Glasgow Police doing themselves no favours

[handpaper]

Glasgow Police's advice to Twitter users to ask themselves whether their tweets are "Truthful, Hurtful, Illegal, Necessary, Kind" hasn't gone down well:

https://twitter.com/policescotland/status/54995556...

Reported :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35946349

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/14399339.Glasgo...

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/theres-been-a...

[Greendubber]

Hardly, its the usual 'outraged for the sake of being outraged' Twitter mongs that are doing themselves no favours.

[Dr Jekyll]

I don't wish to sound like one of those people who's read Atlas Shrugged once too often, but Ayn Rand did have a point.

Ayn Rand said:

The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

[konark]

Some crackers there, policescotland got totally owned.

[handpaper]

Greendubber said:

Hardly, its the usual 'outraged for the sake of being outraged' Twitter mongs that are doing themselves no favours.

You don't see any problem with a Police force declaring that they're going to "pay a visit" to people who have committed no crime?
This isn't "policing by consent", it's policing by chilling effect and it deserves to be called out.

Dr Ferris's speech is possibly my favourite part of AS, it's such an extreme example of political cynicism as to provide something of a bulwark against such; no one wants to be compared to him.

[Dr Jekyll]

handpaper said:

Dr Ferris's speech is possibly my favourite part of AS, it's such an extreme example of political cynicism as to provide something of a bulwark against such; no one wants to be compared to him.

Or maybe some people treat it as in instruction manual.

[RobinOakapple]

Dr Jekyll said:

I don't wish to sound like one of those people who's read Atlas Shrugged once too often, but Ayn Rand did have a point.

Ayn Rand said:

The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

A point?

Seems like it was written by a silly person

There will always be enough criminals.

[Greendubber]

handpaper said:

You don't see any problem with a Police force declaring that they're going to "pay a visit" to people who have committed no crime?
This isn't "policing by consent", it's policing by chilling effect and it deserves to be called out.

Dr Ferris's speech is possibly my favourite part of AS, it's such an extreme example of political cynicism as to provide something of a bulwark against such; no one wants to be compared to him.

Posting offensive tweets on social media can be an offence though, so whats the harm in the Police saying they will act on any?

[jith]

RobinOakapple said:

Dr Jekyll said:

I don't wish to sound like one of those people who's read Atlas Shrugged once too often, but Ayn Rand did have a point.

Ayn Rand said:

The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

A point?

Seems like it was written by a silly person

There will always be enough criminals.

Ayn Rand; a "silly person"??? Dear god, only on PH!! Waken up for god's sake, she's a world renowned philosopher and writer! Unlike the majority of the status quo brigade on here she actually thinks before she writes.

J

[AH33]

Greendubber said:

Posting offensive tweets on social media can be an offence though, so whats the harm in the Police saying they will act on any?

depends, if they're going after direct death threats and such, I dont have a problem with it.

If they're intervening in arguments between idiots, that's not an effective use of police time

[RobinOakapple]

jith said:

RobinOakapple said:

Dr Jekyll said:

I don't wish to sound like one of those people who's read Atlas Shrugged once too often, but Ayn Rand did have a point.

Ayn Rand said:

The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

A point?

Seems like it was written by a silly person

There will always be enough criminals.

Ayn Rand; a "silly person"??? Dear god, only on PH!! Waken up for god's sake, she's a world renowned philosopher and writer! Unlike the majority of the status quo brigade on here she actually thinks before she writes.

J

She was writing science fiction (in a work which was heavily criticised), and she's dead.

The idea of there not being enough criminals, and the government's only power being to crack down on them is clearly nonsense.

R

[sparkythecat]

Brilliant!

[Dr Jekyll]

jith said:

RobinOakapple said:

Dr Jekyll said:

I don't wish to sound like one of those people who's read Atlas Shrugged once too often, but Ayn Rand did have a point.

Ayn Rand said:

The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

A point?

Seems like it was written by a silly person

There will always be enough criminals.

Ayn Rand; a "silly person"??? Dear god, only on PH!! Waken up for god's sake, she's a world renowned philosopher and writer! Unlike the majority of the status quo brigade on here she actually thinks before she writes.

J

Ayn Rand was rather silly in many ways, but not in this case. The point is what the authorities do when they want to control people who inconveniently aren't doing anything actually illegal.

The fuel protests of 15 years ago are a case in point, the government wanted them stopped but the Police found their hands tied because not enough of the protesters were doing anything illegal. Since then various bits of so called anti terror legislation mean that if the protests happened again they could be deemed illegal. If anyone complains the govt excuse is that the powers will only be used against people who really deserve it so the rest of us don't have to worry.

So when the police argue that almost any post can be regarded as illegal (for example if it's 'unnecessary' for heaven's sake) suddenly freedom of speech is a privilege they may grant us instead of a right.

[RobinOakapple]

Dr Jekyll said:

jith said:

RobinOakapple said:

Dr Jekyll said:

I don't wish to sound like one of those people who's read Atlas Shrugged once too often, but Ayn Rand did have a point.

Ayn Rand said:

The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

A point?

Seems like it was written by a silly person

There will always be enough criminals.

Ayn Rand; a "silly person"??? Dear god, only on PH!! Waken up for god's sake, she's a world renowned philosopher and writer! Unlike the majority of the status quo brigade on here she actually thinks before she writes.

J

Ayn Rand was rather silly in many ways, but not in this case. The point is what the authorities do when they want to control people who inconveniently aren't doing anything actually illegal.

The fuel protests of 15 years ago are a case in point, the government wanted them stopped but the Police found their hands tied because not enough of the protesters were doing anything illegal. Since then various bits of so called anti terror legislation mean that if the protests happened again they could be deemed illegal. If anyone complains the govt excuse is that the powers will only be used against people who really deserve it so the rest of us don't have to worry.

So when the police argue that almost any post can be regarded as illegal (for example if it's 'unnecessary' for heaven's sake) suddenly freedom of speech is a privilege they may grant us instead of a right.

I generally expect fairly sensible stuff from you but I'm not getting it this time. You chose a particularly bad example in the fuel protests, especially if you a referring to the rolling roadblocks etc, when people used the fact that they weren't doing anything that was actually illegal to interfere with the rights of a great many other people.

The rest of your post is foil-helmet nonsense. Try living in an actual police state and then complain about the UK.

[Greendubber]

AH33 said:

depends, if they're going after direct death threats and such, I dont have a problem with it.

If they're intervening in arguments between idiots, that's not an effective use of police time

If someones committed an offence then they are duty bound to act. It's not the fault of the police but the fault of the keyboard warriors.

For the victim of any offence any police time is an effective use of time, for you as an onlooker it seems like a waste of time.

Where do you draw the line when to and when not to deal with something? If you knew how many incidents are created each day over some rubbish Facebook argument you'll see why they're taking a preventative measures as people will call in daily saying some blokes cousins mate has threatened to beat me up.

Bit of a 'damned if they do damned if they dont' situation really.

[anonymous-user]

This 'Ayn Rand' stuff is like an A-level student's English essay when they discover politics. Perhaps we'll have Orwell next.

The CPS guidance that has aimed for clarity and consistency has actually reduced the scope of prosecutions for online abuse etc: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_... This is opposite of the melodrama.

handpaper said:

Greendubber said:

Hardly, its the usual 'outraged for the sake of being outraged' Twitter mongs that are doing themselves no favours.

You don't see any problem with a Police force declaring that they're going to "pay a visit" to people who have committed no crime?

Although it's a typically cumbersome police mnemonic, I think it's pretty obvious they're talking about where such activity ventures into the criminal domain. See the CPS guidance above.

[singlecoil]

Looks to me like another let's laugh at the police thread that some are turning into the start of an Orwellian nightmare.

Usual PH stuff really.

[Bigends]

Not sure how things work in Scotland but down here we need to have an offended victim reporting the crime to Police. Do the Scottish Police intend to trawl through tweets - be offended by some- then pursue the sender?

[RobinOakapple]

I shouldn't think so.

[anonymous-user]

Bigends said:

Not sure how things work in Scotland but down here we need to have an offended victim reporting the crime to Police. Do the Scottish Police intend to trawl through tweets - be offended by some- then pursue the sender?

I expect this campaign is about reducing people reporting things to the police by warning-off would-be offenders.

Do you remember the RAT? No 'likely offender', no crime.



The flip-side is how much is reported that isn't an offence and how do you reduce people reporting things that aren't police matters - an age-old question, naturally!