12-year-old arrested over racial abuse targeted at Wilfried Zaha

Awful but should we really be arresting 12 year olds for abusing social media? Surely this is down to social media letting 12 year olds have access to their public megaphone.

I am going to make the unpopular case here, for a change.

And say, this is a child. He is only twelve years old. What kind of society have we turned into that we are arresting little boys for "hate speech"??

The disparity in the power dynamic here is grotesque, too. On the one hand we have a mega rich, famous, professional footballer supported by the full force of the State, the police, the courts, the panoply of state violence.

And on the other someone who left primary school last year.

I am going to make the unpopular case here, for a change.

And say, this is a child. He is only twelve years old. What kind of society have we turned into that we are arresting little boys for "hate speech"??

The disparity in the power dynamic here is grotesque, too. On the one hand we have a mega rich, famous, professional footballer supported by the full force of the State, the police, the courts, the panoply of state violence.

And on the other someone who left primary school last year.

But the powerful fully grown man is black and the small child (presumably?) white, so of course "white privilege" is the elephant in the room here...

The child was old enough to decide to send threatening messages, racially abusing someone - he should face the consequences. Is your opposition on the grounds that the law shouldn't apply to 12 year olds or that it should be legal for anyone to send racist abuse to whoever they want?



So it's ok because the victim is rich and famous? And what do you mean by the 'panoply of state violence'? Afaik he has been arrested, and that is it. In what way is that state violence?

To your first question, both.

To your second, yes.

To your third, you knew exactly what I meant.

Get the parents involved, assuming they give a ****.

At what age should the law start to apply then?

I don't know when the law should start to take effect, but I do think that our age of criminal responsibility, (ten!) is too young.

I can see the argument for 'hate speech' not being illegal - in plenty of cases I would agree - but this was a racially aggravated death threat. That is not someone being censored for posting their opinion. IMO it is rightly illegal.

At what point does it stop being ok to commit crimes against the rich? Robbery? Assault? Murder? At what point does someone become rich enough that crimes against them are ok? Billionaire? Millionaire? £100k/year?

And no, I don't know what you mean or I wouldn't have asked. If you mean it is overreach on the part of the state, I disagree, but understand your view, though I'm not sure why you're calling it state violence.

But the powerful fully grown man is black and the small child (presumably?) white, so of course "white privilege" is the elephant in the room here...

How does white privilege play into someone being racially abused online because the abuser didn't like the colour of their skin or the job they do? The boy has a sense of entitlement for thinking he could post what he liked and not expect consequences, but that's not privilege.

I am going to make the unpopular case here, for a change.

And say, this is a child. He is only twelve years old. What kind of society have we turned into that we are arresting little boys for "hate speech"??

The disparity in the power dynamic here is grotesque, too. On the one hand we have a mega rich, famous, professional footballer supported by the full force of the State, the police, the courts, the panoply of state violence.

And on the other someone who left primary school last year.

But the powerful fully grown man is black and the small child (presumably?) white, so of course "white privilege" is the elephant in the room here...

I find myself mostly in agreement with you here. I don't think we should criticise Zaha though. For him, he doesn't know the kid was only 12.

What the kid said was disgusting and racist, yes. He should have been given a very stern talking to by his school and/or the police.

But we need to realise that he is a kid. It was completely stupid what he did. However, it's not proportionate to treat him like an adult.

We all do stupid things at that age and at 12 you don't really understand just how stupid things are. And we are now living in a world where kids are able to mesage famous people, which was never the case for us. These witch hints are unnerving.