Twenty one year old Liam Stacey has been jailed for fifty six days after posting racially offensive comments on Twitter about Fabrice Muamba, a Bolton Wanderers football player who suffered a cardiac arrest. Stacey posted the comments after Muamba collapsed during the FA Cup quarter final on 17th March.
The district judge described Stacey’s comments as “vile and abhorrent” and I agree with the judge. Anyone who can post offensive comments about anyone even if they are just an average person and then proceed to hide behind a computer is as vile as the come, especially as in this case the victim of the abuse was fighting for his life. It’s cowardly to hide behind your computer and post offensive things about someone. We are increasingly living in a society that is using social media more and with the rise of social media; we are also experiencing the rise of internet trolls whom attack people on the internet by saying things they wouldn’t say to their victims’ faces whilst hiding behind their keyboard.
The district judge described Stacey’s comments as “vile and abhorrent” and I agree with the judge. Anyone who can post offensive comments about anyone even if they are just an average person and then proceed to hide behind a computer is as vile as the come, especially as in this case the victim of the abuse was fighting for his life. It’s cowardly to hide behind your computer and post offensive things about someone. We are increasingly living in a society that is using social media more and with the rise of social media; we are also experiencing the rise of internet trolls whom attack people on the internet by saying things they wouldn’t say to their victims’ faces whilst hiding behind their keyboard.
However Stacey has only been jailed for fifty six days, which in the scheme of things is nothing, he will be in jail for less than two months which sounds absurd for racial abuse. Fifty six days sounds too short a sense for a crime such as the racial abuse, especially with the impact such abuse can have on a person. Stacey tried to argue that his twitter account was hacked, lying about what he did as he was drunk when he posted the tweets. He must have been incredibly drunk to have a complete lack of judgement, although he could just be lacking in common sense to post something that could be racially sensitive.
However vile and disgusted one may be towards Stacey, the fact he is imprisoned to some raises a point about our right to free speech. Our right of free speech means we can say what we want providing it follows a few basic rules. Stacey was prosecuted under the Communications Act of 2003 that was introduced before the introduction of Twitter which some such as Abhijit Pandya of the Daily Mail don’t think is right or fair to do so. Maybe the Communications Act needs to be updated to include the new social media, but would it be excessive and unnecessary to update the Act every time a new media platform rises to prominence.
However vile and disgusted one may be towards Stacey, the fact he is imprisoned to some raises a point about our right to free speech. Our right of free speech means we can say what we want providing it follows a few basic rules. Stacey was prosecuted under the Communications Act of 2003 that was introduced before the introduction of Twitter which some such as Abhijit Pandya of the Daily Mail don’t think is right or fair to do so. Maybe the Communications Act needs to be updated to include the new social media, but would it be excessive and unnecessary to update the Act every time a new media platform rises to prominence.
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