
John Nimmo, Internet Troll, Jailed Again - DanBC
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/10/internet-troll-who-sent-labour-mp-antisemitic-messages-is-jailed?CMP=twt_gu
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stonogo
The guy threatened to kill a politician and blow up a mosque. I'm not sure
"internet troll" is a sane description. It's not like he was posting about
emacs on a vim mailing list. He committed real crimes that are illegal whether
the internet is involved or not.

~~~
Eyght
The term "internet troll" could be used as defusing terminology by the defense
to imply that the comments were solely made to elicit response, rather than
threaten or harm. The Guardian would then use the term in the title to show
how even a self-described internet troll isn't safe from repercussions,
regardless of stated intention.

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DanBC
The MP mentioned in this article has been subjected to a lot of vicious anti-
Semitic trolling.

Here's another person who was targeting her for harassment.

[https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/sentencing-remarks-
of...](https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/sentencing-remarks-of-mr-
justice-spencer-r-v-joshua-bonehill-paine-harassment-of-luciana-berger-mp/)

~~~
WillPostForFood
better link: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/07/racist-
troll...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/07/racist-troll-guilty-
harassing-labour-mp-luciana-berger-joshua-bonehill-paine)

~~~
DanBC
The Guardian report misses out a lot of information, which is available in the
linked to sentencing remarks.

Here's one example:

Guardian: "Throughout, Bonehill-Paine, of Yeovil, Somerset, was on bail
awaiting sentence for making claims on Twitter that several people were
paedophiles."

In fact, it's much worse:

"You are currently serving a sentence of 40 months imprisonment, imposed on
17th December 2015 for stirring up racial hatred against the Jewish community
in Golders Green. "

and

[On] "28th October, you appeared in court at Yeovil, your home town, and
pleaded guilty to six offences of sending malicious communications and an
offence of harassment, all arising from false and hateful allegations against
innocent members of the public that they were paedophiles. Sentence was
adjourned, and your bail was renewed. "

The Guardian says she got 2500 tweets. The sentencing remarks say that at its
worst she got 2500 tweets in just 3 days, meaning she got more than 2500
tweets.

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M_Grey
So... mentally ill, or just a sociopath? It's hard to tell at a distance, but
he's clearly a broken man.

~~~
roflchoppa
the dude is 28, if he cant figure it out by the time he's 15...... maybe he
needs more guidance.....

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pvaldes
The guy is Asperger.

I wonder why twitter still can't have a filter that changes the phrase "I will
rape you" for "this was against twitter policy. One more and you are out for
24 hour" or so? Maybe its time to implement the "wash_your_mouth" filter.

~~~
guitarbill
Because every previous filter has worked so well. And what is it for this
constant cry for censorship? Censorship doesn't work. People always find a way
around it, but now it's less obvious. That's why we said we'd stop censoring.

Next time, before you ask for censorship, consider the wider ramifications.
How is the filter going to work with jokes/sarcasm? E.g. do you know any
people who've threatened the current US president (even in jest), and would
the rules apply for them, too? Of course, "threatening" a state of head could
just mean asking for his removal in other countries. Oops.

Censorship is plain stupidity, and history shows this time and time again.

~~~
tzs
Filtering has worked pretty well with email for spam. I don't see anything
fundamentally different about harassment that would make it less responsive to
filtering than spam, nor anything fundamentally different about an incoming
social media stream than an email inbox.

Spam filtering works because the spam email has characteristics such as word
frequencies that differ significantly from your non-spam email. E.g., none of
my friends, acquaintances, co-workers, or companies that I correspond with
ever have occasion to discuss my penis size, and so it was easy for my spam
filters to learn that mail about my penis is spam.

I would expect that most people who get harassed on their social media feeds
do not normally receive messages from friends or other wanted senders
describing how they are going to rape them or kill their pets or children or
things like that, so why can't a filter learn to block those?

