Posted in Law, 3rd August 2012 11:03 GMT
UK judges quietly declare text chat can be obscene
"Fantasy 1-2-1 talk could land you in jail
You could be committing a criminal offence next time you discuss your deepest fantasies with someone online. Alarmist? Only slightly.
A ruling slipped out quietly by the Appeal Court earlier this year, and lurking in the background while the substantive case to which it applied came to court, makes it plain: the act of publishing as defined within the Obscene Publications Act can take place with an audience of just one individual.
That means it is therefore perfectly possible for the content of online chat, should a jury decide that it is capable of "depraving or corrupting", to be judged "obscene" - and as such for one or both participants in that conversation to be guilty of a criminal offence that carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, and a stint on the sex offenders' register.
This is legal dynamite - and in one single judgment catapults the UK to the back of the queue on a range of international indices on freedom of speech."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/03/text_talk_legal_status/
Text chat can be obscene: R v GS [2012]
http://lawandsexuality.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/text-chat-can-be-obscene-r-v-gs-2012.html
Online chat in the UK is still not free
http://gonedigital.net/2012/07/27/online-chat-in-the-uk-is-still-not-free/
No comments:
Post a Comment