Online threats, Rod Liddle and the boundaries of free expression

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/16/online-threats-rod-liddle-boundaries-free-expression

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I am concerned at the increasing number of criminal prosecutions for "offensive" speech. Susanna Rustin makes a valuable distinction in her article (Nobody's hero, 14 June): those who use social media to submit anonymous violent threats (such as those Caroline Criado-Perez recently had to endure) need and deserve to be treated as criminals. However, it now seems to be the rule that merely causing sufficient offence on social media can be enough to get the perpetrator a jail term.

One can thoroughly deplore the comments made (as I would), while still defending the right to make them. Freedom of speech must mean freedom to be offensive, otherwise we only have the dubious "freedom" to make socially approved comments. The former director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has rightly called for parliament to reassess this issue. I would suggest a clear distinction between serious threats to an individual (which should continue to be criminalised) and simply causing offence (which should not be). Blurring that line reduces the freedom of us all.Dr Martin TreacyCardigan

• I am all for free speech and the right to be offensive, but when free speech is abused it is right to take action. Jake Newsome posted this about the murdered schoolteacher Ann Maguire on Facebook: "I'm glad that teacher got stabbed up, he shoulda pissed on her too." Would those who defend Newsome's right to free speech – and who object to the six-week prison sentence he has received – argue the same point if he had written the same about Stephen Lawrence?

You should always look at the context of how something was said. This wasn't said to make a point, it was said in order to cause distress. Hate speech is hate speech, and it should make no difference whether it is racist, homophobic or in this case misogynistic.Will BartonLondon

• Is the non-bigoted Rod Liddle interviewed by Simon Hattenstone (Citizen Liddle, Weekend, 14 June) the same Rod Liddle who offered the following gems in the Sun's jingoistic supplement last week: "Obviously, the best thing about being English is not being French. Or Belgian. Can you imagine that? Waking up every morning to the realisation that you're Belgian? You'd go out of your mind." And: "Apparently, the Romanians are just as proud of being Romanian as we are of being English. I know, hard to imagine. But it's true."Roger HarrisonLetchworth

• As a student socialist activist in Middlesbrough in the late 1970s I well remember Rod Liddle, who was even younger than me. The Teesside left, which pre-Thatcher was heavily based on industrial workers, was just getting used to students who came from a rather different background. Liddle, as Simon Hattenstone's interview makes clear, made a journey to the right and holds some, at best, unpleasant views. Those who recall the youthful Liddle might shake their heads, but it is in a sense a failure of the left that someone like him, without question a talented individual, allowed the lure of the establishment to change him, rather than keeping on trying to change the world.Keith FlettLondon