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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:46:29 +0000
From: Marie Earley <eiryel@hotmail.com>
To: Gender Gap <gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Gendergap] press coverage of Gamergate arbcom case
Message-ID: <DUB131-W426C592B733B46FFB4240FC1310@phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

There is something I thought I should mention as a UK member of this list.

Hate speech (including online) is illegal in the UK.

When the Bank of England announced that Elizabeth Fry would be dropped from the new £5 notes and replaced with Winston Churchill, it meant that there would be no women on sterling bank notes (apart from the Queen).

Caroline Criado-Perez successfully campaigned for Jane Austin to be added to £10 notes and received threats of rape and death. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10207231/Woman-who-campaigned-for-Jane-Austen-bank-note-receives-Twitter-death-threats.html

That instigated an online campaign which resulted in Twitter adding its 'report' button.

Isabella Sorley, 23, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, tweets included: "die you worthless piece of crap", "go kill yourself" and, "I've only just got out of prison and would happily do more time to see you berried!!"

John Nimmo, 25, of South Shields, made references to rape and added:  "I will find you (smiley face)".

Sorley was sentenced to 12 weeks
in prison, and Nimmo was jailed for 8
weeks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25886026

The law they broke was Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

If UK-based Wikipedian 'X' breaches s.127 of the Comms. Act due to something they said on Wikipedia about UK-based Wikipedian 'Y' then they face criminal prosecution and possibly jail.

The litmus test is whether what they have said is not only 'offensive' but, 'grossly offensive'. Wikipedia's internal systems and thresholds would make no difference to the authorities in the UK. It would be interesting to see what the public fall-out would be if Wikipedia decided that no action should be taken against X whilst the UK jailed him / her.

Marie