Lets just be clear about this, Old Holborn was a bit of a dick. He posted some horrible stuff, sometimes he could be funny but often he would be offensive. That shouldn't be hard to deal with on the internet, I mean you can ignore what he says. Even better than that Twitter has a block button, glorious my brothers we can never be offended by him again. I was horribly bullied as a child, both verbally and physically. You know what I was told, just ignore what they are saying, words can't hurt you. It's true you know, words are meaningless things to which we place a value. I get loads of abuse on Twitter, as you would expect when you say such controversial things as "I agree with the cap on benefits." You have 3 easy ways of dealing with online abuse, ignore, wind them up (my personal favourite) or block. I know how hard this is for the professionally offended. Hell when you offend them once they start looking through your Twitter history for more stuff to take offence at. When someone who has abused me for something I said then re tweets a comment from a month ago for their friends to have a go at you know you are dealing with an idiot.
Old Holborn is having his life systematically ruined by these people. Publishing his address, phone number and sending death threats to his family. Phoning his place of work and making threats as well, is this covered by the malicious communications act? The aftershocks are already happening, @obotheclown has announced he is leaving twitter because he is worried about the security of his family and friends, the threat of exposure and possibly police action.
We stand at an important point in our history. The controversial issue of "hate crime" has been in the news as it now includes "goths" (beating someone to death should carry the same sentence whatever the reason, not carry more because of race, religion or how you dress), what's next? Carrot tops, fatties, half pints, blonde bimbos, slap heads or toffs? Press regulation is already making papers nervous before it comes in, how else can you explain Guido scooping over a month ahead that Rolf was being questioned by police? Now add Old Holborn, police looking in to his actions for being offensive. We won the last big battle, the "Twitter joke trial" but can we win this?
If anything I have said offends you please take time to explain it in writing, put it in an envelope and shove it up your arse! (Said in solidarity with Old Holborn)
Rob
