Comment by jampekka
3 days ago
I find it a bit odd for press to name the person and discuss their health matters on top. Sounds like quite a punishment in itself getting branded like that.
In e.g. Finland names are not published by the press unless the crime is severe and there's a conviction or the person is already a public figure.
Yeah, this is despicable. For at least the next two decades, if you Google this guy's name, you'll see these stories depicting this guy as either a dangerous criminal or a sadly misguided, mentally unhealthy man, when all he did was order some cool rocks for his collection.
These laws need to change, given the Internet's long-term memory.
Trials are public. This is a feature. This means everything can be reported unless the court puts a ban on it. Note, too that the guy pleaded guilty in this case and I think it is right to publicise the court's reasons for the penalty, or lack thereof.
In the UK they release mugshots, full names, and approximate address in the media, after a guilt verdict. Names and approximate addresses are published before since trials are public.
Finland, Germany, France, etc. have gone to another extreme. In France they now even withhold the names of people arrested in the act of murder or terrorism because "people are presumed innocent" and "their privacy must be protected"... which is pushing it beyond sensible and common sense, and is fairly recent practice that seems to have spread from Germany.
Hard disagree. It's well known that people who are falsely accused of such crimes end up having to live with the damage to their reputation even after a court finds them innocent, because that's not the news story people remember. In such societies, one's life is effectively ruined the moment one is accused.
Innocent until proven guilty, and the same goes for the court of public opinion.
There is a big difference between being accused and going to trial. I agree that identities should not be published based only on "accusations".
There is a big difference between being caught in the act and charged following an investigation.
Currently Europe is moving/has moved to an extreme position beyond common sense as it has done on several other issues based on "good intentions".
In some cases there is also a pressure to charge and go to trial just based on accusations (e.g. rape cases), which is another issue.
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Trials are public in Finland, Germany, France etc. In some very severe crimes the name of the suspect may be published. For publicly discussed crimes the names can be usually found in some crime related discussion forums.
People are presumed innocent and their privacy must be protected. The mugshot porn is not good for anybody or the society in general.
This seems to introduce a lot of ambiguity to the concept of being public, in the sense that physical presence is being distinguished from a mediated, virtual presence, and the latter is considered somewhat tainted.
The same peculiar notion was present in the moral panic around Google Street View in Europe, where the exact view anyone can have from a public street was considered dangerous once digitized and copied.
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Even if you are arrested in the act of killing someone you may have some defence that means you are not committing murder (e.g. self-defence, diminished responsibility, I think France still has ‘crime in the heat of passion’ as a defence)
The replies are getting absurd but unfortunately very illustrative of the state of Europe in 2025.
The "good intentions" have indeed led to a situation in which criminals are protected beyond the level of protection and rights afforded to victims and law-abiding citizens.
People can get in trouble by publishing CCTV footage to identify criminals, to give one basic example. But that's to be expected if some people think that even convicted criminals'privacy should be protected...
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That's great and all but it's also just not true. Take it from someone living in Germany for the past decade.
Same in Germany.
I think most continental European countries do this. The publishing of names like this seem more like an Anglosphere thing. In Denmark, the press norm is usually first to publish names when they get a prison sentence of 2+ years.
The 2+ years is the standard in Finland as well. Notably a lot heavier crime usually has to take place for such sentence than in US or even UK.
In Germany the full name is not published.
In this case there was a conviction. Hence the two year good behavior bond, rather than being free and clear.
No conviction was recorded.
The internet has screw all that up.
The criminal justice system should be transparent. Anyone should be able to watch any proceedings. This fits with your requirements as long as people don't report it.
The Australia Federal Court live streams but it is illegal to yt-dlp / photograph the monitor etc - https://www.youtube.com/@FederalCourtAus/streams
You also need people before and after (if convicted) to know. For instance witnesses or if they too were victims of crime. This is the impossible problem.
It's not even the reporting, it's easy search, as old newspapers have been scanned I've seen a few family secrets (of people still alive) that I would never have known and never needed to know.
The court proceedings and decisions are public and can be followed on site and the documents can be acquired by anyone. This is indeed important for transparency and accountability of the system.
However the proceedings aren't streamed and the documents aren't online. Some cases can be published online (e.g. supreme court ones) but with identifying information redacted. I think this is good.
The policy is voluntary by the press, not a law. Although in some cases publishing such information could be deemed violation of privacy if it's not deemed of public importance. And compiling databases of the personally identifying information could be illegal.
Even worse is that if you google the poor blokes name they had the paparazzi out taking courthouse photos.
The gutter press in Australia have a field day at peoples expense.
Plenty of precedent of throwing high profile court cases too (hard to find unbiased jurors etc). Lately there's been a number of important cases being declared mistrials.
It always seemed that more often than not the people are innocent when gossip rags dox them pre-trial or during a trial.