Comment by chongli
16 days ago
All you have to do is search for it yourself. It’s not just UK citizens that are affected. They’re threatening to have US citizens extradited to the UK to face charges [1] for online speech that’s protected by the first amendment.
[1] https://thenationaldesk.com/news/americas-news-now/uk-author...
Your own article notes that it is “it’s highly unlikely that British authorities will go after U.S.-based social media posters like Musk for violating British laws in an online space.”
Similarly, the links again show that you are whitewashing the events: those people jailed weren’t “disagreeing with the extreme left” (every leftist would be in jail since they disagree with each other constantly) but for things like saying they were going to a violent protest and advocating burning down hotels where refugees were living. Going to a highly plausible specific threat is quite far beyond disagreement.
I've been following the stories relatively closely, since I live here and have an interest in these things.
I'm not aware of any arrests for "disagreeing with the extreme left", which is what I'm specifically asking about. It's important not to distort facts to fit a narrative.
As you probably know, we don't have first amendment protection in the UK.
We're talking about US citizens -- who are protected by the first amendment -- who have never set foot on UK soil being threatened with extradition to the UK! This is not justifiable.
You're talking about that, but it's unclear why, because it's not an example of someone being jailed for "disagreeing with the extreme left on social media".
It's also a silly story. The dual criminality requirement, and various other considerations, make it virtually certain that no such extradition will occur. Those who fear that the UK is descending into a dystopian hell may be comforted to know that we have the world's stupidest police officers. Your news story can't even be bothered to track down the specific moron who made this statement (Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley), referring instead to a fictional 'head of police'.
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