Woman pleads guilty to defacing murder victim's tribute page

[depakid]

Source: ABC

A 22-year-old woman from Gympie in south-east Queensland has received a three-month suspended jail sentence for posting offensive material on a Facebook tribute page for murdered Sunshine Coast woman, Justine Jones.

Jessica Chantelle Cook pleaded guilty in the Gympie Magistrates Court today to posting hateful comments and photographs on a page set up in memory of Ms Jones, 22, from Alexandra Headland. Ms Jones's body was found at the Nambour rubbish tip last month.

Cook was released on two years' probation on the condition that she not access any social networking sites and that she only uses her computer for the purposes of email, employment and financial banking.

If she reoffends within three years, she will have to forfeit $3,000.

Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/02/2970970.htm?section=justin

[ThomasQED]

1. I wonder which exact law she broke

and what a "rubbish tip" is.

On edit: I Googled it. It's a landfill, of course. I was thinking it was the tip of something, but apparently it's a place you tip rubbish into.

[Posteritatis]

2. It's a landfill

and she was charged with "using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend."

[ThomasQED]

3. Interesting

The "menace or harass" part I understand, but if we had this law against "offending" there would be no more comments on news articles on the Internet.

[depakid]

4. "no more comments on news articles"

Considering what poses as "commentary" on news articles in America, that would be a huge improvement for public discourse and discussion.

At least with LTTE's there's some ostensible editorial discretion (even if it's not always ethically sound).

[ThomasQED]

5. I agree

Unfortunately we can't have that if we also want free speech. I like reading British news boards. Their comments seem to be much more entertaining, respectful and cogent (even when conservative).

[depakid]

6. Of course we can have that! Newspapers aren't under any obligation to post the trash that they do

A lot of it's blatant race baiting, repetition of outright lies (false statements of fact) or else nutters spamming the board with the same crap under every story (which the posters rarely bother to read past the headline).

Newspapers do it for the clicks and the controversy- not for "free speech" or to promote public discourse.

[ThomasQED]

7. Yeah, I should have said

"censorship". I'd prefer there be none, but sometimes there's a fine line between censorship and just enforcing policies and comments on most boards here are unreadable.

[Posteritatis]

8. Definitely agreed

Unfortunately, the Australian government officially doesn't recognize freedom of speech outside of a few directly political contexts. As a result they tend to default towards having some pretty vile and heavy-handed censorship policies.

[Flora]

11. Is it free speech?

News sites are privately owned and therefore should have the right to restrict the sort of commentary they wish to have on their websites. Also, is it really considered "free speech" to be able to hide, with a made up name, behind your key board and talk trash??

[Democat]

9. The Australian government is no fan of free speech.

They want to censor the entire internet for their citizens.

[Drops_not_Dope]

10. Oh Hell

they should get a look at septemberclues.

[mackerel]

12. It was a facebook page which is far different than comments

on a newspaper cite.