Oxford's oldest student newspaper

Independent since 1920

‘Being offensive is not an offence’

I’m pretty easily offended. Honestly, I’m very thin-skinned. I’ve had people hurl obscenities at me when they drove past me down the road. Quite upsetting at the time. Somebody once undermined my wittily insightful point in YouTube comments. Ouch. Just recently, I was directed towards a blog called lookatmyfuckingredtrousers, in which a particular sartorial choice is roundly mocked. I’d just recently purchased a rather dashing pair of burgundy chords, so of course my immediate reaction was one of dismay and annoyance. I, like anyone, get annoyed and upset when something offends me. But that’s just part of life. As Stephen Fry once said, ‘Being offensive is not an offence.’ Except, increasingly, it is.

Recently, there have been a number of cases where people have been prosecuted under various legislatures for offending others. For example, Barry Thew was sentenced to four months for wearing a t-shirt that seemed to celebrate the death of police officers; another man was arrested for asking a police officer if he knew his horse was gay. Another man was charged for playing Christian dvds in his Christian cafe. Most importantly, though, in October Matthew Woods was sentenced for six months in prison for posting offensive messages on his facebook page about the April Jones case. I can’t say what they were; as is usual with these sort of cases the public never get to see for themselves what language is deemed so offensive (though that’s an argument for another time), but they were cruel and uncalled for. And what Woods did is illegal, under section 127 of the 2003 Communications act, which states that it is a crime to send  ‘by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character’. 

What’s more disturbing is the justification for his custodial sentence, given as ‘The reason for the sentence is the seriousness of the offence, the public outrage that has been caused.’ In other words, because of the large amount of people he is considered to have offended, his crime is worse. So what about all the people who weren’t bothered?

On a basic level, offense is hugely subjective.  Offensiveness varies between cultures; in the middle ages, taboo language largely revolved around desecrations of religion and sickness (a plague on both your houses! Is a far more offensive line than we might allow for; in modern terms it’s more applicable with ‘I hope you all die of AIDs’); even today, what is considered offensive differs from country to country. Even between individuals, it is hugely variable. For somebody who’s recently lost a relative to cancer, any frank talk on that matter could be seen as offensive. Equally, someone making a joke about, say, Middlesborough could hugely insult anyone from that area through generalisation. Some wags in the media have taken this to its extreme in suggesting that they found Justice Hudson’s decision in the Woods case hugely offensive, and are demanding his arrest.

Even ignoring personal subjectivity, many things can be seen as offensive; criticism, for example, no matter how well-intentioned and constructive can be quite hurtful. Equally, any kind of disagreement can be offensive: who can honestly say they haven’t been piqued by some arrogant politico dismissing their ideology with the wave of a hand? This applies to religion, too – recently ( in a case that was later thrown out of court due to the high levels of publicity), a student was arrested under section 5 of the public disorder act for labelling Scientology a ‘cult’ on a protest. The reasoning is that somebody could have been offended by the sign; well yes, presumably they could. They don’t believe their religion is a cult, and based on that they almost certainly would be offended.

So what?

There are laws in place to deal with significant, threatening behaviour, discrimination or incitement. But should it really be a legal matter if our feelings are hurt? If you’re upset by something, don’t form a mob and rush someone’s house (as happened to Matthew Woods); just accept that whoever it was is unpleasant and move on. Nobody is claiming that what Woods or many others have said was inoffensive, but life is full of unpleasantness. People are being charged for the kind of things that, if heard in conversation, might lead to an argument, or just a passive-aggressive sidle away. We don’t need these disproportionate attempts at social engineering, because they won’t work; people will always be unkind, and we will always have upsetting things said about us. Trying to stop people having their feelings hurt by sending people to prison does nothing but set dangerous precedents for free speech.

I know that these cases aren’t black and white censorship issues, and I know it’s not as if people’s right to air grievances is being infringed upon. But if we start imprisoning people for saying things we don’t like, we set legal precedents that are the first step on a long progression to a world where we’re no longer able to express ourselves freely for fear of arrest. It may seem melodramatic, but I don’t want to live in a society where people aren’t free to insult me. Life is upsetting, but that shouldn’t give us a right to censor the cruel. Democracy requires more voices, not less.

Check out our other content

Most Popular Articles