The once-beloved children’s author is working herself up over Scotland’s new bias law.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has jumped to defend J.K. Rowling, who is once again using her one wild and precious life to post obsessively about transgender women instead of doing literally anything else with her hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Harry Potter author took to X, formerly Twitter, on April 1 to share her thoughts on Scotland’s new Hate Crime Act, which went into effect the same day. The law criminalizes “stirring up hatred” related to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, trans identity, or being intersex, as the BBC reported. “Stirring up hatred” is further defined as communicating or behaving in a way “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive” against a protected group. The offense is punishable by imprisonment of up to seven years, a fine, or both.
In response to the legislation, Rowling posted a long thread naming several prominent trans women in the U.K., including Mridul Wadhwa, the CEO of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, and activist Munroe Bergdorf. Since it was April Fool’s day, Rowling decided to commemorate it by sarcastically affirming the womanhood of all the people she named in her thread. In the same breath that she said that a convicted child predator was “rightly sent to a women’s prison,” she also called out a number of trans women making anodyne comments about inclusion, seemingly implying that trans identity is inherently predatory.
read more: https://www.them.us/story/jk-rowling-rishi-sunak-social-media-trans
That law sounds terrible.
Because you don’t like how it’s being implemented or because you just straight up like hatred?
This is no way to legislate. What is a reasonable person?
It is actually a very specific legal standard. If you like podcasts, one of the early episodes of More Perfect has a good segment on the reasonableness standard. The case is one about police violence and it is fairly emotional, so just keep that in mind for if you want to listen.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolabmoreperfect/episodes/mr-graham-and-reasonable-man
Because it sounds like it can be applied to any political view or person. It is just plain censorship. At the end of the day democracy depends on everyone having a voice, even if you find what they have to say hateful.
I don’t support hate speech but trying to ban it is very problematic
There’s a difference between saying what you think and being “threatening or abusive”. Note that nothing JK has done so far actually qualifies.
If she directed her audience to harass the ones she mocked that would be different. At a certain point that shouldn’t be allowed, no?
What you said offends me. You should got to jail for spreading hate speech
You know how people sometimes talk about not interacting in good faith?
I upvoted you, as the other guy was not reading your post, but disagree with the general stance. What is “reasonable” is still somewhat defined by the current political climate, even if it’s not defined by a single person.
The UK government is currently very pro-Israel, and could easily use this to prosecute pro-Palestine/ceasefire protesters (assuming the existing anti-protest laws don’t get them).
It massively limits the rights of minority political opinions.
Won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome priest?
It is illegal already, she can’t make comments to her weirdly large base that have the same effect of causing violence or panic or fear thereof.
Hilarious that a chick who made her money off witchcraft and mildly pedophilic children’s stories takes issues with morality of all things.
Hate to ask, but I don’t want to google it, can you elaborate on that last bit?
Think about the plot of the books and get back to me on that one.
An abused boy becomes magical jesus and constantly fights magical hitler while attending magic school… I’m not getting the pedophilic bits unless you think children merely existing equates to pedophilia
If that’s how you read it.
There’s a teacher in the book who can see through clothes at a children’s school and its held in the book by administration as a good thing to have around… Think about that.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925
This man trained his girlfriend’s dog to give a Nazi salute to some offensive phrases as a joke. Shared it with a few friends on social media.
It was then leaked and the offensive joke that went viral and got 3 million views on YouTube.
Then because of the criminal case for hate speech the EDL (English Defence League) were able to bandwagon on the news cycle and spread some real hate.
So the law meant to prevent hate speech instead platformed a hate group and spread the original joke further to the point where it probably did cause offence. Because if you don’t know the person making the joke, you don’t know what they intend.
All because a Scottish judge was allowed and chose to ignore all context around the actual content.
It is a bad law.
I’m not one of the “can’t say anything these days” crowd, and in general I think there can be limitations on speech that have a positive affect on society.
But the law in Scotland specifically is absolutely trash in stating absolutes about speech when speech is always subjective and always surrounded by context.
That case is bullshit, yes. But still, if you had Rowling’s wealth and influence and wanted to enact policy change, would this be your approach?
Not everything I disagree with has to be illegal.
Especially when there are already consequences.
Rowling will face social consequences for her speech. It doesn’t have to be illegal.
Problems with the law usually affect those who do things people or governments don’t like. Not with conforming behaviour.
Clamping down on one freedom to protect another is ultimately harmful.
Usually it’s “to protect the children” which has obviously had a negative effect on the trans community in several countries.
In this case it’s “to protect minorities” and the actual law will punish jokes at the expense of bigots as much as bigotry.
It’s unlikely to be prosecuted but quoting Rowling’s hate speech to draw attention to it in a negative light is just as illegal as saying it in the first place. The law is once again only helping to turn her hate into a news story where she gets cast as the victim rather than the perpetrator.
If I had her wealth no one would ever see or hear from me again.
That case is ridiculous, but that’s what the law was like before this new bill. The new bill makes it even less well defined
People can’t be trusted to not be assholes with their freedom.
Then go live in China or Russia
Go live on the block list, where you belong. Fuck Putin and Hitler, by the way.
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https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=JAQing off
Or for that matter having a different belief than the status quo
Just because you disagree with something doesn’t mean you get to censor and arrest them
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I have not once had this experience. Could you share some examples of such questions? I’m curious,
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If I had come accross that thread then I would have tried to answer in a friendlier tone. Sure your question was kind of based on a false premise, but did you know that at the time? Probably not. I would have assumed ignorance based on subconscious biases, rather than malice. But there are always going to be some reactionaries on all sides calling people shit. It’s the internet.
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I make my best effort to be, thank you. Maybe we need a community somewhere for those questions then. Maybe create it? I’d subscribe and do it my best to answer questions. I understand everyone comes from completely different worlds. So many factors in my life made understanding these issues easier. I can understand how someone else could struggle with some of it.
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Patience and education?
I’m not sure I’d be up for creating that community either which is too bad because the people who probably could effectively are the ones who probably wouldn’t. If any ever dies try though I’ll participate