Is freedom of speech no longer valid?

Hello, faithful readers!

This post comes from something I read recently about a guy called Liam Stacey. I need to say straight away that I actually know absolutely nothing about this case, which is a little unusual. Normally I do lots of research into whatever I am blogging about, but on this occasion, I thought I should write about this as soon as I heard about it so that I can use my own untarnished opinion, and not be blinded by what someone else might or might not have said.

Anyway, Liam Stacey supposedly wrote racist and offensive comments on Twitter about footballer Fabrice Muamba (the guy who had the cardiac arrest on a football pitch the other week), and when challenged, went on to write more offensive posts, possibly because he was drunk. Liam has recently been jailed for 56 days by a district judge.

Now, maybe I have the wrong end of the stick, but isn't this a really extreme reaction? Sure, I'm not racist (I hope!) and I generally dislike people who say that kind of thing, but surely the whole point of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogger is for people to be able to express their opinions on things like this. If I was talking to someone on Facebook or Twitter and they said something really racist or homophobic, I would tell them that I find it offensive and ask them to stop, but I wouldn't report them for it, because it's just my opinion against theirs. Like it or not, personally offending someone should not be a crime - it is a horrible thing to do, certainly, but sending someone to jail for it is just wrong.

I have not read Liam's tweets and I don't intend to either, I quite frankly have better things to do with my time than read things like that. But I do think that once someone says that they are monitoring what people say on social networks, there is no telling how far it will go. How long will it be before, for example, anything that denounces the Government is illegal? Does that mean I could be jailed for writing this blog? Obviously, I'm being a little facetious, but the principle is the same - however offensive someone's opinion is, it is still their opinion and no one else has the right to tell them not to express it. That's just another form of censorship.

This post is a little shorter than normal, but I've pretty much said all I need to say really. Let me know what you think of this topic, if you like. I'll write more soon.