[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Damien

I think we need to be careful as to what qualifies as incitement. Posting negatively about people could cause someone of unsound mind to resort to violence, but I don't think that is enough. The standard needs to be whether a reasonable person reading the statement would think it's encouraging or promoting violence. Additionally, maybe lying about someone in a way that might encourage violence against them (such as saying 'Mr FakeName at 123 Fake Street is a nonce') would qualify.

If you start making random connections between a negative statement and violence, then you could justify arresting all sorts of people. To give an example, there is a trend in politics to call other democratically elected politicians 'traitors'. I hate this. I think it sours political discourse and is dangerous in that it amps tensions and hate, which in turn could lead to political violence. After all, real traitors have often been met with violence. But I don't think that it should be an arrestable offence. If they were to start putting mentions of violence as well as calling people traitors, then it would be.

We need to start from a place where there needs to be a high threshold to meet for the police to visit you and arrest you. I would imagine that's a traumatic experience (not to mention a waste of police time).

Saying they're glad a particular person is dead because of X, is clearly incitement.