"Being offensive is an offence"

[hallouminatus]

AIBU to find this image offensive?

@LaVitaPuoEsserePiuBella

I can't read the small writing underneath but find the image alarming - the masks, the stance of the men (esp. the one who's holding onto a long wooden baton), the colours...it's nasty.

People have been wearing those mask for the last year...

And the colours being ‘nasty’, you mean the pride flag?

Do the police honestly have nothing better to be doing? I swear we slip deeper into dystopia with every day that passes.

can't read the small writing underneath but find the image alarming - the masks, the stance of the men (esp. the one who's holding onto a long wooden baton), the colours...it's nasty.

Masks are common atm due to Covid. I think that long wooden baton is a walking stick.

I’m offended by the waste of public money on virtue signalling and inaccurate messaging.

Good news!
Merseyside Police clarify that being offensive is NOT an offence after pulling an ad-van that said otherwise.

www.policeoracle.com/news/local_and_neighbourhood_policing/2021/Feb/22/merseyside-pull--being-offensive-is-an-offence--van-after-backlash_106782.html

Apparently being offended now self identifies as a hate crime. The law, as brought to you by Twitter.....

Well, I bet if this lesbian said to Merseyside Police, for example, ‘lesbians are female homosexuals, and lesbians do not and have never had penises,’ that would be considered offensive, and this lesbian may well get a hate incident logged against her name.

On the other hand if this lesbian were to contact Merseyside Police to say that she is very offended that male people are calling themselves lesbians, they wouldn’t take my being offended very seriously, in fact they may very well try to re-educate me out of my offensive belief that lesbians are female homosexuals.

As someone who lives in Liverpool and friends/family all over Merseyside, we'd love to know were the time is being found for stuff like this (and the Covid policing) because we've lost most of our working police stations and the Police phone you back, rather than attend, even for violent crimes, they largely ignore DV until forced to take notice. Parts of the city are lawless.

It wouldn't surprise anyone on Merseyside that the Police don't know what is and isn't an offence.

But, yeah, it's about getting women to shut up.

@FTEngineerM

It seems uncontrollable, anyone can say they’re offended about anything.

Who decides what a reasonable amount of offence is?

Who decides?

The emergency services, that's who. As plainly evidenced in the photo provided by the OP.

Thinking about it, it needs to be looked at how much that campaign cost. A more effective campaign would be highlighting the increase in DV and child neglect/abuse. But the groups lobbying for that wouldn't be as powerful. There's been time and money wasted.

The PoliceOracle.com article I linked is paywalled, but here's one that isn't: www.rt.com/uk/516269-uk-police-apologize-hate-campaign/

Apparently, they also had another poster that incorrectly defined Hate Crime as "A crime against: Sex Workers, Sexual Orientation, Disability, Gender Identity, Race, Ethnicity or Nationality, Race, Religion, Faith or Belief."

It’s wrong. It’s plain wrong.

Being offensive is not an offence.

Using threatening or abusive words or behaviour calculated to cause harassment, alarm or distress is (and has been since 1986).

But “insulting” was removed from that offence in 2012.

This poster is plain wrong and is fascistic insofar as it is trying to Police how people think.

@horridhorrid, ultimately it's the CPS.

I'm offended that my tax is paying for police to stand about doing f all

@DynamoKev

I can't read the stuff on there other than the headline.

The people in the picture seem to be doing their best to look nasty and intimidating.

Not sure what the flip is going on here?

Except the woman in the picture. Her body language is really interesting.

It wouldn't surprise anyone on Merseyside that the Police don't know what is and isn't an offence.

I concur.

It is worrying though. Especially when the police have a responsibility to act without fear or favour. They've nailed their colours to the mast here, clearly promoting one protected characteristic.

So Merseyside police are so bored because they’ve solved all the rapes and murders and robberies on their patch that they need to make some stuff up now.

Promoting ideologies and made up laws is not be what police are there to do. It is totally against their oath which promises to apply the law ‘without fear or favour’.

Being offensive is already an offence, just that you can’t be prosecuted for it because there’s no actual law been passed. However you could be deemed guilty of a “non-crime hate incident” on the say-so of one person making a complaint, and they don’t have to be the person “offended”. Shows up on a DBS check. Ask Harry Miller

This is all about protecting cross dressing / AGP males and women being threatened with being criminalised for raising issues of safeguarding, privacy and dignity. I am offended that anyone thinks it is ok, that males can use female toilets and changing rooms and that we are supposed to just shut up and put up. This is not about the right to be free from abuse of people with gender / sex dysphoria, this is only about removing safeguards for women and children

[quote hallouminatus]Good news!
Merseyside Police clarify that being offensive is NOT an offence after pulling an ad-van that said otherwise.

www.policeoracle.com/news/local_and_neighbourhood_policing/2021/Feb/22/merseyside-pull--being-offensive-is-an-offence--van-after-backlash_106782.html[/quote]
They do this on purpose don't they

Put the correction out after the publicity stunt.

They also randomly decided to bung 'sex workers' in at the beginning of their list of groups covered by hate crime law

When did it become a thing to just say the law says what you feel like thinking it says? And this from the police!

Of course sex is not protected under hate crime law- a notable difference from the protected characteristics list. Presumably because if women were able to report everyone who harassed them etc due to them being female, the police would not have time to do anything else at all.

Although they have the time and money to put up incorrect notices like this surrounded by unfriendly looking coppers so,...

How can something subjective be an offence?

Happy to be enlightened, but I just take this as, verbal or other such attacks against anyone in the LGBTQI+ community is a hate crime and illegal - the police will support victims, and I can't see it as anything other than positive?