Man interrogated by police for liking a ‘transphobic’ tweet

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Joe Roberts for Metro.co.uk


https://i.imgur.com/2CZfShI.jpg

A man said he was questioned by police for over 30 minutes after he liked a tweet that appears to mock the transgender community.

Harry Miller, who believes ‘trans women are not women’, says the formal probe by Humberside Police was into his ‘thinking’ and his reasons for liking the limerick on Twitter.

The limerick referred to trans women as ‘stupid’ and made comments about vaginas and ‘synthetic’ hormones.

Mr Miller, who used to be a policeman, says an officer told him he was investigating reports of a hate crime.

‘Cop said he was in possession of 30 tweets by me,’ he recalled on Twitter.

‘I asked if any contained criminal material. He said “No.”

‘I asked if any came close to being criminal and he read me a limerick. Honestly. A limerick. A cop read me a limerick over the phone.’

After telling the PC he did not write the limerick, he reportedly said: ‘Ah. But you liked it and promoted it.’

He concluded: ‘It’s not a crime, but it will be recorded as a hate incident.’

Harry said the conversation turned ‘incredibly sinister’ as the officer tried to probe his ‘thinking’.

He said: ‘The cop told me that he needed to speak with me because, even though I’d committed no crime whatsoever, he needed (and I quote) “to check my THINKING!” Seriously. Honestly.

‘Finally, he lectured me. Said, “Sometimes, a woman’s brain grows a man’s body in the womb and that is what transgender is.” You can imagine my response.

‘Lastly, he told me that I needed to watch my words more carefully or I was at risk of being sacked by the company for hate speech.’

Harry says he is actually the chairman of his company and later told The Spectator how the incident made him feel like a ‘criminal’.

‘I just find this all unbelievable and sinister,’ he said. ‘I’ve broken no law, the police don’t suggest that I’ve done anything illegal.

‘But here they are, investigating me for tweeting a limerick. It’s mad, completely mad.’

The incident has sparked his Twitter supporters to write a string of further limericks.

Harry says he is determined to continue sharing his views: ‘Free speech is a hill that we have to fight on.

‘If we can’t express ourselves freely within the law, none of the other rights we have mean anything.’

A spokesman for Humberside Police said: ‘We take all reports of hate incident seriously and will always investigate and take proportionate action.’

[RBP]

Wow, that's a scary police response.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Wow, that's a scary police response.

Maybe he needs to fall in line with the correct groupthink then :hand:

[RBP]

Maybe he needs to fall in line with the correct groupthink then :hand:

I've made lots of sarcastic comments about progressing towards thought police, never thought I'd actually see it happening.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

It definitely does set a bad precedent. These things seem to be coming more popular across the pond and haven't arrived on our shores. Yet.

[PorkChopSandwiches]

WOW!

[Teh One Who Knocks]

WOW!

And what exactly were you thinking when you made that post? :suspect:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

If this is our future, its just WOW!

[Hal-9000]

Got nailed for liking and retweeting/forwarding something someone else wrote.


When is 1984 coming again?

[Teh One Who Knocks]

https://i.imgur.com/qN0Wl7l.jpg

[Pony]

When is 1984 coming again?

Real soon the way things are going. A combination of 1984 and Idiocracy.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Settle down there citizen :hand:

[lost in melb.]

It's not a very informative article.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">2. Spoke to PC from Humberside, introduces himself as representing the LGBTQ community on a report of hate speech by me. They’d found me via my company, had been all over the website &amp; decided if I employed trans people at all, it was not a safe place for them &amp; work should know.</p>&mdash; Harry The Owl - Limerick Criminal (@HarryTheOwl) <a href="https://twitter.com/HarryTheOwl/status/1088144875122499584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

He was being systematically and repeatedly hateful towards a group in a very public, in your face way. I can understand the police concern to check this out as it can escalate.

[Muddy]

I dont publicly "like" anything anymore.. I had a feeling it would come to this.. And Im not talking about transphobic tweets, Im talking about every sensitive subject.. I wonder if I should cool it with the likes around here.. Although typed out thoughts are just as incriminating in social media court..

[RBP]

It's not a very informative article.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">2. Spoke to PC from Humberside, introduces himself as representing the LGBTQ community on a report of hate speech by me. They’d found me via my company, had been all over the website & decided if I employed trans people at all, it was not a safe place for them & work should know.</p>— Harry The Owl - Limerick Criminal (@HarryTheOwl) <a href="https://twitter.com/HarryTheOwl/status/1088144875122499584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

He was being systematically and repeatedly hateful towards a group in a very public, in your face way. I can understand the police concern to check this out as it can escalate.

Where did you get that? He denied that accusation and says he was doxxed.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

I dont publicly "like" anything anymore.. I had a feeling it would come to this.. And Im not talking about transphobic tweets, Im talking about every sensitive subject.. I wonder if I should cool it with the likes around here.. Although typed out thoughts are just as incriminating in social media court..

I wouldn't worry about anything posted here. It's fairly anonymous and I wouldn't give out any information about members here unless served with a court order.

[Hal-9000]

I dont publicly "like" anything anymore.. I had a feeling it would come to this.. And Im not talking about transphobic tweets, Im talking about every sensitive subject.. I wonder if I should cool it with the likes around here.. Although typed out thoughts are just as incriminating in social media court..

I mentioned an argument I was having about sexism with a black South African woman on another forum. I had the same creeping suspicion because I use most of my real name there as a user.

I tried a couple of searches using different search engines against my name and nothing came up :dance:

I believe because we use false user names here, there would be no connection to you in the outside world at all.

And I also suspect (but don't know) that since I haven't made a post on Facebook since 2015, that helped conceal my net footprint in general.

In my mind Facebook, logging into Google anything, and Youtube are the unholy trinity of identification theft and tagging. I have an account on Youtube under a created user name and I still refrain from liking/commenting/logging in there.

[Muddy]

I mentioned an argument I was having about sexism with a black South African woman on another forum. I had the same creeping suspicion because I use most of my real name there as a user.

I tried a couple of searches using different search engines against my name and nothing came up :dance:

I believe because we use false user names here, there would be no connection to you in the outside world at all.

And I also suspect (but don't know) that since I haven't made a post on Facebook since 2015, that helped conceal my net footprint in general.

In my mind Facebook, logging into Google anything, and Youtube are the unholy trinity of identification theft and tagging. I have an account on Youtube under a created user name and I still refrain from liking/commenting/logging in there.

Im off freakbook as well and very rarely log in to the Google Hive..

[Hal-9000]

Im off freakbook as well and very rarely log in to the Google Hive..

Try a google search using your first and last name. You can use any search engine...Yahoo, duck duck go etc.

Mine brought up a hot chick hairstylist who's name is the exact reverse of mine (last, first), there's a young black man with a Youtube channel with my exact name and another guy on Twitter who has made three tweets in 2015. I'm golden :thumbsup:

[Muddy]

Try a google search using your first and last name. You can use any search engine...Yahoo, duck duck go etc.

Mine brought up a hot chick hairstylist who's name is the exact reverse of mine (last, first), there's a young black man with a Youtube channel with my exact name and another guy on Twitter who has made three tweets in 2015. I'm golden :thumbsup:

Im clean.. Just some Neurosurgeon..

[Hal-9000]

When I was active on Facebook that same google search brought up my Facebook account instantly as the first hit in the choices.

That's when I got the creepy invasive feeling and decided to change things.

One of my friends passed away and we deactivated his Facebook account. They said they would archive it for us, just in case.

Just in case of what...he comes back from the fucking dead?? You would have been proud of my email during that clusterfuck. I name dropped Zuckerberg a handful of times in the communications.

[Muddy]

When I was active on Facebook that same google search brought up my Facebook account instantly as the first hit in the choices.

That's when I got the creepy invasive feeling and decided to change things.

One of my friends passed away and we deactivated his Facebook account. They said they would archive it for us, just in case.

Just in case of what...he comes back from the fucking dead?? You would have been proud of my email during that clusterfuck. I name dropped Zuckerberg a handful of times in the communications.

Damn right.. Me too..

[Hal-9000]

Im clean.. Just some Neurosurgeon..

That's your new ID...just in case you gotta blend :shifty:

[Muddy]

That's your new ID...just in case you gotta blend :shifty:

I prefer "Nipples McClick"

[Hal-9000]

When I was arguing with the sexist chick mine almost got changed to Donny_Trump.

I was using the Disqus interface and you can change your username to anything, but every post you've made under that account will get tagged with the name change as well.

I had posts going back four years on varying subjects so I wussed out of the name change :lol:

[Pony]

I wouldn't worry about anything posted here. It's fairly anonymous and I wouldn't give out any information about members here unless served with a court order.

For the record my name is Juan from Borneo.



In my mind Facebook, logging into Google anything, and Youtube are the unholy trinity of identification theft and tagging. I have an account on Youtube under a created user name and I still refrain from liking/commenting/logging in there.

I stay logged out of Google and Youtube, Just Facebook because I have a ton of island contacts on there that often contact me. Other than that I'm pretty cautious on what I post where, what I "like" on FB, etc.

Even so, a few weeks ago I searched for an old movie just to recall the actors name, went on to my Amazon video account on my Roku an hour later and guess what was at the top of the "recommended list?

[Muddy]

For the record my name is Juan from Borneo.


"Ron Mexico" Another good one used by a pro.. :lol:

[Hal-9000]

For the record my name is Juan from Borneo.



I stay logged out of Google and Youtube, Just Facebook because I have a ton of island contacts on there that often contact me. Other than that I'm pretty cautious on what I post where, what I "like" on FB, etc.

Even so, a few weeks ago I searched for an old movie just to recall the actors name, went on to my Amazon video account on my Roku an hour later and guess what was at the top of the "recommended list?

Check this out. I never log into Youtube when watching videos. My browser is set on private browsing and dumps all history each time I close it. My firewall and antivirus program are set the same way. No digital footprint, cookies, persistent logon info, passwords stored.

Click a few videos on Youtube, shut my system OFF. Come back the next day to Youtube and guess what the suggestions have been changed to...stuff based on my previous watches.

There should be no way in hell Youtube remembers that stuff between boots, other than tracking my IP. If that's true, the word privacy is truly only a word.

[Hal-9000]

"Ron Mexico" Another good one used by a pro.. :lol:

I'm using Don_Juan_Trump as my next username. Gonna create some excitement, lordy yes :lol: