Threat Or Tweet? How To Sober The Bullying Kids Behind Their Scary Masks

There's a new campaign petition up on Change.org. (Indeed, there's a new one every few days and I have begun to suffer campaign fatigue. However, this one got me to sit up again.) I'd encourage people to pop over to the site by clicking on the link, and see the kinds of scary messages that are being sent to women. I would be absolutely unnerved if someone sent me such messages.

This campaign is about getting Twitter to adopt a less laissez-faire approach to online bullies threatening female users of the service with rape. Now, I'm a strong supporter of free speech, so I would be uncomfortable asking Twitter to shut down the accounts of those making these offensive tweets or even censoring the offending messages.

Thinking about the problem and my own ideological constraints made me realise that what gives these bullies their courage is their relative anonymity. They can threaten other people from the anonymity of their dens, secure in the knowledge that their right to free speech is protected. Ironically enough, it's free speech that can get them to mind what they say.

I think Twitter should have a simple policy that says anyone making threats of violence against others will have their personal details revealed on a public website along with the details of what they said and when. If law enforcement in their jurisdiction viewed such messages as a crime, then they would have to deal with the consequences of that.

I'd go even further and say that the police should include such a website as a source of rape suspects whenever a rape takes place. All the Twitter offenders in the vicinity should be taken in for questioning as a matter of course. Once someone has threatened rape, they should legitimately be considered a suspect in any future rape case in their vicinity. Hoist them with their own petard.

The sheer inconvenience and social ignominy of being escorted to the local station every time there is a rape should gradually discourage anyone else who thinks this is something they can engage in with impunity.

The police could even offer to stop rounding these people up every time if they would consent to leaving behind a DNA sample. Purely voluntary, of course. The checking would still take place every time a rape occurred, but they wouldn't have to personally visit the station.

In short, society needs to take the same approach to these, er, twits that it takes towards the raising of children. The mature approach is not to forbid behaviour but to acquaint misbehaving children with the consequences of their actions.

The consequences of sending threatening messages can be demonstrated quite effectively while ensuring that all counter-measures are legally justifiable.

The Agnostic Argument - 6 (Society Defers Too Much To Religion)

The protests by Muslims across the world about a movie that they believed insulted their religion reached Sydney yesterday. The protests turned violent and the violence was promptly condemned by public figures, both politicians and journalists.

The standard argument from "reasonable society" goes, "You have a right to protest, but you may not resort to violence."

I have a rather more hard-line argument: "You have the right to believe in any religion, but not the right to be respected for it." If someone laughs at you or insults you for your faith, well, just develop a thick skin because you're going to need it.

Yes, I am what in the US would be called a First Amendment Absolutist, i.e., I don't believe in curbs of any kind on the freedom of speech. Hate speech should be countered not by censorship but by a barrage of criticism and show of opposition numbers, cyber-bullying of adults* must be countered by exposing the identity of the bullies (another form of free speech), misinformation should be countered by information, false accusations (slander and libel) should be countered by civil lawsuits, and a false cry of "fire" in a crowded theatre should be countered by prompt public announcements dousing it. But speech itself should be untrammelled.
[*Cyber-bullying of children by their peers requires a more interventionist approach.]

That's a lesson the religious need to be taught. You may absolutely hate what someone is saying, but you will just have to learn to accept it. And public officials in democracies whose salaries are paid for with taxpayers' money and who have pledged to uphold their respective constitutions will have to stand up for this principle much more strongly. It's not just violence that's reprehensible. It's the attempt to shut down free speech.

Be that as it may, free speech is for adults because adults are expected to be able to handle it. Children need extra protections, and not just in cases of bullying. This is something I find absolutely unacceptable:

While the sign itself is disturbing, adults can and must learn to handle it. But children must absolutely not be exposed to such nonsense. It is tantamount to child abuse.

It is pointless having movie classifications to protect children from images of violence if they are going to be exposed to it by their own parents.

This isn't just about Islam, although Muslims seem to be among the world's touchiest people. If you want me to prove my even-handedness, I have contempt for those whose sentiments were offended by swimwear bearing pictures of Hindu deities on them.

President of the Universal Society of Hinduism, Mr. Rajan Zed (who has earned a mention on this blog before) said

Lakshmi was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not for pushing swimwear in fashion shows for mercantile greed of an apparel company

Let me get this straight. Lakshmi is the goddess of wealth, and it's perfectly acceptable for businessmen to pray to her for profits, but one shouldn't use her images to further "mercantile greed"? Did Rajan Zed say that with a straight face?

(At any rate, the swimwear company quickly capitulated and apologised, much to my disappointment and disgust.)

Thankfully, Christianity does not seem to wield the same kind of power in its homelands. The work titled "Piss Christ" (a work of "art" in such awful taste that I have to hold my nose as I defend its creator's freedom of expression) was destroyed in an act of vandalism in Australia, but did gather more than a modest number of defenders.

Offended sentiments are the luxury of the superstitious, because in a rational world, the truth or otherwise of an assertion can either be proven or deferred till future research settles the issue. What rankles deeply is that society (through its official figures) feels obliged to apologise for the offence taken by superstitious people when a contemptuous laugh would be more appropriate.

I belong to a burgeoning tribe of agnostics, atheists, rationalists and allied people who have contempt for organised religion and resent the way society bends over backwards to accommodate the sentiments of the superstitious.

Ours is a cold rage, but it cannot be ignored for long.