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posted by takyon on Friday December 28 2018, @07:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the joking-while-online dept.

UK Cops Have Decided Impolite Online Speech Is Worth A Visit From An Officer

In this case, it was Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan being visited by the Norwich Police Department on a Sunday morning. He was apparently reported by outspoken trans rights activist Adrian Harrop. Linehan had posted tweets criticizing Harrop's televised debate with a woman who had paid for a billboard depicting the dictionary's definition of the word "woman," which bothered Harrop so much he complained and got that taken down as well.

Harrop was the reason Linehan was talking to police officers about tweets that didn't even violate the Twitter Rules. He had merely suggested Harrop's steamrolling of the billboard buyer during a televised debate might have been "male privilege." Another tweet alleged Harrop had threatened women and doxxed them for not being friendly enough to his cause. This is the tweet Harrop admits bothered him so much he needed to call the police. This is the disturbing, but ultimately useless, outcome of Harrop's decision.

[...] You can't recognize free speech while still insisting everyone has to be nice to everyone else while online. You can hope that's what will happen, but you can't demand this of the general population. Unless you're in the UK, in which case you can, because you don't really recognize free speech and should probably remove that phrase from the government's collective vocabulary.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Friday December 28 2018, @10:42PM (14 children)

    by edIII (791) on Friday December 28 2018, @10:42PM (#779497)

    Indicate the source of the href when viewing the list of submissions. Twitter IS NOT A NEWS SOURCE, and I don't appreciate being taken there. Seriously, linking to Twitter is fucking moronic. end /rant

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  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday December 29 2018, @12:17AM (7 children)

    by krishnoid (1156) on Saturday December 29 2018, @12:17AM (#779528)

    Twitter IS NOT A NEWS SOURCE,

    Considering they're frequently the original source for official statements [pri.org], you may be wrong.

    and I don't appreciate being taken there.

    Not much of a dispute with that, though, based on the source of those official statements.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Saturday December 29 2018, @12:33AM (6 children)

      by edIII (791) on Saturday December 29 2018, @12:33AM (#779532)

      No, I'm not wrong. Twitter is not a fucking news source. I don't care how densely your try to pack information into 140/280 characters. The instant I see Twitter being mentioned as a source, I move on. There is nothing of value there, and in general, nothing of value on Twitter.

      The only reason it remotely has utility in journalism, is for the click baiting. That and Orange Anus prefers something vapid and shallow, instead of actual press conferences where you can call him on his shit to his face. Hence this perverse move to give Twitter the validity as an information source that is wholly undeserved.

      It's not a news source, when the sources can be deleted and manipulated after the fact.

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      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:30AM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:30AM (#779551) Journal

        Twitter is not just a news source. It can be a primary source if the subject of interest is using it. You aren't going to get the Gettysburg Address on there, unless it is multi-tweeted, but there is still valuable and newsworthy information.

        I'm not sure where this is coming from because we have linked Twitter in summaries plenty of times. Usually when TFA linked it, but still.

        Here's a good example of Twitter being a useful source: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/12/24/205202 [soylentnews.org]

        There is nothing of value there, and in general, nothing of value on Twitter.

        That is just plain false. And nobody is asking you to comb all of the crap on Twitter to find the value. The value is being curated for you. Heck, you don't even have to click on it because Twitter is not TFA.

        It's not a news source, when the sources can be deleted and manipulated after the fact.

        This can apply to any news article you link. BBC and Reuters often replace all of the text of an initial draft of a breaking news article.

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      • (Score: 0, Touché) by fakefuck39 on Saturday December 29 2018, @04:49AM (2 children)

        by fakefuck39 (6620) on Saturday December 29 2018, @04:49AM (#779601)

        Something generating news is a source of news. It's not a source that reports on news, but it is the actual news. You either lack common sense, or think being dense is "cool" and are pretending to be dense. A tweet containing new information from OrangeWig is a source of news. A text message on my phone is a source of news. A photo of a car crash posted on 4chan is a source of news.

        News are new things you didn't know. A source is that which provides the information. I have a feeling that since you're on this site, you're not in high school, so pretending to be dumb should no longer be cool. Unless you're one of those losers that was picked on a lot, and it never gave you a chance to mentally mature into an adult. I guess keep pretending to not understand basic things, as I keep laughing at you?

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Saturday December 29 2018, @10:50PM (1 child)

          by edIII (791) on Saturday December 29 2018, @10:50PM (#779837)

          Uh huh. First, go fuck yourself. Second, Twitter is not a news source, and will never be one. It's a collection of the inane ramblings of the public, often as unverified sources, that can be treated as hearsay. Just because there is a dumpster fire of a President insisting on using it to communicate to his supporters does not mean Twitter has validity. Your insistence that 4Chan has any validity as a news source makes you sound like a fucking retard. It's not a viable source in any way, shape, or form.

          Journalists that create vapid articles that simply link to a fucking tweet, are not producing anything of value. When they actually have a source on record, or the information was published on platforms other than social media, then it can be taken seriously. Until then, it's easy to say that "my Twitter account got hacked", and just as easy to delete tweets. What does that leave the journalist with? Nothing.

          If you insist on calling it news, than call it what it is: very low quality and unusable sources

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          • (Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Monday December 31 2018, @07:35AM

            by fakefuck39 (6620) on Monday December 31 2018, @07:35AM (#780176)

            hey, you should call the SEC and tell them to put Musk back. Information suddenly loses its value when it gets placed on twitter. I guess that means anything you say is not a news source, because out of you and twitter, you are definitely the more retarded one. A news source is anything that gave you information you didn't have before. There is more spam on twitter, but there is new information on twitter. As soon as you repeat information from nasa, it stops being news. Because you're dummer than twitter. Because you are purposely pretending to be dense, and are actually proud of it.

            Is a text message a new source? How about one from your boss that says you're fired because your company just laid off 10k people? Oh shit, I forgot you hippies don't know what a job is. Carry on.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:30AM (1 child)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:30AM (#779609) Journal

        Fortunately twitter posts are short, so I would suggest that it be considered a "volatile" news source, and that it you want to reference it, you MUST copy the text you are referencing into the document containing the reference. Just like with a volatile integer.

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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @07:36PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @07:36PM (#779785)

          > Fortunately twitter posts are short, so I would suggest that it be considered a "volatile" news source, [...]

          It can be treated as hearsay.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:33AM (4 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:33AM (#779553) Journal

    https://soylentnews.org/my/comments [soylentnews.org]

    Select "Show link domains in comments and stories" under "Display Link Domains?".

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    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:40AM (3 children)

      by edIII (791) on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:40AM (#779556)

      Thank you. Sorry, but Twitter will never be a reputable source for anything. If it's worth saying, it can be done in a real article. I'm tired of this bullshit or news being, "somebody said something on Twitter". It's inane and meaningless, and has no place in journalism. There is no valid Ven diagram cross section between social media and journalism.

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      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:49AM (2 children)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday December 29 2018, @01:49AM (#779560) Journal

        In the SpaceX Starship article, the few short sentences (and in one tweet, a single digit) that Musk shared about the vehicle represented massive news and interesting details to people obsessively tracking the vehicle's development. News articles about this quoted some of the tweets, but some articles only vaguely paraphrased the tweets or did not cover certain aspects.

        And with this article, the tweet(s) in question led to an IRL visit by police.

        In both cases, it is wholly appropriate to link to Twitter, as it is a primary source.

        News articles are now created in response to people merely tweeting and you hate that. But it's not much different than someone saying something on a radio program, or on a cable news segment. A person conveyed a message using some medium, and it was amplified by the news media.

        Maybe what you really hate is the "soundbite culture", something that existed long before Twitter. Or maybe you just really really really hate President Trump and that has rubbed off onto his clickbait platform of choice.

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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @04:46AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29 2018, @04:46AM (#779600)

          I hate the things in your final paragraph, _and_ Twitter!

        • (Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:46AM

          by fakefuck39 (6620) on Saturday December 29 2018, @05:46AM (#779610)

          you're arguing with someone w/ the iq of a talking horse, and probably just as ugly. very entertaining read.

  • (Score: 0, Troll) by NPC-131072 on Saturday December 29 2018, @02:18AM

    by NPC-131072 (7144) on Saturday December 29 2018, @02:18AM (#779564) Journal

    Twitter provides plenty of evidence of transwomen being abused. [twitter.com] Get with the program - bigot!