Weekly News

The Joke Police

Last month a YouTuber going by the pseudonym Count Dankula was found guilty of being "Grossly Offensive" and committing a hate crime. He has been sentenced to up to 6 months in prison after the 2 year court case drew to a close. At first any number of horrendous acts may come to mind yet in reality many people have been shocked at the guilty verdict due to the nature of the so called hate crime.

Count Dankula uploaded this video entitled "M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi" to his Youtube Channel on the 11th of April 2016. Pretty soon after it was reported to the authorities. To many people including myself this is a terrifying destruction of free speech. The court claims that the video is in sighting racial hatred, yet to most reasonable people the video is clearly a joke made for shock humour. Count Dankula has stated that the video was made to annoy his girlfriend who wouldn't stop going on about how cute the dog was. Although it is true that his videos are far from left leaning it would be a far stretch to say that there is any element of antisemitism in his content.

The large discussion here is about free speech. Many believe that people should be allowed to make statements without fear of being criminally charged. In my opinion it's ridiculous to put people in prison for offensive humour. By this logic should Sacha Baron Cohen be locked up due to his many antisemitic jokes in his films. Not only was the video a joke but I believe that even if it was serious it shouldn't be an offence. By locking up those with differing opinions we only strengthen their sense of oppression and feeling of hatred. Nobody likes to be silenced and to do so would only cause resentment. Rather we should educate those with ill-informed ideas as well as try to change opinions with good debate.

The media approach to this story has been an interesting one. This BBC article shines a negative light on Count Dankula using very few of his own words that he has used to defend himself. An interesting thing to note is he expressly they mention Tommy Robinson's (Ex- EDL leader) support for Count Dankula as if that means they hold the same views. This is clearly ridiculous. If Nigel Farage agrees on one thing I say then does that mean I support UKIP? No of course it doesn't. So why is it used here as if it's evidence of his guilt.

Overall I believe this to be an unjust abuse of power and shows a scary shift in the way our free speech is controlled.