Out of his infamous furious persona, Francis took to YouTube to talk about Justin Carter — the League of Legends player who is currently jailed after making distasteful, but not-serious comments on Facebook.
It’s clear that this hits close to home for Francis — not just as a gamer, but as a commentator who makes outrageous comments at times. Comments that shouldn’t land him in jail, he reasons, as he’s simply joking. He recognises that what people say has consequences, of course.
But beyond that, he recognises that the comments Carter made were awful — he compares it to screaming “fire!” at a movie theatre.
Justin Carter – League of Legends player faces 8 years in jail. [boogie2988]
Comments
27 responses to “A Serious, Somber Francis Weighs In On Jailed League Of Legends Player”
Not really sure I agree here. He says it sucks that there’s consequences to free speech, but I think it’s a good thing. It’s why America has racist hate groups like the KKK, but we have more consequences for free speech and our country is far better for it. No KKK here. It’s like gun laws, more restrictions are often a good thing.
You’re living in a dream world, the KKK exists in Australia…
Making their views illegal doesn’t convince them that they’re wrong, it just gives them a justified sense of being oppressed on top of everything else.
The whole thing is ridiculous, he shouldn’t have gotten 5 days nevermind 5 months.
This guy isn’t Francis. Francis is not this guys real name. Francis is a character he created.
Everyone gets that. Good job being the only one to feel smug about it.
What exactly did that guy say?
Telling someone he was crazy and was gonna go shoot up a school. Someone saw this tracked his address saw he lived only a few blocks from a school and called the cops.
Ah ok. Why would people even joke about that……
He even said lol jk afterwards. It’s absurd.
He said lol jk people – EVERYTHING IS OK! MOVE ALONG!
…. but seriously, he should never have said what he did. Guy may say this stuff all the time, maybe the first time, but it’s still incredibly stupid.
That said, massive overreaction to lock him up.
People keep trying to use the “lol jk” as a way of proving he meant nothing by it. This is the same as if someone said to you “No offense, but you’re a complete and utter tool.” You’re not allowed to take it personally, they said “No offense” right?
(Please note, I am not trying to justify his imprisonment, that is completely unjustified. Instead, I am just pointing out that saying “lol jk” is not a valid way to escape the consequence of your actions)
Neither am I. I’m saying that that is clear, irrefutable evidence that he made that comment sarcastically, which means that after the initial investigation had taken place, common sense prevailed, he got a stern warning and moved on with his life. Not this farce.
The ‘no offence’ analogy doesn’t work, as we’re talking about legal absolutes, and the ‘lol jk’ is evidence that he did not ‘intend’ for his words to be taken seriously – and considering intention is the primary factor in determining indictable crimes, both here and in the US, that’s a pretty clear indicator.
Further to that, even he hadn’t added ‘lol jk’, he should still be protected under the first amendment. It’s absurd, and whether you agree or not, the factual information is there – he intended sarcasm at the time of writing, and it wasn’t added in after. To interpret it any other way is silly.
I’d rather not getting into (another) legal debate on kotaku (as I get sick of tooting my own horn), but once this goes to trial he’ll be acquitted on the first day, I would almost bet on it.
Why would anyone do anything?
Everything is fair game when it comes to humour, shock and black humour are some of my favourite kinds.
Even that is taken out of context. What is more accurate is that a friend of his was saying to him, ‘You’re crazy man! You’re a crazy psycho!’ and he was responding, ‘Oh yeah right, I’m a crazy psycho, I’m totally going to shoot up a school full of kids and eat their hearts. Lol. JK.’
The statement was actually a sarcastic response to someone calling him crazy on forum. No reasonable person would have interpreted the statement as a threat – the general consensus is that this is that the complainant was dirty about the broader forum argument.
Well America has made itself paranoid, I hope Justin is released and heavily compensated.
You simply cannot try to uphold the dignity and defense of your country by blatantly throwing the foundations of your country out the window. The logic just isn’t there. What happened to freedom of speech?
Was what he said terrible and tasteless? Absolutely, it was. It was a grotesque use of the English language, stepping on the emotions of people that have gone through a very tragic time in their lives. Some of whom won’t fully recover. But I’m almost positive he didn’t say what he did to twist those peoples heartache against them. He wanted shock value – He wanted the attention he thought it was going to get him. There are people in this world that get paid to make tasteless comments. Sometimes they’re paid very large amounts of money while they slander, de-face, mock and downright satire tragedy (Sacha Baron Cohen (Sp?) – George Carlin). Mocking tragedy is funny to some people, myself included – Sorry, but I find it ok – I however think it’s utterly insane to incarcerate a young man because he said something that was shocking and unnecessary. Do you really think if the school shooting that took place in North Carolina recently wasn’t still fresh in the citizens heads, this would have been as big a deal as it’s become?
I’m from America – I’ve been living in Australia for 2 years now and while I’ve seen, first hand, some gross misuses of the law, they pale in comparison to this. You can’t stop here with this kind of hunt, ‘Murica’s legal system. It’s time you lock up half the comedians I’ve ever seen, heard about or have listened to. Some of the friends I currently have here in Aus would qualify for 8 years in prison from some of the things they’ve said (publicly as well, mind you). Most online gaming communities, not just League of legends’ deserve to have an eye kept on them.
Line em up – Put ’em in prison.
Yeah. Effing. Right.
People have the right to say what they want. It may not always be pretty, said at the right time or in the right environment, but as soon as a countries sensitivity is enough to rip away a young man’s freedom so they have someone to make an example of, it’s downright pathetic.
I spit at the feet of anyone who supports what this kid is going through.
This guy.
What he said.
There are always consequences for opening your mouth before engaging the brain. The issue I have with this is how the law handled it; very poorly. This guy should have not have been put through this at all, a proper check by the Police would have seen that this guy has poor taste and judgement if nothing else, Hell that’s why he plays LoL.
It’s ironic really. America isn’t the land of the free and the home of the brave anymore.
Not free, when it has the highest per-capita population of citizens in prison in the world (yes, including China). And not brave either, when they’re so damn terrified of terrorism (which, in that respect, seems to be meeting its goal nicely) that the country happily attacks its own citizens.
I really wish they could all stop being so terrified for a moment that they could take a step back and see that for what it is. Terrorism, winning.
^ This guy just got one up
Wise words my friend
I dont agree with what he said but locking him up is to harsh.
This wouldn’t happen if the kid lived in a country that banned guns, just sayin
why do yous keep posting about some fat guy raging?
If you actually WATCHED the video, you’d know that this isn’t a video of “some fat guy raging”.
This incident is the purest example of “The Right to Freedom of Speech is only your god given right when we goddamn say so.”