Back in 2016, a Youtuber from Scotland posted a video of his girlfriend’s pug doing a Nazi salute with its paw. “Count Dankula,” real name Mark Meechan, was later convicted of a hate crime for the videom under the United Kingdom’s Communications Act.
In the video, Meechan tells the audience that his girlfriend thinks her pug is so cute, so he’s going to ruin that by associating it with the most “least cute thing [he] could think of,” a nazi. He filmed the pug as he creeped up on it, then said “gas the jews” which made the dog spring up in excitement. The dog was also watching Hitler speeches, and eventually learned to do the salute when Meechan yelled “Sieg Heil,” a nazi chant that roughly translates to victory! hail!.
Once the video went viral, there was huge outrage from Jewish organizations.
The Times reported that Ephraim Borowski, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, called the video “grossly offensive” and he actually felt sorry for the dog.
Meechan tried to defend himself by saying he was only trying to pull a prank on his girlfriend with some dark humor. Count Dankula isn’t the only Youtuber to catch overwhelming criticism for anti-semitic jokes.
Felix Kjellberg, also known as PewDiePie came under fire last year for a video where he payed two kids to hold up a sign reading “death to all jews” on camera. The joke of the video, Felix describes, was to see if people would do the most terrible of things for little money. His explanation rings similar to Meechan’s defense of shock value being the punchline to his video.
Though the context of the video might be seen as a good enough defense to some, the Airdrie Sheriff Court found Mark Meechan guilty of Sending a malicious communication using social media. This decision has drawn criticism from free speech advocates and comedian’s such as Ricky Gervais, who said, “If you don’t believe in a person’s right to say things that you might find ‘grossly offensive’ then you don’t believe in Freedom of Speech.”
Free speech laws in the UK may not protect nazi saluting dogs, but the laws in the US would.
In the famous flag burning Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson, the Court concluded that “expressive speech” would constitute as free speech as well. Meaning, wearing armbands, burning crosses, and nazi salutes would be considered a form of speech protected under the First Amendment.
The phrase that Meechan uttered, “gas the jews” would not be seen as malicious in the US if the context is taken into consideration.
In another free speech court case Hustler v. Falwell, the raunchy magazine published a satire story depicting televangelist Jerry Falwell as having drunk sex with his mother. “Between Mom and the shit, the flies were too much to bear,” Hustler quotes Falwell as having said. The story carried with it disclaimers that the story was a fictional parody, which ended up saving the writers from prosecution.
Falwell sued the magazine for emotional distress, but the Supreme Court concluded that this wasn’t a sufficient reason to take away freedom of speech protection. Since the story was not made with the intention to hurt anyone, and it was clearly a parody, the court ruled in favor of Hustler.
It could be argued that Meechan’s video was not malicious since it was not his intent to stir up hatred against Jewish people. Everything he had his girlfriend’s pug do would be constituted as pure speech. With these factors in mind, Count Dankula could not have been successfully prosecuted in the US.
As of writing this article, no sentencing has been made yet. Though Meechan has been convicted of a hate crime, there is still no word as to whether the pug will be facing charges itself.
Vicente Vera E-Portfolio 