In the latest case of “you can’t posting anything you want on social media”, we have Jay-Leighsa Bauman, who was arrested and sentenced to 180 hours community service this week for a barrage of racist and hateful posts directed as an Australian Muslim.
Earlier in the month we reported on two people being arrested for posting the same threatening post on Facebook.
In this case, Bauman subjected a woman named Mariam Veiszadeh to racist abuse through a series of hateful tweets in early January. The tweets included slurs such as “rag head”, “dirty Islamic scum” and “dirty sand dune country“.
Veiszadeh, an Australian lawyer, was the target of a larger social media hate campaign that saw her image being photoshopped next to pictures of pigs, and a digitally altered image depicting her being stoned.
Bauman escaped a custodial sentence, but was sentenced to 180 hours of community service.
It serves as another reminder that you can’t post anything you want on social media without consequence. Free speech has always come with certain conditions attached to it, and this applies to the online world just as much as it does with the offline world.
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Only many people haven’t got to grips with that fact just yet. Cases of people finding themselves in trouble with what they post on social media are still pouring in at record highs.
Whether it’s getting yourself into legal troubles, getting yourself into trouble in your own social circles, or getting yourself in trouble with your job, one thing is clear. Many of us just don’t know how to use social media yet.
We’ll give the target of the abuse, Mariam Veiszadeh, the last word here –
No one should have to endure death threats, receiving abusive phone calls and messages, have bacon sent to them in the mail, have their accounts hacked all simply because they dared express an opinion
Bigots need to recognise that whilst they are entitled to their views, there are consequences to their actions – that mere words can lead to devastating consequences for those whom they seek to target.