We need to talk about Julie Sweeney.
Authored by Pete Menzies: She’s a 53-year-old English woman who used to live in Church Lawton, Cheshire, and she once had a Facebook account. Today, she’s in prison, serving a 15-month sentence after being convicted under new Criminal Code provisions in the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act.
“Don’t protect the mosques,” she posted to the 5,100-member group. “Blow the mosque up with the adults in it.”
That’s a very ugly thing to say and within hours one individual who read it complained to the police, who promptly arrested Ms. Sweeney. According to the Crown prosecutor, upon being taken into custody, Ms. Sweeney told officers, “I’m not being rude but there are a lot of people saying it.”
That’s not good. But it is important to note that while there was indeed violence directed towards the mosque, Ms. Sweeney’s comments related to the aftermath. There is no evidence which I can find in the coverage of the case that her post inspired anyone to do harm to the building, to anyone in or around it, or that it became a rallying cry of any kind. Nor was there any proof offered that she seriously wished for the mosque “with the adults in it” to be blown up.
We can all agree that it was a truly dreadful thing to say. And we should all acknowledge that, other than writing and hitting “send,” Ms. Sweeney’s crime is entirely about something hideous that she said—in a post later deleted—not something she did or inspired someone to do.
She admitted in court that the post was made in anger, that it was unacceptable, and that she didn’t intend to inspire fear which, if you were a regular attendee at the mosque, you likely would have felt if you read it.
People can debate whether statements of that nature should be censured by civil society through shaming, shunning, and blocking or through the intervention of the state.
What really catches the eye in this case, though, is the intensity with which the presiding judge punished her upon accepting her guilty plea.
According to the Daily Mail, her lawyer had told the court that Ms. Sweeney “accepts it was stupid.”
“This was a single comment on a single day,” he said.
“She lives a quiet, sheltered life in Cheshire and has not troubled the courts in her long life. Her character references show she lives a kind and compassionate lifestyle. She has been primary carer for her husband since 2015.”
The judge said he took Sweeney’s good character and what he termed a “heart-rending” letter from her husband into account but that “even people like you need to go to prison because a message must go out that, if you do these terrible acts, the court will say to you, “You must go to prison.”
Really? Even if one thinks speech should be a matter for the Criminal Code, wouldn’t it seem more appropriate for the outcome to be something along the lines of a summary conviction or a suspended sentence with a ban on using social media?
Sending Ms. Sweeney to prison, particularly when the UK’s prisons are so overcrowded the government was already preparing to release thousands of criminals early, really speaks to the mindset of the Crown and the judge when it comes to cracking down on online speech.
Clearly this sort of speech has, in their view, become a more serious matter than common physical assault, the sentence for which is a maximum of six months, which can be elevated up to two years if motivated by race or religion.
Why should Canadians care? Because Ms. Sweeney and her nation’s Online Safety Act may very well be the canaries in our coalmine.
Justice Minister Araf Virani, architect of Canada’s Online Harms Act, has already cited the UK experience as something that has informed his approach. To be fair, he hasn’t said he agrees with it all, but he is the man who has been appointing the judges who will be sentencing people convicted of Bill C-63’s new offences once they become law. He will also be in charge of hiring the Human Rights Commissioner, big job given it will be tasked with managing thousands of complaints from people made to feel uncomfortable by something someone posts online.
When that’s done, he’ll be looking for someone to fill the role of Digital Safety Commissioner to patrol how social media companies in Canada manage speech deemed to be problematic.
If those appointees see the world the same way Ms. Sweeney’s judge does—that speech is more harmful than action—some very interesting times are just around Canada’s corner.
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