‘A mealy mouthed reply’ (Picture: Facebook)

On Tuesday, after 31 people were killed in two terror attacks in Brussels, a PR boss from Croydon took it upon himself to confront a completely random Muslim woman and ask her to explain the actions of a bunch of murderous lunatics in Belgium.

Inexplicably, he decided to chronicle this little encounter in a tweet, and it went like this:

Mealy-mouthed Islamophobic tweet becomes a meme of mockery

‘I confronted a Muslim women [sic] yesterday in Croydon.

‘I asked her to explain Brussels. She said “Nothing to do with me”. A mealy mouthed reply.’


What a charmer.

The internet got to work ensuring Mr Matthew P. Doyle – ‘LSE alumni. Feminist. European,’ reads his Twitter bio – was thoroughly ridiculed.



And then, this morning, he got arrested.

I confronted Croydon and asked it to explain @MatthewDoyle31. Nobody had heard of him. A mealy mouthed reply. — Rupert Myers (@RupertMyers) March 23, 2016

I confronted a man who was eating a bowl of muesli yesterday in Croydon. He said "mmfflfffmufflrgh". A mealy mouthed reply. — Robbie Collin (@robbiereviews) March 23, 2016

I confronted Ronan Keating yesterday in Croydon. I asked him you say it best when you say? He said “Nothing at all". A mealy mouthed reply." — Amanda (@Pandamoanimum) March 23, 2016

Now, he was arrested on charges of inciting racial hatred, which is illegal, but it seems there are two questions to ask here, one legal and one much broader: (1) Was he inciting racial hatred? and (2) Isn’t hate speech still free speech?

The Racial and Religious Hatred Act that was passed in the UK in 2006 criminalises a person ‘who uses threatening words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening’. Take a look at Doyle’s previous tweets, many of which reference ‘towelheads’, for instance, and there’s no doubt they’re vulgar and bigoted.

Regardless, what is threatening is subjective, and no one is entitled to make the call about what you or I find threatening.

Man behind ‘mealy mouthed’ Brussels tweet arrested

Maybe those who proposed the 2006 law had good intentions. It was an attempt, as Rowan Atkinson put it, to ‘provide comfort and protection’ to those who supported the legislation, ‘but unfortunately it is a wholly inappropriate response far more likely to promote tension between communities than tolerance.’

There is no consistency in hate speech around the world. Go to Germany and you’ll find the law relates to the ‘violation of the dignity of a group’. Go to Australia and it prohibits ‘speech that humiliates or intimidates a group.’ Hate speech law is really an ‘enforcement of social regulation,’ writes author Kenan Malik.

The Western world is largely underpinned by Enlightenment values, one of which is freedom of speech -exercised with great enthusiasm by the countless Twitter users calling Mr Doyle a dickhead.

Simply put, speech is speech, regardless of whether it’s hateful or not.

And I use the word ‘hate’ for simplicity: hate speech is a clumsy description of such a broad number of things. Much of what is said and written is intended to promote hatred.

Pathetic. Can we really not cope with a bigoted fool without having to arrest him for being one? https://t.co/byQe1H4JMb — Ben Stanley (@BDStanley) March 23, 2016

WTF is happening to free speech? – > Man behind 'mealy mouthed' Brussels tweet arrested https://t.co/LXszn9uGX0 — Christopher Snowdon (@cjsnowdon) March 23, 2016

While @MatthewDoyle31 is clearly an idiot; think arresting him is the wrong course of action. Hard to police idiocy https://t.co/rtiwLidbVb — Jack Hart (@MrJacHart) March 24, 2016

How about the law gave us, the Great British public, just a little more credit? Just because someone says something bigoted, or offensive, or downright horrible doesn’t mean the rest of us are going to pick up our pitchforks and descend on whatever person or group that someone is attacking.



There is no known way of gauging the influence of rhetoric on action, not matter how eloquent that rhetoric, or how charismatic its speaker. We (relatively) sane people get exposed to plenty of nasty stuff in our lifetimes and manage not to do anything extreme in response.

Brussels bombing: Second suspect on the run over metro attack

It is a better reply to deride hateful speech, or try to bring its speakers round to a more tolerant way of thinking; part of the danger of making certain types of speech illegitimate is that we lose the chance to address them intellectually.

But maybe people are realising this already. If you peruse the tweets reacting to the arrest of Doyle, you’ll see that by and large his detention has been met with derision, or at least surprise.

Twitter and its new ‘safety council’ have, since February, started to crack down on posts it deems to be ‘offensive’, and the social network’s plunging stock prices show how that little exercise is going.

It’s gratifying, because it shows that the vast majority of people – or at the very least, Twitter’s hundreds of millions of registered users – are defenders of free speech, even if they find some of the things they read or hear abhorrent.

Oh I say that 'mealy mouthed' tweet chap has been arrested . Isn't that a bit harsh ? I don't know maybe , maybe not — muriel the actor (@HerrPhister) March 24, 2016

The "mealy mouthed reply" guy from Croydon got arrested which seems a bit extra no? Idk — Jafar (@umairahmiah) March 24, 2016

That "mealy mouthed" chap was arrested for what he said on Twitter and not the actual event (if it actually happened). Embarrassing. — Templeton Peck (@MrTempletonPeck) March 24, 2016

I asked police why he was arrested when there's far worse abuse on Twitter. They said retweets. Mealy mouthed reply https://t.co/B3zLrau1Im — Pascal Jacquemain #FBPE (@jacquep) March 24, 2016

You know the "mealy mouthed reply" dude? He's been arrested for inciting racial hatred. Be careful what you say online lmao — Kelba (@Kelbawhom) March 24, 2016

MORE: Brussels attacks: #StopIslam is trending on Twitter, but it’s not what you think

MORE: 14 reasons why Twitter is the best social networking site there is

MORE: Happy Birthday Twitter! Social network celebrates a decade on the internet