To wonder why the twitter "troll" got arrested?

[VivaLeBeaver]

The one wo posted the nasty things about Tom Daley saying that Tom had let his father down by bot winning gold, etc.

I want to make it clear that I'm not defending him and think it was a horrible thing to say. But he didn't threaten Tom, etc so ow come it's an arrest able offence?

What's got me thinking is our village magazine. The village bobby has a column in the magazine and this month he has warned us all not to partake in malicious gossip on Facebook. He refers to the Tom Daley incident and warns us that malicious gossip could get us arrested. I don't do gossip on Facebook so I'm not expecting to be dragged away in cuffs but is it a crime? Threats of violence, racist insults, etc I can understand but not general bitchiness.

"Freedom of speech" doesn't cover "freedom to attack people with words".

Exactly and the Idiot who taunted and harassed TOm it wasn't just 1 comment it was a lot , I am glad people are being arrested for this sort of social networking abuse

makes sense now, if he threatened him

I am not on twitter well i have an account but don't use it a lot, if he has is a horrible little scroat then he deserves all he gets, how can twitter moderate him though he could change his name his phone so he can carry on being vile and dangerous

At the time he was arrested it was reported (not widely and not really in the mainstream press) that this guy hadn't only sent death threats to Tom Daley but to other celebs/people. Tom Daley appears to be one person in a long string.

Just seen his twitter feed, he's not learnt his lesson has he? Still threatening to kill people.

You don't have freedom of speech at all, why do people persist in thinking you do. There are no end of laws that cover what you can't say to who and where.

Thats what I am realising What.

There was more to it than the abuse towards Daily. Wait. Going to pc and will post properly

in the uk we do not have 'freedom of speach' we do have laws that prohibit many things that are spoken

I don't normally link to my blog on MN, but this may be interesting to those who don't know exactly what was written.

Trolls on Twitter

From what I have heard, he is a very troubled young man who had orchestrated a sustained attack on another Twitter user. Personally, I think he needs help rather than being arrested, but at the same time other innocent people should be defended from people like him.

Have done a quick google in the past,but found the subject a bit mind boggling tbh.
So what "freedom of speech" is there now,that there didnt used to be please,if someone is able to explain it in fairly simple language.
And does that include more "freedom of speech" in the written word as well?

This thread is a prime example of why its best to know the full facts of a story before forming an opinion

This is an interesting take on trolling and twitter.

There has been some criticism recently on how trolls are dealt with on Twitter, particularly by celebs.

just off the top of my head anything that is regarded as hate crime/bullying is prohibited as is harrising actions/talk behaviour liable to incite a riot or other public order issue. intimidating verbal actions. even swearing in public could get you arrested for a public order section 5.

i may be making this bit up but im almost certain that even on speakers corner (where many years ago apparently you could say what ever you wanted) you can now be charged for saying certain things

I have read somewhere,that the police say they cannot effectively police the situation.
So there are always going to be trolls.And my guess is,that only the most prolific,or the ones that cause huge damage in some way,or the ones that target the rich,are going to get into serious trouble for it.
It is part of the dark side of the internet. And it is up to indiviuals in society whether they participate in parts of the internet or not.

Twitter has well over 100 million active users posting over 50m tweets a day.

There is simply no way to police that amount of posts.

If someone is nasty, block and report them. If you see something illegal, send a screen shot to CEOPS for child protection issues, or give your local police a call (non emergency number obviously) to ask for advice.

I don't see what else Twitter can do really.

I suppose it's because it wasn't eg posted on a site like this but tweeted to Tom Daley. It probably counts in the same way as someone sending vile texts to you or making vile phonecalls.

at

Never had anything like this happen to me. But would it take the texts or phonecalls being sent to a celeb for the police to take action.They wouldnt take action for the ordinary man in the street would they? Or would they?

amillion
No, I doubt they would for a single incident. It would take a more concentrated campaign to get them to sit up and pay attention, I think. And even then - if someone tweeted that kind of comment to you, you block them.

If that person then went out of their way to set up a new account and continue to abuse you, then they may be seen to having crossed the line to stalking/harassment perhaps - not sure of the legal reasoning behind this though, just guessing.

Couldnt Tom daly just have blocked in that case.But I suppose that is pretty naive thinking as he was having thousands of tweets.
partly thinking aloud here,and partly asking. I dont do twitter and somewhat try to avoid facebook.

I am glad trolls can be arrested, trolls don't care who they hurt it all about them getting a sick twisted pleasure of hurting people emotionally.

Blocking trolls don't work as you can reregister and the taunting continues.

I belive you should register your ip address and not email as you can have 10000000 of email accounts

He could have, amillion. I am guessing that the fact that the troll mentioned Tom's late father was the moment when Tom saw red (understandably) and decided to RT.

If he had blocked and reported, nothing would have happened to the troll.

Was it a correct response? I don't know.