We need to talk about Julie Sweeney.
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.
From all available accounts, Ms. Sweeney had—at least until this summer—lived without causing any trouble or having any negative interactions with the local constabulary. Then, on Aug. 3, she lost her temper during the height of the British riots that ensued following the murders of little girls in a Taylor Swift dance class and wrote something really nasty on a local community group Facebook page.
“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.
“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?
Why should Canadians care? Because Ms. Sweeney and her nation’s Online Safety Act may very well be the canaries in our coalmine.
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.
