count dankula gets £800 fine

The guy was either a neo-Nazi or an absolute idiot, either way he deserved to get some punishment for his hate-video. The dog might need denazification therapy too.

Where people say things in the public domain which are very easily recognisable as grossly offensive or threatening to a vulnerable group, as in this case, there should be accountability. If he had only had the dog responding to the Nazi phrases once or twice he might have got away with it but he went on and on and on with phrases like 'Gas the Jews' (which was pointed out in the sentencing). An environment of outright 'free speech' where anyone could say anything to anyone else at any time without consequence would make for a horrible society to live in.

He made it abundantly clear he thinks Nazis are terrible and it was clearly a joke, to suggest it could reasonably be considered threatening is nonsense

actually i fully agree with you here. Any punishment is to much i believe in free speech. what I meant is I was expecting the guy to get a prison sentence so he came out of this better then i expected.

he had already been convicted so a sentence was assured.

ultimately dankula has not lost here, his channel has gained significant popularity over this issue when before it had hardly any subscribers. he will likely set up a patreon and have a career as a commentator on youtube sponsored by patreons if he has not already set this up. the court costs and fine he will pay will likely be significantly less then the earnings boost this will give him over the coming years.

the major concern is the legal precedent this sets and how it will affect our freedom as a society going forward.

This is just pedantry though. I'm talking about making public communications which are grossly offensive to vulnerable groups. Given the actual history of Jews under Nazism such 'jokes' about gassing them are easily understood as an attack or threat. Nobody needs the freedom to do that kind of thing.

The guy was either a neo-Nazi or an absolute idiot, either way he deserved to get some punishment for his hate-video. The dog might need denazification therapy too.

Jokes about Nazism or gassing the jews are not threats they are jokes. It's a misinterpretation to suggest they are necessarily a threat...

What in earth is wrong with absolute freedom of speech...

Where people say things in the public domain which are very easily recognisable as grossly offensive or threatening to a vulnerable group, as in this case, there should be accountability. If he had only had the dog responding to the Nazi phrases once or twice he might have got away with it but he went on and on and on with phrases like 'Gas the Jews' (which was pointed out in the sentencing). An environment of outright 'free speech' where anyone could say anything to anyone else at any time without consequence would make for a horrible society to live in.

Agreed. Originally I thought punishing him was wrong because it means that comedians can't say anything offensive anymore for jokes-essentially, some types of comedy would get really bland. Well this and mostly because I hate politically correctness.

Anyways after the court hearing and statements revealing he uses phrases like 'gas the Jews' I immediately backtracked. Clearly he was a neo-nazi or something and phrases like that can be seriously harmful. One could infer that such repetition suggests that he may have believed it himself; it's only a matter of times a black man can say "Kill the whites" before he gets called out.

Furthermore it's simply not comedic at all. AHhahAHahHAhaHAha "gAs tHe JeWs" Geddit???. Anyways I cba rambling on anymore, point is, the socially-awkward virgin deserves that fine end of.

Where people say things in the public domain which are very easily recognisable as grossly offensive or threatening to a vulnerable group, as in this case, there should be accountability. If he had only had the dog responding to the Nazi phrases once or twice he might have got away with it but he went on and on and on with phrases like 'Gas the Jews' (which was pointed out in the sentencing). An environment of outright 'free speech' where anyone could say anything to anyone else at any time without consequence would make for a horrible society to live in.

Oh, "I think Nazis are terrible but guess what, I'm gonna chant 'Gas the Jews' 23 times for a laugh anyway". He's probably attracted huge right-wing support which will now expect him to be a poster-boy for them. I wonder what his next video will be about.

he now has 185000 subscribers im not sure if he has patreon but i know youtubers who have similiar subscriber numbers who use patreon are making £8000+ a month.

before all this hype he had something like 10 subscribers he now has a very lucrative career. however a legal precedent has been set now where if someone decides what we say is grossly offensive we can face conviction.

ultimately dankula has won big time in fact in reality this fine now amounts to approximately 3 days wages of his new career. where as prior to this trial he was barely scraping by.

if you think he got what he deserved you must really like this guy then. maybe you are one of his subscribers?

so if he is a neo nazi (not saying he is) then he has just received significant help in spreading his nazi message.

meanwhile you have to be really careful what you say because otherwise you can face criminal conviction.

We don't have 'outright free speech'. Never did, probably never will. Harassment is outlawed. Threats of violence, etc.

I think jokes, stupid as they may be, done for satire, are nothing more than that.

Starting a YouTube channel and saying that sort of stuff with genuine intent... I could agree with you there.

This is just pedantry though. I'm talking about making public communications which are grossly offensive to vulnerable groups. Given the actual history of Jews under Nazism such 'jokes' about gassing them are easily understood as an attack or threat. Nobody needs the freedom to do that kind of thing.

Plenty of jokes like that have been made by comedians, the only difference is that they are on stage doing it. This should never have been an issue as it only seemed to be offensive but wasn't.

Where people say things in the public domain which are very easily recognisable as grossly offensive or threatening to a vulnerable group, as in this case, there should be accountability. If he had only had the dog responding to the Nazi phrases once or twice he might have got away with it but he went on and on and on with phrases like 'Gas the Jews' (which was pointed out in the sentencing). An environment of outright 'free speech' where anyone could say anything to anyone else at any time without consequence would make for a horrible society to live in.

Here's the thing about offense, it's taken, not given.
"If you do not believe in a man's right to say something offensive then you don't believe in free speech"-famous person

Maybe some Jewish people saw it quite differently. Just saying something like "the following comment is a joke" before you launch into repetitions of 'Gas the Jews' wouldn't convince me personally and nor did it, seemingly, convince the Sheriff.

The guy was either a neo-Nazi or an absolute idiot, either way he deserved to get some punishment for his hate-video. The dog might need denazification therapy too.