Labour MP John Mann wants legal action against Twitter users for tweeting "vitriolic and violent" anti-Semitic comments against colleague Luciana Berger. Opponents say that these users should have a right to free speech and there for shouldn't be punished.
This falls into the topic of cyber bullying. it has always been a problem and always will be. Something needs to be done. Freedom of speech is very important, which makes this difficult, but harassing other people is also illegal.
I don't think that the government has any right to take legal actions against these Twitter users because of the right to free speech. Twitter is social media where the public can express their own opinions. While the users are infringing on Jewish beliefs (therefore the freedom of religion) by tweeting negative comments, the govt shouldn't be able punish them legally. If anything, Twitter should be warning these users if the harassed alert Twitter admins. The reality is that not everyone accepts different outlooks of life, including sexual orientation, religion, race, etc. I think the only legal action the govt can take against these Twitter users is to charge them with verbal harassment in a reported case (i.e. ONLY if the person reports it to the police) and only if the violent comments escalate to a physical action, can the police actually do more.
Twitter hate is nothing new, and when you are in the public eye as politicians are you really shouldn't take this stuff personally. Legal action won't change the culture of the internet.
Freedom of speech is a glorious concept. For the most part, we experience it every day here in the U.S. There is, of course, a price we must pay for this freedom. If you are allowed to say whatever you want, others may do the same. In a lot of cases, what another says can be extremely disrespectful or contradictory to your statements. It is the price we pay. Taking legal action against someone such as in this case seems absurd to me. If you have the money, go for it. Just know you are wasting not only your time, but also everyone elses time who are involved.
Legal action should not be taken into consideration because they cannot be stopped from saying what they want to. Although it is a problem, it will be hard to think of a solution that people can agree on.
There's lots of people on twitter who only login to hate and even if these people get in trouble what about the other people who've done the same and worse?
People should be able to post whatever they want on social media. Sometimes they can say rude and inappropriate things, but it is their right to say what they want to say. I do not think legal action should be taken against these twitter users for their offensive comments for that reason.
Almost anything said online is protected with the right to free speech unless it's affecting people negatively and inflicting damage to their mentality. There are a lot of things online that people take offensively but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
It's unfortunate because this is freedom of speech, and as long a the victim is not threatened there should be no action taken against them. People are entitled to their opinions no matter how wrong they are as it is freedom of speech. The hard part is, cyberbullying could be taken as freedom of speech and therefore it could never really be stopped. So, people need to decided: Do others need to grow thicker skin or does freedom of speech have to be limited?
