Modern Day Moral Panics

Those of you on Twitter will no doubt have heard of @MrKennethTong.

This person holds views (or claims to hold views - many people have suggested he's simply a troll, who is having some absolutely spectacular success) that are considered beyond the pale by many.

Those views? Well, not what you might think, from the fuss. He isn't a racist or a bigot, he isn't advocating the violent overthrow of the State, he isn't an inveterate puppy-strangler who wants to get this sport into the 2012 Olympics.

He claims that Size Zero is the ideal one for a woman, and is claiming to have a magic pill which will help them achieve that.

...


...


Yeah, me too.

But this bizarre attitude (real or fake) is apparently so hideous, so dangerous, so beyond the pale, that a Twittermob has formed, and while most are simply content to mock and rubbish his views, others (even those who should know better) are calling for him to be removed from Twitter.

And then we come to Jack of Kent's post yesterday evening.

In it, he opines:

"...it is not a pleasant account. It is used to relentlessly promote "size zero" body shapes for women and something dangerous and abusive called "managed anorexia". Although one can be sure that the person using the account believes they are exercising free speech, it may well be that promoting such harmful health practices should be prohibited."

Oh, how quickly the mask of reason and calm consideration of all the facts slips when a liberal rubs up against something that he or she doesn't personally like, eh?

But the Tweet that draws Jack of Kent's ire sufficiently to give this chap yet more publicity is one to a woman where he is challenged by her to 'break the law and we'll see what happens.' The person running the Tong account replies with a URL to this case and a smiley face.

And that's all.

"What should we make of this response?

Is @MrKennethTong suggesting that the link is an example of him breaking the law "without penalty"?

Is it even an implicit admission of guilt of the allegation of sexual assault?

It is simply not clear."

No, it certainly isn't. But why this should mean that a man who the Twitterverse reviles should get a starring role in a very well-written and avidly followed legal blog is equally unclear.

"We can go no further than what @MrKennethTong says on the point. Certainly there is no other information available from which one can infer such a view. I certainly make no suggestion that he was guilty of the original allegations, but I do wonder what @MrKennethTong is suggesting.

If the tweet is not an implicit admission of guilt, and there is some other explanation, it still seems to me to be an inappropriate link to post in that context.

To show off like this being cleared of a sexual assault allegation is, on any view, vile."

Ah. Right. Of course.

It couldn't be that he's understandably bitter at being accused of a sexual assault by a woman, and had his name splashed all over the papers (which even for a relentless self-publicist Big Brother contestant can't be welcome), while hers is protected by law, could it?

And so therefore picked something he thought would be an ideal allusion to goad his Twitter tormentors (a lot of whom are women), who are declaring he should have no right to hold his views, and should be hounded off Twitter because of them?

I mean, god forbid the poor sod should feel he has any right to 'show off'.

No, indeed. He should hang his head in shame forevermore, simply because a woman used her legally-granted anonymity to drag his name through the mud and through the legal system because she could, with no repercussions for her at all...

And just to compound this safari into BizzarroWorld, a commenter to Jack of Kent's blog - one 'RM' - leaves this comment:

"For those who are witheringly chastising the author for giving KT the oxygen of publicity... I went through the same thought process on Twitter, and certainly wouldn't have given him the time of day were it not for the series of three tweets highlighted above.

If drawing attention to those three posts only creates outrage, then there's certainly no point in doing so, I agree. I merely highlighted them because I wondered whether they were significant, whether they were anything over and above unpleasant bragging, whether they were interesting to the police.

A friend of mine who first drew my attention to them actually called the police..."

For those who've never heard the name before, Jack of Kent is the lawyer who put in so much time and effort on the Paul Chambers case, where a man who made a joking Tweet about blowing up an airport was hauled through the courts and convicted under anti-terrorism legislation because someone reported his Tweet to the police...

Yeah, I need a new irony meter. Mine's just gone KERBLOOIE!