To think Jo Brand should be allowed to joke about anything and everything?

[noleftturn]

I don't want to live in a world where we are all censored

The fact that police are “investigating” this just means someone made a complaint and they are a) ascertaining that it is accurate in terms of fact and b) checking if it breaks the law, if necessary then c) speaking to the perpetrator with any further questions.

There will be no charges.

Police have better things to do than pander to the likes of Farage.

Jo will survive this nonsense.

I must admit her 'joke' did elicit and 'wow' from me.

My first thought was that she might be giving someone ideas with that remark.

I generally like Jo Brand. I know she likes to be edgy but some things just aren't funny nor joke worthy. Acid attacks come into that category.

And itsagoodlife said it far better than I did!

So basically you are saying it’s ok for her to make racist, homophobic jokes? That’s it’s ok for her to joke about rape, paedophiles, bullying etc?

How do you think those who have suffered acid attacks feel about her ‘joke’ ?

It’s not funny and she should apologise, especially considering her nursing background.

I do believe that any subject is fair game, yes. What if you were the subject of a sustained campaign of 'jokes' OP?

I think any subject is ok to joke about, Jo Brands joke was fine. That joke is not inciting violence, it’s just humour. Also no-one is censoring comics like Roy Chubby Brown and Jethro they are just out of fashion and not on TV, you can still see them in person telling jokes (if they are still alive??). There are lots of funny jokes about serious subjects like rape, genocide, war and I wouldn’t want to live in a country the censored jokes.

Can you share one funny joke about paedophilia or genocide? I am trying to envisage one being told on TV.

Free speech IS denied!

As an example the word that rhymes with bigger is not allowed, rightly.

There are many things that one is not allowed to say without breaking the law.

So, there is not (nor has there ever been) "free speech"

Notice how absolute free speech activists are usually white, heterosexual and not ugly? It’s easy to talk about how awesome total free speech is when you’ve never been subjected to it.

I guarantee the second their child gets called a fat cow, ugly, etc, they won’t be so keen to champion absolute free speech, telling their child to suck it up, banging on about ‘sticks and stones’ and campaigning to defend the rights of the person making their child terrified to go to school or walk down the street.

I also meant to say - look how many posts on MN get deleted for breaking the Talk Guidlines!

No "free speech" here either!

But how is it ‘humorous’?
Attacking someone with acid is horrific, not funny.
Nor is raping someone, or sexually assaulting them, or killing someone because of their race or religion.
A joke is supposed to make people laugh. Anyone who laughs at the thought of causing another person pain and disfigurement is an unintelligent idiot.

If we’re going to have completely unrestricted free speech, then it has to apply equally to everyone, therefore if it’s acceptable for Jo Brand to say that battery acid should be thrown in Nigel Farage’s face, then it should also be OK for Jim Davidson to say the same about Diane Abbott, or for a Jewish comedian to say it about a Muslim politician.

A joke is supposed to be funny,what she said was far from that!

I hope she apologises but I won’t hold my breath.

I used to like her, but changed my opinion after I read her autobiography.

Being allowed to is very different from doing. I think Jo Brand's 'joke' was unacceptable.

They are there to enforce the criminal law.

And what do you think the criminal law is based on? It's based on our collective feeling about what is right and what is wrong.

The police don't pluck the law out of thin air.

Of course acid attacks are not funny, lots of the subjects aren’t funny but lots of jokes about them are. Rape isn’t funny but a joke about it can be (Jimmy Carr - What do nine out of 10 people enjoy? Gang Rape).

Can you share one funny joke about paedophilia or genocide?

The presenter of Heresy is Victoria Coren Mitchell. She told a joke in the same programme (during the discussion about which jokes are acceptable and which are unacceptable): 'My grandfather died in a concentration camp. He fell from a watchtower.'

It's the hypocrisy.

If this had been aimed at, say, Jess Phillips or Diane Abbot the BBC would have fired them by now. But Nigel Farage is fair game.

It's also what the BBC claim to represent. If a commercial channel want to allow vile jokes, then fine, you avoid them, traditionally it was always channel 4 that was more known for edgier stuff.

But if the BBC want to forcibly take our taxes (licence fee) as a public service broadcaster then they should act like one - they completely fail at any kind of impartiality and now they seem to be ok with so called jokes that encourage violence and are an insult to acid attack victims.

If it was right to sack Danny Baker for an ambiguously racist tweet (not even made on their broadcast) then they absolutely have to sack Jo Brand for a joke that incites violence on their own actual broadcast. They simply cannot have it both ways.

The police are not there to implement what society thinks is right. They are there to enforce the criminal law. The criminal law sets the standard below which conduct should not fall without risk of penalty, up to and including imprisonment. Jo brands joke, tasteless and stupid though it is, does not begin to approach that level.

Problem is that the police have been used as a weapon for a few years now to silence etc, this situation is nothing more than the right wanting people to adhere to the same standards.

The topic of nuance of what people find funny is what the comedians who have come out in support of Brand also did with the likes of the Nazi pug guy and others, the problem is that the latter was brushed aside. It's the natural progression of what some people wanted, it's why I have nothing to hide so nothing to fear type arguments are ill thought out when it comes to setting a precedent.

The BBC has removed the joke from future broadcasts, but the weaponising and politicisation of jokes with the added twitter mob backlash is something that is either going to be brushed aside or accepted.

Perhaps on the next panel show she appears on, she should be seated next to Katy Piper and then maybe she may be ashamed of her comments, but I doubt it. The way to deal with these 'comedians' is to not buy tickets to their shows, then she may not be able to afford her £1.9 million ( according to the Mail) house.

I’m a free speech absolutist, in that I believe we all have a perfect right to say what we want to and joke about what we want to. I could compromise on incitement to violence, or libel... but everyone should be free to express their thoughts and ideas, however ugly and bigoted, because it’s only by exposing ideas to the sunlight of criticism and challenge that the bad ideas can lose. If they’re left in the dark, unexpressed and unsaid, they’ll fester unchallenged.
If we’re not free to utter the words we want to use, then we’re not free.

This ^ Either we are free to speak as we choose or we are slaves.

You may think it in bad taste, you may think it's unfunny (which is what I think of much of Jo Brand's stuff BTW) but she's entitled to say it,

And what do you think the criminal law is based on? It's based on our collective feeling about what is right and what is wrong.

The police don't pluck the law out of thin air.

The Law isn't based on our "collective feeling" . We are not a hive mind telepathically transmitting our thoughts to the Police and Judiciary!!
Laws have evolved over hundreds of years, from multiple sources (religion, custom, Government, public petition etc) and are constantly challenged, updated, amended, repealed.

The Police don't pluck them out of thin air - nor do they ask the public what they (the public) think about a particular event!
If a complaint is made to the Police, it is investigated to ascertain whether A LAW has been broken

Sorry, but Jo Brand and ‘joke’ do not go together.

She makes Eeyore look like a laughing hyena. Funny, just no.