On-line hate crime

[malumbu]

I while away some of my time on Youtube, bands that I have seen/liked, special times. I rarely look at the on line comments but a couple left me in despair. Casual racism, and homophobia (the latter aimed at Alan Carr, someone whose style is not to my taste but his sexuality doesn't come into this).

I've responded in kind and this is as much me thinking why on earth do people feel they need to make such comments. On both occasions totally irrelevant to a rock music video.

I expect these fall short of the definition of on-line hate: (from a useful website) 'Hate material online is recorded by police as a 'hate crime' when a crime defined in law is committed with hate motivation'. http://report-it.org.uk/reporting_internet_hate_crime

Is this me just being a precious lefty urbanite? out of touch with half of the country with some of the views on excessive political correctness? trivial (sticks and stones will break my bones)? first world problem? a waste of my, your and the authorities time? or a sign that things still need to change and perhaps could be getting worse? The first few suggestions are rhetorical.

[JohnL]

I reported someone on twitter today for replying with an "p*do" type comment to Lineker.

No doubt Gary can look after himself but it's annoying. Twitter sometimes impose a short term ban but they also do for innocuous comments that fall foul of their ban bots (I got 12 hours for warning Boris leaving the tea bag in his cup could be dangerous - apparently it was wishing harm on him)

[malumbu]

Love that insult. Cold over-stewed tea can be lethal and the dishwasher wont remove those tannin stains.

I think my issue was as much about the irrelevance of the comments as the videos were nothing to do with the videos. I don't really have a burning desire to post hateful comments on celebs on random sites. I got a similar casual racist comment from an AirBnB host in Canada, originally from Woking. I'd manage to avoid Brexit conversations but he still had to make a remark about London's ethnic make up. I couldn't think of a subtle enough comment on my review so didn't leave one. I did say something at the time about the inappropriateness.

Anyway I've invited ridicule of myself as a pompous snowflake so looking forward to hearing a counter argument about speaking your mind and avoiding censorship. Perhaps Alan Carr would be quite proud about attracting such attention, being called a BB on a little viewed YouTube vid and get a t-shirt made up.