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from the don't-like-stuff-you-are-not-supposed-to dept.
Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
A Swiss court has fined a man for “liking” defamatory comments on Facebook, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.
According to a statement from the Zurich district court, the 45-year-old [un-named] defendant accused an animal rights activist, Erwin Kessler, of racism and antisemitism and hit the “like” button under several comments from third parties about Kessler that were deemed inflammatory.
The comments were made in 2015 during heated discussions on a range of Facebook groups about which animal welfare groups should be permitted to take part in a vegan street festival, the Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger reported.
Kessler sued more than a dozen people who took part in those exchanges, a lawyer for one of the defendants, Amr Abdelaziz, said.
Several people have already been convicted in the case, mainly for comments they made. It appears the man convicted on Monday was the first to be sanctioned merely for “liking” comments made by others.
[...] [The lawyer, Amr Abdelaziz] said the courts needed to urgently clarify whether hitting a like button on social media should be given the same weight as other forms of speech more commonly cited in defamation cases.
“If the courts want to prosecute people for likes on Facebook, we could easily need to triple the number of judges in this country,” he said. “This could also obviously easily become an assault on the freedom of expression.”
Source: The Guardian
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday June 05 2017, @07:07AM (4 children)
Yes, well, freedom of speech doesn't really exist in Western Europe, though fining someone for clicking a "like" button is a bit far-fetched. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights states (bold is my emphasis):
"1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
"2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."
That bold-faced text pretty much opens the barn door for any kind of restriction that governments may want. Just as an example: It is illegal in Switzerland to insult the leader of another country. Civility is more important than public debate of sensitive issues.
The European media (not unlike the US media) has zero interest in supporting free speech - it's all progressive, all the time. The local commuter newspaper here in Switzerland has comments sections on it's articles. But they almost never allow comments on articles about migrants, migrant crime, or terrorism. When they do, these are very carefully curated.
I've posted several comments supporting restrictions on and deportation of migrants who arrive illegally. These are always deleted. Looking at other forums, it's is clear that lots of people support this position. But it goes against the progressive grain, so they attempt to erase reality from their comments sections, as though this will stop the tide. The public is turning alt-right (i.e., close our borders, expel illegal migrants), but the MSM and the government are still in denial. Which infuriates the alt-right, and will make the inevitable backlash a lot more extreme that it otherwise might be.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @08:10AM (1 child)
Obviously there's a need for people with dissenting opinions in Europe to have their own discussion platforms.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday June 05 2017, @03:34PM
Yeah but those are usually set up, run, and funded by the CIA and/or run Disqus or some other data-hoovering surveillance monstrosity, at least where I live.
Not that there's actually any need because there isn't.
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday June 05 2017, @03:30PM (1 child)
Sad to hear it's as bad in Switzerland as elsewhere. One illusion more gone, it was to be expected but even so.
Thirty going on forty years of backlash building up, and it's not stopping any time soon by the looks of it. Meanwhile those in power keep killing those they're intended to represent (as well as plenty of others), a few with theatrics, most without.
Would have been interesting to see if Le Pen had turned traitor as quickly as Trump did, too bad she didn't "win" the French version of "Jew vs. Jew" (apologies to the decent jews out there who don't harm anyone but they're apparently both —Macron and Le Pen— bought/supported by Jewish interests so why not say it? Any facts should not be "verboten"). Macron's perversion obviously appealed to some innate characteristics of theirs (oh man I can hear Seinfeld making a gag about jewish mothers out of that one from across the puddle, a funny one too).
Now they seem to want Corbyn to win, because they've got to be retarded if they think they're doing May any favors. I hope he does but I have no expectations things won't continue to get worse. Nice guy on the surface, stuck in 1968, completely delusional/ideological, but at least seemingly remotely human unlike May or Cameron or Blair or Osborne or Gordon or the rest of those.
But what kind of fucker names their cat "the cat" (el gato)?!
[That's supposedly the "name" of Cobyn's cat.]
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @12:31AM
"Thirty going on forty years of backlash building up, and it's not stopping any time soon by the looks of it. Meanwhile those in power keep killing those they're intended to represent (as well as plenty of others), a few with theatrics, most without."
See: https://web.archive.org/web/20140922084750/http://conceptualguerilla.com/essays/essays-on-economics-and-ideology/wrath-of-the-millionaire-wannabes/ [archive.org]
"The right likes to think that every Leftist “hates” the “rich”. I suppose there are those on the Left who hate the rich, but if they do, their anger is misplaced. It’s the “wannabe’s” you have to watch out for.
... Of course eventually, these guy realize that not only are they not millionaires, they’re not making much progress toward that noble goal. That’s when they get ugly. You see, they see themselves as capable, intelligent, hard working people and they are for the most part who “have what it takes” to “make it”. They believe that the difference between those who “make it” and those who don’t is being “capable, intelligent and hardworking”. Things like “having rich parents”, “getting just plain lucky” or “being a crook” don’t factor into the equation anywhere. No, American society is a natural hierarchy where the most capable are “rich beyond their wildest dreams”, and the non-rich are chumps that just don’t measure up.
Only they are capable some of them actually are and they’re not rich. Clearly, something is broken, preventing these wannabes who “have what it takes” from reaching materialist heaven. Now here’s where it gets interesting. Since they “have what it takes”, there must be somebody else to blame. This from the people who accuse the poor of “blaming everybody but themselves”. The dittoheads do the very same thing. Its “tax and spend liberals”. It’s “big government”. For the more crude among them, it’s “the [n-word]”. Only they don’t use that word in public. Instead, they call them “minorities”."
... But here’s something I’ll bet the dittoheads haven’t thought of. Maybe they’re the chumps. Maybe they’ve been sold a bogus “American dream” that never existed. Maybe “the rules” they play by were written by the people who have “made it” not by the people who haven’t. And maybe just maybe the people who have “made it” wrote those rules to keep the wannabes chasing a dream that’s a mirage. ...?