Pretty sure that’s a Chris Rock joke. Going to take him to court too?
Interesting, so this wasn’t JUST about a potentially racist meme….
I guess you can’t say ‘Polly want a cracker?’ anymore.
Surely the shocking thing here isn’t the tweet but the fact you can end up in court for sharing something in a private group chat. Has freedom of speech reached the point that even something that isn’t public is now illegal? There are whole Facebook pages of offensive memes being shared.
Did the shared joke make it clear that it was referring to a non-white child as the one most likely to have stolen a bicycle?
So he shared an image created by someone else and got convicted of it?
Surely the police investigation should be focused on who created such a racist image!
Private conversations should remain private, there’s plenty of vile shite on Reddit, Facebook, TikTok etc that doesn’t get dealt with.
Or is it simply because they were ex-police that a private conversation has been taken to court.
It’s not an excuse for their behaviour or thought but at the same time we aren’t the thought police. Will it go the other way with the anti-Semitism, anti-white, anti-islam comments?
What do you get for smashing a masterwork at the national gallery and then desecrating the Cenotaph?
Sit in a private room with someone and tell them a joke and it’s fine.
Send them that same joke in a private group on and end-to-end encrypted messaging service and it’s a crime.
What an absolute waste of time.
I’m going to speak for all ethnic minorities here.
We’d prefer it if time/money/focus was spent on tackling racism that has a direct impact on our lives.
I could not give less of a shit about some old white bloke making racist jokes in a private whatsapp group.
I’m usually the last person to comment on what I would otherwise assume is rage-bait, but JFC this is pretty insane. Prosecuted for forwarding something to a private group of friends is beyond Orwellian.
You shouldn’t have to explain private jokes to anybody, let alone get fucking prosecuted for it.
Whilst I dislike that they had all shared racist content, this is fucking ridiculous. Private conversations and messages are exactly that – private. Unless they had plans to blow up something or kill/injure someone it is no one else’s fucking business.
Fucking shameful that a private conversation like this can result in a prosecution.
Was it offensive? Undoubtedly, but grossly offensive? I’m amazed, it met that threshold.
And also, it was a private conversation. What the fuck?
No one should be surprised that older police are casually racist.
I’m all for holding people in positions of power to account but even I don’t get why someone is being prosecuted for a private conversation.
The post was clearly racist, and that’s not forgivable but why did it come to the courts attention?
One thing to mention – and this is roughly my field, or at least one I have worked in – the reason why this is both awful and surprising to many is because we have this extremely repressive law:
It applies to *online* and not *offline* communication. It prohibits, amongst other things “grossly offensive” communications. There is no law against something that is just grossly offensive in speech, just in online speech. You can yell things at a public meeting much more freely than you can send them by email.
So in asking why Sarah Baker was not convicted, that’s in part because she was charged with a different offence (because she could not have been charged under s127).
Note that s127(1) applies to sending any communication. If I email you a grossly offensive joke at your request, I am guilty of an offence (and you are probably guilty of inciting me).
Now, my view is that this is utterly wrong. There are behaviours you can criminalise, but they should be much more specific. For example, sending something in a targeted fashion is rather different – but then we already have a fairly broad set of offences of harassment. There are also lots of other laws against lots of other things – too many such laws really.
The UK is a fucking dictatorship, and I dont wanna pay for this shit. Im gonna leave.
I thought he’d have sent a video of a parrot getting killed or something from the headline this is crazy
On the one hand I do think that this sort of crackdown is needed against dodgy police officers simply because of the power position they’re in and as such need extra scrutiny.
On the other though, the fact that you can get sentenced for sharing a post in a private group chat (even if it is racist which it is here) is worrying re state oversight
WhatsApp clearly isn’t a private group messaging service. It’s a snooping service the authorities can easily get access to. I’ve always declined invites to WhatsApp as I don’t trust it.
19 comments
The same judge: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/trans-activist-sarah-jane-baker-not-guilty-terf-pride-speech-b1104065.html
Pretty sure that’s a Chris Rock joke. Going to take him to court too?
Interesting, so this wasn’t JUST about a potentially racist meme….
I guess you can’t say ‘Polly want a cracker?’ anymore.
Surely the shocking thing here isn’t the tweet but the fact you can end up in court for sharing something in a private group chat. Has freedom of speech reached the point that even something that isn’t public is now illegal? There are whole Facebook pages of offensive memes being shared.
Did the shared joke make it clear that it was referring to a non-white child as the one most likely to have stolen a bicycle?
So he shared an image created by someone else and got convicted of it?
Surely the police investigation should be focused on who created such a racist image!
Private conversations should remain private, there’s plenty of vile shite on Reddit, Facebook, TikTok etc that doesn’t get dealt with.
Or is it simply because they were ex-police that a private conversation has been taken to court.
It’s not an excuse for their behaviour or thought but at the same time we aren’t the thought police. Will it go the other way with the anti-Semitism, anti-white, anti-islam comments?
What do you get for smashing a masterwork at the national gallery and then desecrating the Cenotaph?
Sit in a private room with someone and tell them a joke and it’s fine.
Send them that same joke in a private group on and end-to-end encrypted messaging service and it’s a crime.
What an absolute waste of time.
I’m going to speak for all ethnic minorities here.
We’d prefer it if time/money/focus was spent on tackling racism that has a direct impact on our lives.
I could not give less of a shit about some old white bloke making racist jokes in a private whatsapp group.
I’m usually the last person to comment on what I would otherwise assume is rage-bait, but JFC this is pretty insane. Prosecuted for forwarding something to a private group of friends is beyond Orwellian.
You shouldn’t have to explain private jokes to anybody, let alone get fucking prosecuted for it.
Whilst I dislike that they had all shared racist content, this is fucking ridiculous. Private conversations and messages are exactly that – private. Unless they had plans to blow up something or kill/injure someone it is no one else’s fucking business.
Fucking shameful that a private conversation like this can result in a prosecution.
Was it offensive? Undoubtedly, but grossly offensive? I’m amazed, it met that threshold.
And also, it was a private conversation. What the fuck?
No one should be surprised that older police are casually racist.
I’m all for holding people in positions of power to account but even I don’t get why someone is being prosecuted for a private conversation.
The post was clearly racist, and that’s not forgivable but why did it come to the courts attention?
One thing to mention – and this is roughly my field, or at least one I have worked in – the reason why this is both awful and surprising to many is because we have this extremely repressive law:
[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127)
It applies to *online* and not *offline* communication. It prohibits, amongst other things “grossly offensive” communications. There is no law against something that is just grossly offensive in speech, just in online speech. You can yell things at a public meeting much more freely than you can send them by email.
So in asking why Sarah Baker was not convicted, that’s in part because she was charged with a different offence (because she could not have been charged under s127).
Note that s127(1) applies to sending any communication. If I email you a grossly offensive joke at your request, I am guilty of an offence (and you are probably guilty of inciting me).
Now, my view is that this is utterly wrong. There are behaviours you can criminalise, but they should be much more specific. For example, sending something in a targeted fashion is rather different – but then we already have a fairly broad set of offences of harassment. There are also lots of other laws against lots of other things – too many such laws really.
The UK is a fucking dictatorship, and I dont wanna pay for this shit. Im gonna leave.
I thought he’d have sent a video of a parrot getting killed or something from the headline this is crazy
On the one hand I do think that this sort of crackdown is needed against dodgy police officers simply because of the power position they’re in and as such need extra scrutiny.
On the other though, the fact that you can get sentenced for sharing a post in a private group chat (even if it is racist which it is here) is worrying re state oversight
WhatsApp clearly isn’t a private group messaging service. It’s a snooping service the authorities can easily get access to. I’ve always declined invites to WhatsApp as I don’t trust it.