Two cultures
I have tried to see the "#twittertrial" from the point of view of the other side, but I must say I've basically failed to do so. It seems completely idiotic to me. Nonetheless, it does have to be dealt with as a fact that this case has now been looked at in a fair degree of depth by two or three airport security personnel, several police officers, a magistrate and a judge, all of whom have come to the same opinion. And this opinion is one that more or less everyone with a Twitter account considers to be actively bizarre.
It strikes me that this is a cultural divide potentially rather more practically significant than CP Snow's. I wonder if it is a new thing (different reactions to new technology), or whether it's always been there (ie, different views on whether there is such a thing as casual, informal speech) and it's just now that we've come to notice it.
Well, if the various accounts of the process by which it came to trial are to be believed, most of the people who looked at it really didn't believe it was a real threat; including the airport staff, and the police. All passed it up the chain because they believed that they 'had' to.
ReplyDeleteThe cultural divide is real, though, I suspect and on one side of it lies the group we might describe as authoritarian jobsworths.
I think I really need to see the full judgement before forming a view on this. Hopefully it will come up on BAILLI soon, though it's usually only High Court and above cases that make it on. References by the judge in the extracts we've seen to Paul Chambers being an 'untrustworthy character' suggest the story might be a bit more complex than can be explained in 140 characters.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, I do have your gut view, but for so many people to believe something apparently so stupid suggests there's something else there that's not been reported by Paul's supporters.
Did the trial make the TV news? I'm becoming increasinly concerned that there might be two types of news - internet and other. I mean obviously internet journalists are interested in internet things such as Twitter/Facebook etc. The Guardian's website homepage seems daily to have a story based solely on what someone has said on Twitter, and gets excited by things 'trending', but I wonder if they ever have any coverage outside of the web.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1996/564.html
ReplyDeleteIt's a civil case, but certainly one that shows how judges are very often capable of recognising a joke. (Albeit not a very good one. In a court case involving Stephen Berkoff and Julie Birchill, who would you like to win?)
Justice Millett displays a certain dry sense of humour, there.
ReplyDelete...for so many people to believe something apparently so stupid suggests there's something else there that's not been reported by Paul's supporters.
ReplyDeletePerhaps, but I don't think we should underestimate people's ability to be humourless mo'fuckers. The dark references towards "[the] context...we live in a[s] [a] society" are good cause not to discount the idea that the verdict was a great big stop messin' about...
Echoing Matt, if the brief summary on MeFi is to be trusted ("Although the airport considered the threat 'non-credible', the Crown Prosecution Service made the decision to prosecute regardless - under a relatively obscure offence originally intended for nuisance telephone calls in the 1930s, rather than the offence for which Paul was originally arrested (making a bomb threat against the airport). The CPS interpreted the former to require no actual evidence of intent on Paul's part.") (admittedly a dodgy proposition), not only did most people involved not think it was a real threat, he was prosecuted for something else anyway—ultimately, it seems, for having come to CPS' attention as someone whom they could prosecute.
ReplyDeleteThere is certainly a cultural and legal divide between different countries: I cannot imagine a US court deciding that such a vague threat outside wartime constituted a clear and present danger of imminent lawless action, as required by the tests developed by the Supreme Court.
ReplyDeleteCan't help feeling that a useful form of satire at this point would be a campaign to revive "spreading alarm and despondency" as a criminal offence.
Can't help feeling that a useful form of satire at this point would be a campaign to revive "spreading alarm and despondency" as a criminal offence.
ReplyDeleteNo. It would swiftly be passed into law over the objection of a handful of cross bench peers and to the applause of large sections of the press.
This is as much a cultural divide as there is between a slave and a slaveowner. The slaveowner's sincere opinion is that he is entitled to punish the slave for violating certain rules.
ReplyDeleteI cannot imagine a US court deciding
ReplyDeleteWell, US courts can do strange things, but such a decision certainly wouldn't be upheld on appeal.
It's nice, speaking as a US citizen, not to be the stupidest in the Western world in everything.
Well, US courts can do strange things, but such a decision certainly wouldn't be upheld on appeal.
ReplyDeleteWould that I shared your certainty.
Thing is, the first level of the UK courts throw up judgements like this all the time; it's surprising, OTOH, how surprisingly the libertarian and common sense the Court of Appeal tend to be on such matters, and when they are forced by precedent/wording of the legislation into a blatantly unfair decision, the judgment usually is a protesting one.
ReplyDelete