If You Repeat Something Do You Become Responsible For Its Content?

[youngmafbog]

Not so long ago Trump re-tweeted a post originating from the far right. He was vilifies for it particularly so by the left and liberal press effectively say yes you are responsible.

Now we have McDonell repeating a 'joke' that purported to violence against a fellow MP. He says he just repeated it and so should not apologize. The left wing and liberal press seem to thing he should.

Is McDonnel right or wrong?

[bhg481]

If you repeat/retweet/forward something it implies that you agree with it. I have a friend who sends me racist jokes as emails - I never forward them.

[cassa333]

It's all right if the person doing the repeating is your friend. But wobetide your enemies doing the same.

It is hypocrisy in blatant form.

[sp1814]

youngmafbog

You're not being wholly truthful.

It's not the 'left and liberal press' who vilified Trump over the re-tweets.

That's nonsense.

Be honest - it was people from all over the political spectrum.

You're spinning.

In answer to your question - McDonnel is wrong. If someone repeats a statement, without critiquing it, they are effectively re-broadcasting it and therefore are responsible for the statement.

[sp1814]

bhg481

Spot on.

youngmafbog - think of it this way. If you were at work and someone emailed you a pamphlet saying that all women who make it to the top in business did so by providing sexual favours - and then you forwarded it to everyone in your company. Where do you think you would stand?

Would you be able to claim no responsibility because someone else had written it?

[kvalidir]

Yes if you repeat anything without a contradictory message you are endorsing what is said, unless it's in a wider debate or said with extreme irony or sarcasm in a string of tweets or comments, so yes culpable but certainly as SP says Trump was not attacked by the left wing only, everyone thinks he's a muppet.

[naomi24]

Trump was vilified for re-tweeting something that was worth repeating. Had he done what McDonnell has done God knows what would have happened - and McDonnell and his appalling cronies would most likely have been first in the queue to complain.

[naomi24]

kvalidir, //everyone thinks he's a muppet//

Not so.

[Kromovaracun]

Personally I find it very difficult to get het up over somebody retweeting something. It is just a click of a button, however it looks on the outside. Trump does and says enough himself to comfortably classify him as an oaf who does not deserve his position.

I think in this case McDonnell's offense is more serious because he expressed it verbally (and therefore had to have some kind of thought process before deciding whether it was appropriate to say it). Not only that, but it does a fit a general pattern of behaviour for him to be callous and thoughtless about what he says.

[emmie]

McDonnell does sound an arrogant so and so.

[dannyk13]

Wrong, it doesn't matter where it originated,repeating it puts the onus on him.

[sp1814]

All we are seeing here is the same and the opposite.

Trump tweets something offensive and gets lambasted from some quarters.

McDonell says something offensive and gets lambasted from other quarters.

Those on the right tend to go quiet when Trump says or does something despicable.

Those on the left do the same.

Equal and opposite.

[Jackdaw33]

If a statement should turn out to be libellous then anyone who publishes it is liable.

[Spicerack]

J McD, ' I completely refute saying this'
A Marr, 'We've got a recording of it, shall we listen to it'?
J McD, 'No, there's no need, I know what I said'.
So, rather astonishingly, it wasn't played.
I wonder how Bojo or Sir Nigel would have fared in similar circumstances?

[anthro-nerd]

i think yes...

it shows you agree surely?

[emmie]

they would have been lambasted most likely

[ichkeria]

Trump wasn't "wrong" to do what he did: he should accept though that by retweeting stuff from racist groups he appears to condone their views. Added to the fact that what he retweeted was at least partly fake. So he should be checking that as well, as he is big on fake news.
As pointed out, it wasn't just liberal leftists who condemned him for it: our own govenment did too, quite rightly.
A link about McDonnell would be helpful: but I have little time for him either. He's a rabble rouser but he rouses rabble of the left rather than the right. Little difference in my view.

[naomi24]

sp, //Trump tweets something offensive…//

Odd that bad publicity for Islamic extremism offends you. It doesn’t offend me. I welcome it.

[sp1814]

naomi24

The retweets were offensive, because they were not verified. They were retweets from BF.

This is the sort of thing you'd expect from an extremist posting on Facebook. Not the US President.

Do you know the stories behind the three videos he retweeted?

Have you looked them up?

I suggest you do.

[kvalidir]

Sorry Naomi, you are of course right 'everyone thinks he's a muppet, except of course for you and 'select' others was what I should have said. I believe however that to most people my meaning was clear, he was lambasted by the left wing, the centre and the even elements of moderate right wingers for his shoddy approach to fact checking and for sharing something from such a source.

[naomi24]

sp, I’m happy with negative publicity for Islamic extremism. None of it, wherever it comes from, offends me.

kvalidir, //you are of course right //

I am indeed. Some people would have been accurate.