Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Troll beware!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ester-11650593

So Trolls beware.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

I wonder what the "I'll-Offend-Anyone-I-Want-League," will have to say about this.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

I didn't know there was such a law!, courts would have a feel day on youtube, the website where trolls live.

I hate trolls, i just don't see what they get from it.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

They do it purely for the reactions.. It's why the mods/admins don't bite when a troll appears and we just remove them..

The best defence is to just put them on ignore and you then take away all of their power and they're left looking like the idiots they are.

It is though very interesting to anyone who runs an internet site that allows posts/comments/submissions from the public as to how far the law is now prepared to go in recognizing abuse like this :clap:

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

I wonder how the courts would deal with a 'troll' posting only to paedo, terrorist, BNP sites?

---------- Post added at 09:52 ---------- Previous post was at 09:46 ----------

It would be covered by the persons internet providers T&Cs?

there's a facebook site I know of for someone who got knocked off his motorcycle and died. there's one comment on there that has 'offended' some people. and in a way I kind of agree with what he or she says.

but because the others are offended by it, is he in the wrong enough to be charged?

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

You're missing the point as to what this troll said which caused the offence..

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

The law is carefully worded to set the bar quite high. In legal terms, 'grossly offensive' is a difficult test to meet. We edit stuff on this board all the time but IMO very, very rarely do we have to deal with anything that might fit the description of 'grossly offensive'.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

That is my point (what he said)
there's one kind of troll and there's another kind of troll.
both post to get a reaction. but only one type deserves to go to court.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Considering people have killed people and molested children and have got a smaller sentence I find the judgement utterly ridiculous.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

If I didn't know better, I'd say you seem worried, Gary.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Agreed Chris. I've seen comments where people compare the two and make them the same.

---------- Post added at 10:07 ---------- Previous post was at 10:06 ----------

:confused:

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Yet as anyone who runs a forum (and I've seen it on three different forums) will tell you that sometimes one kind of troll turns into the other kind of troll (complete with violence and/or death threats) when you don't play their little game and remove them from the site..

:(

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

That would go with this quote.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Yet if he's said the same on another public medium like TV/Radio/newspapers there would have been a public outcry..

Strange how the internet is further reaching and possibly even more public yet seen very differently...

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Of course, all of those mediums have measures in place, specifically designed to prevent him or anyone else from having a platform to cause this level of upset.

I think perhaps the problem lies with the owners of said sites being a little naive, when it comes to running a website.

If these sites are short on moderators, then they should have in place the tried and tested measure for assured moderation, and manage all post, before they're allowed to be made public.

The internet is full of anonymous nutters, that's a given..

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Actually that is the worst approach for an amateur site to take - a policy of pre-moderation makes it a lot more difficult for the site owners to defend themselves against charges like this, or claims of libel, because they make themselves actively complicit in the publication of the material.

Moderation after the fact, coupled with a robust system allowing for the reporting of abuse (and dealing with it quickly) is the best way of ensuring internet forums continue to exist for the long term and don't begin to fall foul of prosecutions and litigation due to the inability of a few idiot trolls to behave like normally-functioning members of society.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

True..

Thankfully, this is true. In fact, in all the years I have been modding here, I can only think of one ocassion where the post I dealt with would (I think) fit the definition of Grossly Offensive. I can't remember specifics (what it was about, who posted etc), and obviously even if I could, I would not discuss it.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

I appreciate the fact that there's probably no absolute guarantee that something might slip through the vetting process, but we're talking about (at a guess) a message of fairly easy to identify hatred.

Surely it's no different to the way things run on this site, a mod notices or is informed of a problem post, removes it from public view, and does whatever they can to prevent the idiot responsible from causing further problems?

Am not experienced in libel laws, but i know something about common sense, and would have thought the terms a person agrees to when they sign up to a forum, and use of disclaimer notices, would prevent the site from being culpable? especially if it's shown that those running the site have done all they can to prevent such an occurrence, rather than just allow an unmoderated free for all..

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

I think Chris's point is that with a lot of laws, organisations can get away with little or no punishment if the law is broken on something they are responsible for *if* they can show they have robust procedures to prevent and deal with lawbreaking. We do. If a post is reported, and is found to break the site rules, it's removed immediately.

If a system of moderating posts before they are published is introduced and a mod approves an illegal post, it could be seen that the site admins have published the post.

Re: Jade Goody website 'troll' from Manchester jailed
 

Fair point; it is unlikely that something criminally offensive would slip though, but something libellous might well do, because on a board as busy as this one, for example, there would be so many posts in the moderation queue at any one time, none of them would be getting read properly before publication.

On the subject of libel, no, sadly the site T&Cs do not absolve the site owners from claims of libel. The poster may be liable, but if they are, then the site owner is also. However, this can be mitigated by dealing with complaints of libel promptly, removing objectionable content quickly and offering the complainant a right of reply, if appropriate.