Harry the owl visited by police

[Imnobody4]

This whole hate speech/incident law is completely out of control. This is sinister.
Check out @HarryTheOwl’s Tweet: twitter.com/HarryTheOwl/status/1088144870991114241?s=09

A few things recently have really opened the public's eyes, this and the police forces inability to see they overstepped is a big one of them.

Politics mixed with current law What could go wrong

Obviously Humberside Police have never come across Denis Healey's useful maxim: "When in a hole, stop digging."

Everything about that statement just makes them look even stupider and more negligent than they already did - and it's attracted a whole bunch of comments pointing out exactly that.

I hope Harry sues. This latest statement is defamation of character.

Posted that before I saw Juells's comment.

Assistant Chief Constable Scott Young is reported as saying "In this case, there were more than 30 tweets reported to us of a transphobic nature".

That's a bold claim. If it's not actually true that looks rather libellous.

Oh I'm sure there were more than 30 reports, but the word transphobic has become totally meaningless. WPUK meetings are transphobic, T-shirts with dictionary definitions are transphobic, liking poems is transphobic, not believing in genderism is transphobic, etc. etc.
Sometimes I wonder if the police are trolling the nation because they are fed up with all these identity-based "crimes".

My guess is that if this ended up in court the Police would be arguing along the lines of "well your honour, the tweets themselves aren't transphobic, but the thinking behind them definitely was". I wouldn't expect a judge to be very impressed with that.

One of these incidents needs to go to court to get this right under the shining sun for all to see. My grandads fought a war to prevent this from happening.

Are people really allowed to "shop around" to find a police force that will actually deal with their complaint?

Perhaps the trans lobby have set up a kind of GoCompare website, so that the stunning and brave can decide who to call to report hate speech and misgendering?

Harry is raging.

twitter.com/HarryTheOwl/status/1089929235861553152

"Dear @Humberbeat How dare you publicly dox me, claiming that I have mad 30 “transphobic” (sic) tweets? I have engaged in debate around GRA. How the fuck even dare you!"

Harry, have you thought of setting up a crowdfunder for legal fees? Loads of us on here would pitch in, I'm sure.

This is disgraceful.

That's a bold claim. If it's not actually true that looks rather libellous.

Not when you remember that the "hate" is defined by the complainant not the person complained about.

That statement is appalling.

I can only conclude from that statement that Humberside police would rather sit on their arses investigating tweets, than investigate actual crime.

Considering some of the responses they've had about this (like the poor woman whose brother was found dead, victims of burglary who never had any police response) - that statement is staggering. It's just callous.

Since even this insane bunch of police persons couldn't make it a crime or actually illegal, those 30 tweets can't have been transphobic then, could they? This is a whole lot of warbling about a non crime . A non event.

Transphobia as a word is utterly meaningless anyway, but with 30 tweets as evidence the police still cannot find anything they can do other than reproachfully dox Harry. Outrageous and insane. The whole ruddy bunch of them are out of their minds.

I hope H puts in a formal complaint and takes the lot of them to the bloody cleaners. As publicly as possible.

library.college.police.uk/docs/college-of-policing/Hate-Crime-Operational-Guidance.pdf

Read 1.2.3 Perception-based recording of hate crime and weep at the utter stupidity.

That's a really appalling statement. By issuing it the police have basically confirmed the treats are transphobic - a far from proven allegation.

FFS, police qualifying everything with "alleged" is a communications strategy as old as time. This was a really bad time for them to stop applying it!

treats? tweets! FFS autocorrect

A Hate Incident is still a Hate Incident even when there is No Hate...

Go figure that Kafka-esque nonsense if you will.

Irrespective of whether there's any evidence?

Truly scary.

So if anybody complains that they think something not even necessarily directed at them, not quantifiable as a crime and with no evidence of hate, is hate, then we record it as a hate incident.

Righty-ho

Time to start reporting all of the comments aimed at lesbians, or which could be perceived as being aimed at lesbians, as hate incidents...this might take quite some time.

I'm weeping, Lang.

If the facts do not identify any recordable crime but the victim perceived it to be a hate crime, the circumstances should be recorded as a non-crime hate incident and not a hate crime.

So basically anything can and will be recorded as a hate incident.
Which makes this claim in the Trans Report 2018 (available www.lgbtpolice.uk/resources) pretty meaningless:

"Two in five trans people had to deal with a hate crime or incident in the past 12 months."

Not when you remember that the "hate" is defined by the complainant not the person complained about.

Whether the tweets are or are not defamatory would a separate matter from any definitions present in "hate speech" legislation.

Right. So how do we go about reporting ‘hate incidents’. Misogyny isn’t classified as hate is it? What would stop us calling up anyway? Then we can ask them what the fuck is up with that

but the word transphobic has become totally meaningless. WPUK meetings are transphobic, T-shirts with dictionary definitions are transphobic, liking poems is transphobic, not believing in genderism is transphobic

It'd be nice to be able to have a discussion about what "transphobic" really means.

We don't want to throw out the notion of "hate speech" - that would allow the antiSemites and racist fascists of the right to have free rein to abuse those with disabilities, those of religious beliefs, and so on.

The scandal is that "sex" nd specifically misogyny is not included in the legislation - because it's so normal that it just can't be seen, but anyway ...

We need a sensible, albeit difficult discussion about that blurry boundary between free speech and hate speech. Any lawyers about? How is it determined in say, antiSemitic hate speech?

Gene Hunt telling it like it is!