“When he walked past a Scientology centre on a trip to London last year, a councillor from Cardiff cannot have expected that his reaction would end up fuelling another big hoo-hah over free speech on the internet.
Nor that it would end up with him being hauled up in front of his council’s ethics committee.
But Councillor John Dixon’s mistake was to go on Twitter and say this:
“I didn’t know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.”
Somehow this was spotted by a member of the organisation and in due course a complaint was made to the Ombudsman for Public Services in Wales.
The watchdog has partially upheld the complaint; to be more precise, it has found there is a case to answer under the code of conduct for councillors and has passed the matter on to Cardiff City Council’s Standards and Ethics Committee.
So it seems Councillor Dixon has joined the growing list of politicians who have found that careless tweets can damage their careers. 1-0 to the Scientologists, then?
Not so fast. When news of the case erupted on Twitter this morning, it rapidly became a cause celebre – or rather a cause for mockery of Scientologisty.
Prominent members of the Twitterati – a crowd which includes many who are free-thinkers sceptical about religion in any form – started retweeting Councillor Dixon’s original remark. Very rapidly, the term #stupidscientology became a trending topic on Twitter.
Now there are all sorts of lessons one could draw from this affair – about the dangers of social networking for politicians, the perils of taking on Twitter, the advisability of spending many hours and presumably a lot of public money investigating whether the word “stupid” is sufficiently offensive to constitute a breach of a code of conduct.
But, rather than face being hauled up in front of an ethics committee myself, I think I will allow you to draw your own conclusions.”
Read more at BBC News (Thanks @scratchndsniff)
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I have “faith” that if they keep this up Anon will bring them down.
I think it’s a bit stupid. Not the scientology but the fact that they have decided to make a complaint. In my point of view, there really isn’t that much ‘freedom’ when it comes to freedom of speech. I always use facebook and twitter to vent my feeling because it’s pretty much the only place i can. I don’t like to tell one person and then them tell people. If there’s something i want said i would rather tell everyone at once. Perhaps this is considered stupid but if you think about it, its really not. Why did they feel the need to complain? It’s nt they were physically hurt or this guy was protesting. I don’t know much on this Scientology gaff but my old RS teacher told me it’s like a religeon only stereotyped with useless suicide and that they wern’t alowed to teach it in school. So if it
Continued… is like a religion then why cant they respect this guys views and leave him be like every other religious person does. Ps sorry for spelling mistake, I didn’t mean to send it until I had finished my essay. But i wasn’t allowed to.
Looks like the stupid’s rubbed off onto the watchdog.
What they believe reads like REALLY bad science fiction (look at the Wikipedia page for Xenu) and Hubbard was a failed sci-fi writer who is on record as saying the best way to make money is to form a religion.
If they lack the reasoning to conclude from these 3 points that the whole thing is a sham then ‘stupid’ seems quite a generous term.
I’m an SP. And proud of it
Stupid earthlings…
I think they should be prosecuted by wasting public money and time, and for trying to make a case out of something so futile as a (even a public-) persons opinion. Bah, stupid.
Hopefully he will simply state [lie] that he was referring to his own stupidity rubbing off on the Scientologists. At which point they fail to have a case.
Yes of course Scientology is a scam. Of course we all support Anon. Of course it’s a storm in a teacup. But there is an important point here about secular values that everyone should appreciate; Dixon made the comment from his official twitter account, not a private one (which he has now created). In that respect he is quite rightly reprimanded for demonstrating preference or non-preference in his official capacity. If he had made the comment in a manner that could be construed as private he would not have been in a position to be criticised. As it was, although the complaint was frivolous, it did have merit and was dealt with properly.
It shouldn’t matter whether Cllr Dixon’s twitter was posted on an official position related twitter account or a private one – it was an off the cuff opinion, he obviously wasn’t stating policy!. I would rather that those in public office are free to let their personal opinions be known, that way I know who or what I am voting for rather than everyone hiding behind stupid ultra bland PC wish wash.
The Scientologists are always coming down like a 100 ton weight on things that to them are really of no consequence. The consequences of this reaction is of course that they show themselves up for the ridiculous bullying cult that they are which hopefully only helps to speed their disintigration.
If action is taken over this then the ‘stupid’ really has rubbed off – and not on the Cllr.
Bletherskite;
“It shouldn’t matter whether ..”; but it does. It’s an important point; no secular appointees should, from a position that someone could reasonably assume they are speaking officially, be seen to be anything other than impartial. The code of conduct is clear and he has been rightly slapped on the wrist. If you can’t understand why then try to think of this; what if he were walking past a mosque, a cathedral, a pregnancy advice centre, a rape counselling centre or a football stadium and make the same remark on his council account?
“I would rather that those in public office are free to let their personal opinions be known”; they are but they cannot and should not say anything non-partisan in any official capacity.
Not too difficult to understand, is it?
I think it should not matter either if his statement was in private or proffesional capacity.
If you see why the council’s ethics committee are here for: in this particulair case…it would be to controle this gentlemans statement is counter to maintaining the public’s trust and calls into question whether his vote as a Councillor may be invalidated due to an actual conflict of interest…..erm, in this time-era i think the public really does not need this kind of: ´tut-tut, we will decide what is good for you to hear or not´…it actually borders on patronizing? the public.
Ofcourse in other cases there are gray areas….but in stating an opinion and calling something ´stupid´??
Pity the Councilor didn’t demand the right to debate the matter, with a representative from the aggrieved organization. Since they would undoubtedly have forfeited the case, by not turning up. Being asked questions is not something, up with which they are prepared to put. Their other favored technique is to attempt to shout the other person down (remember the BBC reporter incident). I once asked one of them, if their belief was one in which query was permitted. His first answer was in the affirmative. But he wouldn’t, or couldn’t seem to, respond after that. It was like asking a ticket machine for the time of day.
…may i humbly suggest checking out ‘Jack of Kent’ blog post on this issue for further developments. Full and frank discussion of the legal issues, and the guy who invented the hashtag #stupidscientology to boot:
http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2010/07/meaning-of-stupidscientology.html
lol, what a joke, it’s the internet for goodness sake, they should be allowed to say what they like.