

Last month, Techdirt noted that the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had broadened his assault on free speech in Germany with even more ridiculous actions. As well as demanding that the German comedian Jan Böhmermann should be punished for an admittedly rather coarse satirical poem, Erdoğan went on to seek an injunction against the German media boss Mathias Döpfner for daring to say he laughed out loud when he read the ditty in question. Fortunately, not just one but two German courts have now (politely) told the Turkish president what he can do with his request, as EurActiv reports:

After failing to get an injunction from a lower court last month, Erdoğan also lost an appeal before the higher regional court in the western German city of Cologne.

The judges said they considered Doepfner’s letter of support "a permissible expression of opinion as protected under Article 5" of Germany’s constitution, the court said in a statement.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the affair. First, as EurActiv notes:

Erdoğan could still seek recourse before Germany’s top tribunal, the Federal Constitutional Court.

Knowing Erdoğan, that remains a distinct possibility. Secondly, and more seriously, the main case involving Böhmermann has not been heard yet. And there it's not a matter of an injunction, but of time behind bars.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: germany, injunction, insults, recep tayyip erdogan

Guy Who Passed Around Image Of Turkish President As Gollum Given Suspended Sentence, Loses Custody Of His Kids

from the it's-not-even-gollum dept

Remember this image? That's the meme that was (and still is) passed around on social media (rather gently) mocking Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for looking kinda like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Or, not even Gollum, but his nicer alter ego, Smeagol. Last we wrote about this, a Turkish court was assembling an expert panel to determine if that image is insulting to Erdogan. Since then, of course, we've learned just how insanely thin-skinned Erdogan is, having filed an average of over 100 actions against people for insulting him per month (how does he get any actual work done?).

The Gollum case, however, is partially done, with one person accused of passing around the meme, Rifat Cetin, given a 1 year jail sentence, but having it suspended for five years -- meaning if he breaks no other laws in the next five years, he won't have to go to jail. He does, however, lose custody of his kids, which seems pretty damn harsh for sending around a simple (and not very insulting) internet meme. And this is actually a different case than the one we discussed earlier -- it's just that there were multiple lawsuits over the same image.

Cetin is going to appeal, not on the basis of "WTF, I don't even..." which should be the standard here, but on the technicality that Erdogan was actually Prime Minister at the time the image was posted, rather than President -- and the law is only against insulting the President.

Either way, all this has done, of course, is get more people to post and share that image over and over and over again. You'd think that "growing a thicker skin" might be a better overall strategy. But, then again, I'm not the President of Turkey, so what do I know?

Filed Under: gollum, insults, recep tayyip erdogan, rifat cetin, smeagol, thin skin, turkey

Cop Abuses Bad Cyberbullying Law To Arrest Man For Calling Him A Pedophile To His Face

from the wrap-your-mind-around-that-for-a-bit dept

Legislators like pushing cyberbullying/cyberharassment bills, but seldom seem to consider how their badly/broadly-written laws will be abused. Like many legislators pushing cyber legislation, New Jersey politician David Norcross just wanted to help the children.

State Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) said the bill is tailored specifically to protect children, closing a loophole in state law that prevents people from being criminally prosecuted for online harassment of minors.

"There have been cases of cyber harassment across the country that have taken a tragic turn, and ended in the loss of life," Norcross, who co-sponsored the bill with state Sen. Nicholas Sacco (D-Hudson), said. "We have to make sure that our state laws reflect the reality that children are being harassed and bullied every day on the Internet. That means making sure those who engage in this conduct can be held accountable under the law."

The bill would ban people from using electronic devices and social media to threaten to injure or commit any crime against a person or his property, or send obscene material to or about someone.

So much for the "specific tailoring." Norcross wanted to protect kids from bullies, but instead it's "protecting" a cop from a local man with a long history of colorful speech and law enforcement interactions.

They’ve busted him for smoking pot, running a business past curfew, and not keeping his restaurant’s kitchen clean enough.

On Friday, however, it was Ed Forchion’s mouth that got him slapped in handcuffs, freedom of speech notwithstanding.

Days after Forchion stood outside his eatery and pot temple shouting “f— the police!” and calling one of the police officers a “pedophile,” NJ Weedman was charged with cyber-harassment and disorderly conduct.

The cyber-harassment charge, according to a copy of the complaint filed by Officer Herbert Flowers, was based on a Facebook and YouTube video of the confrontation in which Forchion is heard telling Flowers he’s a pedophile, while the disorderly conduct was for Forchion’s F-bombs against police “in public and social media forum.”

F-bombs are protected speech, so even the "disorderly conduct" charge is largely baseless. But the use of the cyberharassment law -- which carries a possible penalty of 18 months in jail and a $10,000 fine -- is completely ridiculous. If Forchion committed no crime by calling Officer Flowers a pedophile in person, no crime was committed simply because this confrontation was recorded (by a third party) and posted to YouTube (also, apparently by a third party).

This is simply a bad law being abused because that's what bad laws -- no matter how well-intentioned -- allow people like Officer Flowers to do.

Officer Herbert Flowers has a history of subjectively interpreting Constitutional rights. He may have been upset by Forchion's F-bombs, but that doesn't explain his decision to punish Forchion for using his First Amendment rights. But Flowers has been down this road before.

Here's the conclusion reached by the New Jersey Appeals Court, at the tail end of a six-year legal battle.

[W]e conclude that a reasonable police officer in 2006 could not have believed he had the absolute right to preclude Ramos from videotaping any gang activities or any interaction of the police with gang members for the purposes of making a documentary film on that topic.

The unreasonable police officer was none other than Herbert Flowers.

Ramos is a documentary filmmaker. In 2006, he was working on a project about the emergence of gangs in Trenton. Flowers is a police officer employed by the Trenton Police Department. Ramos contends that he had five encounters with the Trenton Police during the time he was filming the activities of various members of the “Sex Money Murder” Bloods sect, one of the largest Bloods gang units in Trenton. Three of the encounters involved Flowers. He alleges that Flowers’ actions during those three encounters interfered with his constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, as well as his right to be free from unlawful police search and seizure.

One of those encounters:

On July 6, 2006, the Trenton police responded to a call from the Trenton Public Library to investigate a meeting being held by known gang members on its premises. One of Ramos’s sources gave him a tip that he should go to the library to film the events as they unfolded. Once Ramos arrived at the library, Flowers told him he was interfering with a police investigation, adding: “I am sick of you already, I am sick of seeing you, I do not want to hear you anymore, you are not allowed here anymore.” Ramos asserts that Flowers grabbed his video camera and put it in his car. Flowers then told Ramos: “If I see you again … I am locking you up and I don’t care what for … you better not let me see you again … watch what happens.”

The filmmaker was charged with multiple violations after his arrest by Flowers. Only one charge stuck (obstructing a sidewalk), which was downgraded to a mere city ordinance violation.

Flowers is using a badly-written law meant to close statutory loopholes that prevented adults from being charged for harassing minors via social media to punish an adult for saying mean things to him to his face. Because Flowers didn't arrest Forchion on the spot, this means he had to go looking for "evidence" of Forchion's supposed "cyberharassment," which the officer somehow feels is a better statutory match for verbal abuse he experienced in person. Sure, Flowers could try to sue Forchion for defamation, but that takes time and Flowers' own cash. Flowers would rather have taxpayers finance his vendetta and see Flowers face a possible $10,000 fine and a stretch in jail than walk away from the disorderly conduct charge he likely won't be able to make stick.

This is why we warn against the unintended consequences of laws like these. It's not because we don't care about bullied kids. It's because adults -- especially those in positions of power -- will abuse them to stifle speech. Rather than simply ignore the personal attack, Flowers chose to treat it as a criminal offense. The end result is that Forchion, a.k.a. "NJ Weedman" -- a person who runs a "pot temple" he apparently feels is beyond the reach of state regulation -- is now the least ridiculous participant in this confrontation.

Filed Under: cyberbullying, donald norcross, ed forchion, herbert flowers, insults, new jersey, police

German Court Insults Free Speech, Bans Comedian From Mocking Turkish President

from the oh-come-on dept

The weird saga of the insanely thin-skinned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues. As you'll recall, he's on a legal crusade against a German comedian who recited a purposely ridiculous insulting poem about Erdogan on TV (as a response to the stories about Erdogan's thin skin). Erdogan's lawyers found a little used (and little known) "lese majeste" law on the German legal books that makes it a crime to insult representatives of foreign nations. The comedian, Jan Bohmermann, admits that the poem in question was over the top, but that was the point. When you hear about a foreign leader spending so much effort on trying to sue anyone who insulted him, no matter how slight, it's actually pretty tempting to add to the pile of insults.

For ridiculous geopolitical reasons, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has allowed the case to move forward, and now a Hamburg court has told Bohmermann that he has to stop repeating at least some of the poem so as not to offend the sensitive ears of Erdogan:

In Tuesday's ruling the court found that "Erdogan does not have to put up with the expression of certain passages in view of their outrageous content attacking (his) honour."

Why not? While it may sound flip, it's a serious question. He's the leader of a country of almost 80 million people. Shouldn't we be at least a little concerned that he apparently turns into a cowering puddle of emotions the second people make fun of him? Most people put up with other people insulting them just fine, and we aren't leaders of a major nation state. Why is a German court so willing to toss out any basic free speech rights around satire just to please a foreign leader who can't take a joke?

The court didn't ban the entire poem, but even just picking what can and can't be said seems like a ridiculous thing for a court to be involved with at all:

The court ruled that only six lines of the 24-line poem by German comedian Jan Boehmermann could be recited, offering the Turkish leader a partial legal victory.

What a shameful ruling for Germany.

Filed Under: free speech, germany, insults, jan bohmermann, poem, recep tayyip erdogan

Turkish President Erdogan Now Demands Injunction Against German Media Boss For Saying He Laughed At Anti-Erdogan Poem

from the give-it-a-rest,-erdogan dept

Every time you think that the thin-skinned, insecure freakouts of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can't get any more crazy, they do. If you don't recall, Erdogan has a notrious thin skin, and a long history of censorship of views he doesn't like. But since becoming President, this has gone into overdrive, with him filing over 1800 cases against people in Turkey for insulting him -- including the famous case in which someone passed around an internet meme comparing Erdogan to Gollum.

That kind of nuttiness jumped international boundaries recently, when Erdogan's lawyers discovered a long-forgotten German law that made it illegal to insult the head of a foreign country, and demanded that the law be used against a satirical German comedian, Jan Bohmermann, who purposefully read an insulting poem about Erdogan, in order to mock his thin skin. Some might find suing over that poem to be... well... a bit on the nose in making the point the poem was intended to make. But, to Erdogan, it appears that suing over insults is just something he can't stop doing. More recently, Erdogan discovered that Switzerland has a similar law and went after people there too (while also getting a Dutch reporter arrested).

Apparently, the fact that the most commonly mocked aspect of Erdogan these days is his inability to handle people mocking him hasn't made Erdogan realize that the more he freaks out, the more people are going to mock him. His latest move is especially crazy. It appears that the CEO of German mega-publishers Axel Springer, Mathias Dopfner, wrote an "open letter" in support of Bohmermann, which stated that he "laughed out loud" at Bohmermann's poem, and suggested that the case against Bohmermann is a problem for free speech. This is obviously a reasonable opinion held by many.

Erdogan's response? Apparently, it's to use the same law that was used against Bohmermann, to demand an injunction against Dopfner for publishing the letter, in order to get it taken down. Thankfully, this request was quickly rejected by a German court, saying that the open letter was "a contribution to building public opinion in a controversial debate."

Erdogan and his lawyer, Ralf Hocker, seem to only want to double down on this. In one article he says (prior to the injunction being denied) that if it were denied, he would appeal the decision to a higher court. And Hocker has some weird ideas about free speech and human dignity:

“Mr Erdogan is a human being and human dignity is inviolable,” Hocker said, adding that this was placed above the freedom of press, art and opinion in the German constitution.

Uh, no. Dignity is very much violable. If you do something that trashes your own dignity. Like suing comedians for making a joke about you. Or suing nearly 2,000 other people for making jokes about you. The loss of dignity is not from the poem or the insults. It's from Erdogan's own actions.

In the NY Times link above, Hocker, makes some even more ridiculous statements:

Ralf Hocker, a lawyer representing Mr. Erdogan in Germany, said he had a mandate to seek an injunction against anyone who publicly insults the Turkish president, to try to stop what he described as an “avalanche” of scornful abuse.

“Everyone thinks they are allowed to insult Mr. Erdogan in any way that they want because they do not find him very sympathetic,” Mr. Höcker said. “But this is not about sympathy, it is about human dignity, namely to protect it.”

Of course, seeking an injunction against people mocking Erdogan for trying to silence all this criticism isn't going to stop the avalanche. It's just going to make it bigger. And, no, the reason people think they are allowed to insult Mr. Erdogan is because they believe in freedom of expression and that Erdogan has done things worthy of scorn. Stop doing those things -- like suing people over meaningless jokes -- and the scorn goes away. And, again, suing over "protecting human dignity" seems like an odd way to improve your dignity.

Filed Under: censorship, germany, injunction, insults, jan bohmermann, mathias dopfner, recep tayyip erdogan, turkey
Companies: axel springer

Comedian Could Face 3 Years In German (Not Turkish!) Jail For Mocking Notoriously Thin-Skinned Turkish President

from the insulting-organs-or-representatives-of-foreign-states dept

Techdirt has been following with interest the ways in which the delicate sensibility of Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is being wounded. First there was Gollum; then the filing of 1,845 cases of allegedly insulting the Turkish President; and finally, a mild satirical video that Erdoğan didn't want you to see. The last of these not only caused the Streisand Effect to kick in with a vengeance, but has provoked a German comedian to take things up a notch, as reported here by the Guardian:

In a short clip from a late-night programme screened on the German state broadcaster ZDF at the end of last month, comedian Jan Böhmermann sits in front of a Turkish flag beneath a small, framed portrait of Erdoğan, reading out a poem that accuses the Turkish president of, among other things, "repressing minorities, kicking Kurds and slapping Christians while watching child porn".

Exactly as Böhmermann doubtless intended, this has caused a huge political stink. The broadcaster ZDF took down the video, and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, told Turkey's prime minister that the poem was a "deliberately offensive text" that she personally disapproved of. Most significantly, the Turkish government has filed a formal request for Böhmermann's prosecution. So what? you might ask. Germany isn't Turkey, and so surely there's no way that somebody would be prosecuted just for a few rude lyrics about a foreign leader. Well, it turns out that's not the case:

On 6 April it emerged that Germany's state prosecutor was investigating Böhmermann for violation of the little-used paragraph 103 of the criminal code, which concerns insulting organs or representatives of foreign states. At worst the comedian was facing a prison sentence of up to three years.

Although some people in Germany have condemned Böhmermann for being coarse, an attention-seeker and even racist, Merkel does not want to be seen as a world leader who harms freedom of speech:

In a government press conference on Monday, [Merkel's spokesperson] Seibert said Merkel wanted to make it unequivocally clear that freedom of speech was "naturally the highest good", irrespective of whether she considered a satirical piece "tasteful or tasteless".

On the other hand, Merkel desperately needs Turkey's help in dealing with the huge numbers of refugees from the Middle East flooding into southern Europe. A deal between the EU and Turkey has been agreed to help address this problem, although doubts remain about whether it is a realistic solution. In any case, Erdoğan is in a very strong position -- and knows it. This really puts Merkel and the German government on the spot, and it will be intriguing to see how -- or even if -- they manage to reconcile the conflicting pressures.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: free speech, germany, insults, jokes, recep tayyip erdogan, satirejan bohmermann, turkey
Companies: zdf

1,845 Cases Filed For 'Insulting' Turkish President In Just 18 Months

from the thin-skin dept

Okay, so it was already fairly obvious that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had something of a thin skin. This is the guy who is trying to put a local doctor in jail for posting a picture comparing Erdogan to Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. Erdogan, when he was Prime Minister, also sued his own government for failing to shut down or block accounts on Twitter that were saying things about him that he disliked.

And the stories keep on coming about prosecutions for "insulting" Erdogan. The most insane one started making news a few weeks ago, when a Turkish man filed a complaint against his own wife for apparently insulting Erdogan in their home.

According to news reports, the man, identified by the Yeni Safak newspaper as Ali D., had warned his wife of three years, G.D., not to curse Erdogan -- a popular albeit polarizing political figure -- when he appeared on television. She supposedly defied him, and dared him to lodge a legal case against her.

He duly obliged.

"I kept on warning her, saying why are you doing this? Our president is a good person and did good things for Turkey," the husband is quoted as saying.

Incredibly, it appears that such complaints, which need to be approved by the Justice Ministry are coming in at a rate of over 100 per month. Erdogan has only been President for 18 months, and...

"The justice ministry has allowed 1,845 cases on charges of insulting Erdogan to go ahead," Bekir Bozdag said, responding to questions in parliament.

"I am unable to read the shameful insults made against our president. I start to blush," said Bozdag, who is from Erdogan's ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party.

As the NY Times notes, while the law against insulting the President has been on the books, it has almost never been used until Erdogan took over the Presidency. And, frankly, it seems like Erdogan continuing to pursue such a strategy does much more to hurt his reputation than people telling jokes making fun of him:

The idea that Mr. Erdogan is so delicate that he would be grievously wounded by any language is hard to believe, and really beside the point. He is a ruthless and intolerant ruler who has proven that he does not really believe in and cannot abide his country’s democratic system. Democracy requires that citizens are able to speak out when necessary against their leaders.

Filed Under: free speech, insults, recep tayyip erdogan, turkey

Quebec Town Makes It Illegal To Insult Police Officers And Other Public Officials

from the hi,-I'm-a-non-resident-and-I'd-like-to-insult-you dept

I'm not sure where so many public officials get the idea that the job is best-suited to those with the thinnest skin.

Be careful what you write about police officers online — if you live in Granby, Que., you could get slapped with a hefty fine.

The municipality about an hour outside of Montreal is seeking the right to issue fines ranging from $100 to $1,000 to people caught insulting police officers or municipal employees on the internet.

Maybe it's a Quebec thing? Here's a TD post from way back discussing Rawdon, Quebec, which -- in a postively Ardisian move -- not only forced a site offline but sent the cops after the site owner.

The city council of the small town of Rawdon, Quebec (population: 9400) has managed to get a court order to shut down an online forum (French only) because its users were posting messages that were considered 'defamatory and detrimental to the reputation' of the elected board. Police raided the forum owner's house, copied his entire hard drive and asked him to delete the offending posts, and when he said he had over 8,000 messages to look through, they did not specify which ones were specifically targeted.

But hey, #NotAllCanadiens. The South Pittsburg City, Tennessee has also done its part to ensure governing bodies aren't stung by the harsh words of constituents.

The commissioners of a small Tennessee town have just voted to ban negative comments about it from social media. This stupid move was prompted by "criticism and lies" being posted online, which supposedly "hampered" the town's government from performing its duties.

Granby's bylaw rewrite didn't originate from the bruised feels of council members or city commissioners, but rather from its police force, which found Kevlar body armor may be great for stopping bullets, but does little to stop hurtful words.

The move comes after town officials discovered a Facebook page called Les policiers zélé de Granby — The Zealous Police of Granby.

And, of course, defenders are stepping up to explain that this is no more than an extension of stupid, previously-existent bylaw.

According to Catherine Bouchard, the director of legal services for Granby, a bylaw already exists for face-to-face insults and has been used in recent years for online slurs.

In order to raise the level of online discourse, insults directed at a select group of people -- public servants -- must be criminalized. The deputy mayor's justification is even worse.

"In my opinion, if I threaten you via my keyboard, it's as though I am making that threat right in front of you.… For me, it's the same thing," said Robert Riel, Granby's deputy mayor.

Threats are a criminal offense and I would assume there are laws in place to address these. Insults -- whether they're face-to-face or from behind keyboards -- are just the end result of the world being filled with people that aren't always pleasant. If the insult rises to the level of defamation, there's legal recourse for that. If the insults turn into harassment, again, turn to the law.

But all of these different forms of unprotected speech are being thrown in with protected speech under a single, badly-written bylaw. Statements from the town's lawyer throw out terms like "slurs," "defamation" and "insults" as though they were all legally interchangeable, making her grasp of the law appear every bit as tenuous as the deputy mayor's.

And then there's this:

"If you put something out on the internet, I don't know what the expectation of privacy is," Bouchard said.

"Let's say I write something about you that's derogatory or that's insulting … do I have the freedom to write anything about you?

"Your freedom of speech does not give you the right to say anything about anybody you want in an insulting manner. I can't destroy your reputation and who you are because I have freedom of speech."

Well, actually you can destroy a citizen's reputation, Ms. Bouchard. You see, the bylaw only protects city officials from insults, not the general public. Cops and council members can retaliate against those who have hurt their feelings by sending a suddenly-motivated police force to cite offenders.

Bouchard and those voting for this act as though free speech is zero sum. Bouchard acts like public figures would have no other way to counter online insults if it wasn't for this skewed law. The same online platforms and forums can be accessed both by the public and their representatives. But this bylaw can only be used by public figures.

The Huffington Post coverage notes that the local police hadn't offered any comment, but were "eagerly awaiting" the results of the vote. I bet they were. I'm sure there's a few officers who can't wait to take down the people behind the "insulting" Facebook page -- those clever malcontents who thought they were above the law when they expressed themselves using protected speech.

Filed Under: canada, free speech, granby, insults, police, quebec