Oh please. If someone had sent letters with the contents Mr. Troll did, he would have been in (slightly different, but still) legal trouble. Why does the medium matter?

And the LPO have been remarkably restrained.

There are plenty of good examples, and you pick those?

- a man has been imprisoned for trolling.

Come on, it was a bit more than “trolling”.

To these cases we might add the disproportionately hostile reaction to Johann Hari’s activities. His sins were small compared to the crimes of, say, serial drunk-driving or being Toby Young, and perhaps indicative of a troubled mind rather than malevolence.

And if you don’t like his journalism, the solution is not to make a fuss, but to not buy the Independent – a feat which 99.7% of the British people perform each day.

It does sound like Hari needs some kind of help, but it’s not difficult to see why he might receive a “hostile reaction” to the things he wrote under his own name, let alone his several pseudonyms. Why on earth does he still have a job?

As for not buying the Independent, Cristina Odone might not buy the Independent, she might choose not to read Wikipedia, but other people read Wikipedia and will perhaps have read Hari’s lies about Odone.

I don’t think these are signs of our “increasingly illiberal culture”, I am quite sure that years ago Hari would have lost his job – or resigned.

That people act stupidly and we should tolerate this as part of human nature isn’t objectionable. (Or particularly conservative is we judge conservative philosophy by what people actually do with it, which is to tolerate friends, seek to punish all others.)

But on the charge of intolerance increasing, I find it hard to believe that Wearside Jack’s 8-year sentence would have been 6 years in 2000, 4 years in 1995, 2 years in 1990, 6 months in 1985 and a friendly chat with tea and a bun in 1980.

Plus, technophobia as an explanation for not treating Facebook like a chat in a pub is pretty lame when many of the people who tell us that Facebook, and Twitter and what not are world-changing mass communication technologies are the most vehement techophiles.

An In Defence of Johann Hari column was inevitable and I’d prefer it came from Chris than, say, Spiked. On the other hand, it isn’t true that we’ve overreacted to Hari. He’s been enormously dishonest time and time again: embellishing his interviews; smearing his rivals; playing fast and loose with facts et cetera. Most importantly, he’s lied to his readers: a small but damned amusing case was when “David Rose”, the anonymous identity that he adopted to abuse opponents, appeared beneath a post that criticised Hari’s writings on global warming. Hari drew attention to his defences – which, it seems, were quite literally his defences – and claimed that “Rose” boasted “a starred first from a degree speicalising in environmental science at Cambridge, and extensive work in Antarctica observing the effects of global warming“. I thought Hari studied politics but maybe it was creative writing.

I don’t envy the guy – I’ve no desire to be a columnist and, well – I’d have neither the sense nor skill to make it if I did. Heck, I feel sorry for him – he must be more depressed than an Elvis impersonator on Blackpool Pier. But it does speak volumes for the cruddy nature of the media that a guy with such a record is let off. And it is insulting – and, indeed, a rotten influence – to the thousands of budding journalists in media degrees who’ll never have half the luck that Davi, er – Hari did.

On the theme of cultural censoriousness…

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/liverpool-open-investigation-on-strikers-911-conspiracy-tweet-2354748.html

Well at least Mr Young has set up a school while you have, erm, written this column.

@4 – Well.

The medium isn’t the message, McLuhan was wrong. It frames the message, but the content remains important. Bearing in mind psychological disinhibition* when people are not communicating face to face, some of the things said on the internet still cross the line, by a great way.

(*summary: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/ )

. But it does speak volumes for the cruddy nature of the media that a guy with such a record is let off.

Yeah, though given most of the people screaming for his head in the media can’t be arsed to get angry over bigger things, I have no desire to be on their side either.

http://gimpyblog.posterous.com/you-are-all-johann-hari

The ’4000 new criminal offences’ statistic is basically bogus since many of them are very specific issues which hardly affect anyone, and most of the rest amount to new offences replacing old ones to modernise the law.

The LPO’s action isn’t anything to do with the criminal law so we can forget that. Incitement to riot has been an offence for centuries, and with regard to trolling, there has always been a common law ‘catch-all’ offence for people who are behaving anti-socially.

“One of the most unpleasant aspects of the last Labour government was the illiberalism that saw it create over 4000 new criminal offences.”

Illiberalism? I’d call it unsocialism, though I’m sure they must have been right to create a certain number of those offences.

“”‘Yeah, though given most of the people screaming for his head in the media can’t be arsed to get angry over bigger things, I have no desire to be on their side either.
“”"

LMAO! The hypocrisy!

You endlessly attack the BNP and EDL (in a completely blanket way) but defend and excuse Islam! Who has a GLOBAL attack rate of over 17,0000 since 9/11.
No EDL members blew people up on 7/7. No EDL members tried to blow up nightclubs, planes, London streets or airports.
No EDL members called for the murder of cartoonists.
Muslims did though. Islam did.

And yet you go for the flippin’ EDL!
It seems this phrase sums up ‘LC’ completely…

“given most of the people screaming for the head of the EDL in the media can’t be arsed to get angry over bigger things like the obvious and acted upon threat from Islam, I have no desire to be on their side either.”

Oh for fuck’s sake – the liberal value of tolerance is supposed to be about tolerating a range of different political and religious beliefs, cultural and sexual practices, and so on, thereby ensuring that people and groups who are “different” in some way are protected from persecution and victimisation. It’s not about tolerating the victimisation of grieving families by attention-seeking twats who get off on causing people emotional pain.

If you tolerate this:

“Duffy posted messages on a remembrance page set up by Miss MacBryde’s friends.

In one of the posts he called the teenager a slut.

He also posted a video on YouTube, entitled Tasha the Tank Engine, showing the children’s character Thomas the Tank Engine with Miss MacBryde’s face.

Miss MacBryde had thrown herself under a train after being cyber-bullied in a separate incident.”

- then your children will be next.

Seriously – you may as well claim that prosecuting someone for scrawling “AIDS scum” on a gay man’s door reflects an intolerant, illiberal attack on free expression (rather than a liberal defence of the principles of tolerance).

Sad thing is – I agree with the sentiment of this article and hate that we live in a world we were consider ourselves to have the right to choose to deny other people choices.

So to see this used as a defence of Hari, who’s actions were dispicable, unprofessional and insensitive.

The trolling example fails as G.O. points out above, the Orchestra example passes the overly censorious test, the Facebook rioters also passes the test. Given the nature of most facebook groups one should approach any group that references current events with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the fact that nothing at all resulted from their group should be the dead give away as to it’s seriousness. Plus if you threaten two young men in their early twenties with ten years in prison if they don’t confess and well, you get the idea.

I will say that what happened to the Facebook ‘rioters’ was a far greater threat to and violation of freedom of speech than any no-platform campaign you’ll ever witness. Had no-platform been carried out on them they would face being banned from facebook and having their accounts deleted rather than 4 years in jail. Worth keeping that in mind the next time the ‘champions of free speech’ man the barricades to defend the right of bigots to spew hate speech on the telly.

@OP, Chris Dillow: Geographically closer to home, you could have mentioned the disciplinary action taken by Labour in Leicester against two councillors who expressed support for capital punishment. This news report is not disputed to the best of my knowledge:
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Labour-censures-Leicester-councillors-backing/story-13282221-detail/story.html

Capital punishment is an absolute no for me, but I would not wish to exclude supporters from public life. Here’s a quote from the Leicester Mercury story where a Labour spokesman is speaking:
“Following remarks in the media from Coun Sundip Meghani and Coun Barbara Potter in relation to capital punishment, Labour group officers have spoken to the councillors concerned and have advised them as to their future conduct.

They have been warned about issuing statements of the nature expressed without consultation with the Labour group of councillors on Leicester City Council.

This is as the views that have been expressed by councillors Meghani and Potter are not the views of Leicester city Labour group.”

Justice and punishment do not fall under the remit of the Leicester city Labour group and it is not the group’s job to silence councillors who disagree on a topic of conscience that is irrelevant to their community role.

@12 – Yea, beating people up in alleys and the odd knifing is so much quieter, isn’t it.

The ’4000 new criminal offences’ statistic is basically bogus since many of them are very specific issues which hardly affect anyone, and most of the rest amount to new offences replacing old ones to modernise the law.

Phew, so we haven’t got record amounts of prisoners, some of the harshest sentences in Europe and the insane re-offending rates that come with both?

Thank fuck for that, frees up a few billion doesn’t it.

You might struggle to remember the past decade, I don’t – I remember checking the news every morning to see what draconian laws they were pushing through that day and was rarely disappointed, nearly always some fucking ‘crackdown’ or ‘get tough measure’ that despite their abundance never assuaged the ‘need’ for ever more of their kind.

Save us from another ignorant idiot who thinks that mixing the word ‘fuck’ in between a few assertions of fact only tangentially related to the subject and of dubious accuracy anyway, constitutes a form of counter-argument.

The reason it looks like Victorian censoriousness is that it is a return to Victorian values- somwehat different in the detail, but the same in the general. And it is about bloody time that the “Left”- the type of people who write for Liberal Conspiracy- recognised that it’s mostly their bloody fault. Take this-

In its stead is the belief that people should conform to an ideal of buttoned-up, restrained respectability.

The thing we call “political correctness” these days is the return to a Victorian idea of a universal hegemonic morality. The details are different. We hated gays last time, this time we love them, for instance, but it is the same social system. We render speech of various types literally “unspeakable”. We demand censorship. Temperance is on the rise again. The sexual terror has once more descended upon us. The Right and the Left join hands in horror at What Can Be Seen On The Internets. And this is a direct consequence of virulent reactionary formations that arose within the Left in the wake of the 1960s (“liberal”) revolution.

So please, don’t do this crying into your beer about illiberalism. It’s not the fault of “the culture” or some other vague nebulosity. It is due to decades of illiberal campaigning by those calling themselves (again, echoing their Victorian predecessors) “Progressives”. You have taken our liberty, torn it up, and jumped up and down on it like a cartoon character. We had a chance at freedom, real freedom. And we lost it. And it’s your bleeding fault.

Thanks a bunch, “liberals”.

@19

Have you got any evidence or not?

Ian B

“The thing we call “political correctness” these days is the return to a Victorian idea of a universal hegemonic morality… Thanks a bunch, “liberals”.”

If nothing else, this makes a refreshing change from the accusation that us “liberals” are responsible for replacing a belief in universal moral principles with a belief in moral relativism.

“You have taken our liberty, torn it up, and jumped up and down on it like a cartoon character.”

Ah yes – for the good old days when we had the “freedom” to refuse service to gay people, put openly racist political leaflets through people’s doors, poke a bit of harmless fun at people with cerebral palsy, etc. Damn you, “political correctness”! Now it’s the poofs, niggers and spastics who supposedly have the right to live their lives free from hatred, intimidation, mockery and discrimination. Where’s the fun in that?

Or, less facetiously: if we want to give person A the freedom to live their own life in their own way, guided by their own moral principles, we are going to have to take away from person B the freedom to prevent them from doing so. That is going to mean certain “politically correct” moral principles have to be applied universally: e.g. it is no longer going to be up to the individual whether or not he employs a suitably qualified disabled person or lets a mixed race couple stay in his B&B. That is not an attack on personal freedom, but a defence of it.

@G.O,

You just proved my point. Thanks.

“We had a chance at freedom, real freedom. And we lost it.”

Really? Because certainly seems that that same Victorian freedom is on the way back, upstairs-downstairs, and the poorhouses

24 Leon

Really? Because certainly seems that that same Victorian freedom is on the way back, upstairs-downstairs, and the poorhouses

Yep, that’s what the bourgeois form of socialism creates. An immense, bitter, class divide, and institutionalisation of the poor and otherwise needy.

Ian B

Go on, I’ll bite.

I think – and most liberals think, and indeed anyone with a grasp of basic logic thinks – that you can’t defend *both* (say) people’s right to access services regardless of their ethnic origin, religion or sexuality, *and* people’s right to withhold services from other people based on their ethnic origin, religion or sexuality. Do you think we’re wrong? Or would you prefer that we restricted the former right rather than the latter? Or what?

I don’t know that you can make a joined-up assessment of our culture becoming more censorious from the examples you have given. The sentence on the Facebook failed rioters was idiotic, but the judiciary has for time immemorial responded with panic after an outbreak of disorder before and after Judge Jefferies. The Oldham rioters’ sentencing was disproportionate as well.

As for Hari – he’s an example of someone who took the moral high ground and then was found out as a liar and a hypocrite. The noisy glee at his downfall is of the same ilk as when one of those American evangelicals gets caught in a motel with a tart and a jar of vaseline. In fact his apology sounds a bit like one of those gents’ apologies, hoping he will learn from the experience and how he has now seen the light. Our present culture is no more censorious than other past ones in enjoying the downfall of one who set himself up in judgement. Bishop caught in brothel has always called for enjoyable outrage.

I agree with you about the illiberal tendencies of the Labour party but I don’t think these are particularly good examples of a recent kind of censoriousness.

@25 – Oh, don’t fool yourself. This time it’s nothing to do with socialism, and everything to do with controlled-market corporatism. Just because you can achieve a given social state one way doesn’t mean it’s the one way to that social state.

A thoughtful piece as you might expect with the usual thoughtless reactions that you certainly would expect. And of course the reactions are beautifully illustrative of the points that the OP was trying to make.

But I’m not quite convinced by the analysis of the reasons for the censoriousness. I think what was called technophobia is more an incomprehension of different conventions of discourse. As such it’s actually a separate problem.

The social media generation treat those media very lightly, more lightly possibly than speech, and affected by a whole range of conventions which can alter the apparent meaning of what is ‘said’. However for an older generation and for the law, these all count as ‘writing’ and is therefore treated both as being fixed in meaning and with utmost seriousness.

But this culture clash does risk alienating a generation from the justice system, because they see it as handing down judgements that they see as literal nonsense; rather as if that system prosecuted the cast of a Shakespeare play for all the crimes that were committed therein.

What I think all the discussions of the examples listed do share, however, is a complete lack of the concept of justice and, that related virtue in the field of manners, a sense of proportion.

In all these cases (and in much else) there is instead a tendency to pick a side and defend it to the death. You are left/right, pro-/anti-Israel, whatever. In itself that is not new, it’s what you might call the Oxford Union model of politics – good for training barristers, less good for producing people to run a country, but whatever.

What is recent is the belief that such a defence could and should be made entirely on emotional grounds. Dislike or discomfort is enough to justify criminal charges or disadvantageous action against someone. There is no consideration of equity or how such laws or actions should operate consistently, just a belief that Something Must Be Done. Any attempt to think things through or assess consequences is denounced.

Of course New Labour were great promoters of such laws and after, a reasonable start (some members of the coalition such as May and Clarke showing a desire to return to reality-based jurisprudence), we appear to be back to good old gesture politics, not as an optional extra, but as the driver of how things are done.