Bullying, Hate or Free Speech in Nova Scotia

[Big Guy]

A few years ago, Nova Scotia passed an anti-cyberbullying law in response to the suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons. In its first test, It has been found to be in violation of the Charter rights to freedom of expression and liberty.

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/12/11/rehtaeh-parsons-inspired-cyberbullying-law-struck-down

I have always been sceptical of any legislation dealing with "bullying" since it is almost impossible to evaluate objectively. One person may FEEL bullied while another feels CORRECTED by the same statement.

Does anyone have an objective method of ascertaining whether an action or comment is bullying or not.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Big Guy

[Boges]

Bullying is completely subjective.

You could argue publishing the names of people accused of harassing her to the point of suicide is also bullying as their lives would also have been ruined.

See the Duke Lacrosse case for an example of that.

[The_Squid]

This was bad legislation.

We have subjective laws, like criminal harassment. It's defined as what reasonably causes a person to fear for their safety.

So the courts have to look at what a reasonable person would feel based on the actions taken by the accused. It's not an absolute objective measure. The law doesn't say "if the stalker shows up to their house 4 nights per week and makes 25 phone calls per week, that constitutes harassment".

There is no reason to think that cyber bullying laws can't be written in the same manner. The first attempt by NS was a failure.

[-1=e^ipi]

According to world expert Anita Sarkeesian, cyberviolence against women is as bad as real violence and we need the UN to censor our internet in order to prevent people from disagreeing with her.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/25/u-n-womens-group-calls-for-web-censorship/

[The_Squid]

According to world expert Anita Sarkeesian, cyberviolence against women is as bad as real violence and we need the UN to censor our internet in order to prevent people from disagreeing with her.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/25/u-n-womens-group-calls-for-web-censorship/

Why not try and speak to the actual topic, rather than invoke Breitbart and some nonsense happening in another part of the world?

[-1=e^ipi]

Why not try and speak to the actual topic, rather than invoke Breitbart and some nonsense happening in another part of the world?

Anita Sarkeesian is/was Canadian... How is that another part of the world?

[Scott Mayers]

A few years ago, Nova Scotia passed an anti-cyberbullying law in response to the suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons. In its first test, It has been found to be in violation of the Charter rights to freedom of expression and liberty.

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/12/11/rehtaeh-parsons-inspired-cyberbullying-law-struck-down

I have always been sceptical of any legislation dealing with "bullying" since it is almost impossible to evaluate objectively. One person may FEEL bullied while another feels CORRECTED by the same statement.

Does anyone have an objective method of ascertaining whether an action or comment is bullying or not.

Any acts to censorship with respect to government or online activities are more suspect to be about those who want to find any means to control what we see or hear in the media. I am certain from my own experience that things like the ban with CBC to eliminate ALL commenting on the recent concern against the native community is a fraud.

All our government sites are actually privately owned and moderated. They are also isolated and protected of their privacy to act.

With the CBC sites, they have ALWAYS been strict on censorship and moderation. But from experience, I've sometimes tried to post a set of posts linked on issue but if or where they dislike the message as a whole, they've eliminated the posts that actually provide closure to what they leave behind. And this is testable. If you post X, Y, and Z of which as a whole may be non-insulting, but you make Y in context 'look' insulting if X and Z are removed, they sometimes take out the X and Z which makes Y non-problematic but alone LOOKS insulting.

Thus, I'm suspect of the supposed abuses claimed of the recent banning of commenting on CBC on the basis of 'hate speech' or other abuses because (1) They ARE strict by default in moderation and so raises the question of how such commenting that is supposedly unwelcome could have gotten through. It also suggests, given what I've experienced as above and to which you can even test for yourself, that the moderators may be purposely allowing the derogatory comments and holding back on the more rational ones in order to politically act.

Since (2) Censorship through private moderation on our public forums exists at all with such protection, should we not question whether we are the ones being manipulated into thinking what has occurred is true when we are not eligible to determine this publicly?

Example test to try (saying this here may now destroy this possibility though):

Find a message that you want to relay with good logic on the CBC where you have one part of it that could appear questionable if the full message is not presented. Separate these into at least two posts where one looks contentious if it stands alone out of context of the whole. It should be a comment that is most likely politically unfavorable to a strong position of the site, like an argument against Multiculturalism but FOR Interculturalism or the American Melting Pot assimilation concept.

As I've found already, they've often removed a continuous thread which loses clarity of position when they selectively leave what may make you look bad without full disclosure. Try it. It won't be 'objective' though other than to yourself unless you properly set it up in participation with others. I assure you that ANY censorship is bad merely based on moderation because it is too hard for one's political position not to affect their choices to moderate. This is why they Americans realized intellectually they needed to assure the first Amendment:

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. [Wikipedia intro to "First Amendment to the United States"]

Our government directly opposes this and it is intentional.

[Scott Mayers]

Actual Example?: See my thread: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums/topic/25358-i-am-being-censured-by-when-i-try-to-publish-on-multicultural/#entry1123597 AND check the link to the YouTube page I commented on, I posted that quoted in #1 twice which were removed. Then they left my response in disgust of the censor there. It may not be a good example but compare what I intended to be published compared to what they left AND then just read the other person's comments which they left who appeared 'off'.

[The_Squid]

None of the diatribe above by member Scott Mayers has anything to do with cyber bullying legislation.

[Scott Mayers]

None of the diatribe above by member Scott Mayers has anything to do with cyber bullying legislation.

Yes it does. My 'diatribe' is about how our acts of government to [act] more restrictive through censoring or monitoring online activity is intentionally a goal that was sought prior to any real [related] reason [to the asserted problems]. By exploiting issues that 'appear' as sufficiently emotionally driven serve to enable them to create the laws that allow us to lose our freedom.

Cyber bullying CAN be effectively eliminated by the very participants online without moderation. It doesn't remove the abuses but in time, the very public will learn to handle these cases in ways that don't limit our necessary freedoms in other ways.

EDITS: in the above brackets.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Scott Mayers

[peoples advocate]

On ‎2015‎-‎12‎-‎11 at 12:35 PM, Big Guy said:

A few years ago, Nova Scotia passed an anti-cyberbullying law in response to the suicide of Rehtaeh Parsons. In its first test, It has been found to be in violation of the Charter rights to freedom of expression and liberty.

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/12/11/rehtaeh-parsons-inspired-cyberbullying-law-struck-down

I have always been sceptical of any legislation dealing with "bullying" since it is almost impossible to evaluate objectively. One person may FEEL bullied while another feels CORRECTED by the same statement.

Does anyone have an objective method of ascertaining whether an action or comment is bullying or not.

Come on is this a serious question ?   People that use social media to do it are cowards and feel power over others they are a lot like telephone tuff guys.