Comment by bertylicious

13 hours ago

You forgot to add a source for your claim that protestors called for the death of Rowling.

That isn't the part of the argument that needs a source - pretty much everyone who is anyone in the public sphere seems to have death threats made against them and threats of extreme violence are actually pretty common at protests. Guillotines at protests are a reasonably common fixture for example [0]. That is the reason the standard needs to be someone actually doing something before the police get involved - people say all sorts of threatening things in political contexts. It's pretty scary but it is better to tolerate it and let people get their emotions out into the open. They generally don't mean it.

[X] has has been subject to death threats at a protest is a pretty safe blind claim. Particularly for politicians, public figures, rich people, identifiable races and political groupings. Some yobbo will write something stupid on a placard and wave it around sooner or later.

[0] I searched for "guillotines at political protests" as a sanity check and straight away saw a "decapitate TERFs" placard. https://news.sky.com/story/scottish-politicians-and-jk-rowli...

  • Maybe so, but it's still important to callenge okeuro49's claims. Extremist takes like that give off an air of believability despite being unsubstantiated. Relying solely on the common sense of the readership leads to situations where extremist views simply drown out the rest. It should not be seen as acceptable to present a wilfully distorted view of the facts.

    • JK Rowling is famous, wealthy, a public figure and female. I guarantee you she has received death threats and the police have shrugged it off as not a credible problem.

      Whether they are public or not is more of an academic detail, but given the level of hostility aimed at her it is a pretty safe bet that someone has somewhere whether or not it was reported on the internet. If someone wants to die on the hill of every claim being cited then fair enough, at least it is a principled hill. But this is like asking for a cite that US political debate got heated. Rowling has genuine anti-fans out there, I've seen totally spontaneous wild hate sessions break out against her in my wanderings through the internet. It'll have spilled out into real-world protest somewhere.

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/22/trans-activists-...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14638683/Police-inv...

  • I haven't seen a single example of someone calling for death of JK Rowling specifically in any of those?

    The only references to her I see is a sign saying "go shit on a pile of Harry Potter books" and people chanting "fuck JK Rowling".

    • The thumbnail might do in case you don’t want to watch the YT video :

      https://youtu.be/8LO0I8v8EvE?si=y6numFgiqCYd-eLe

      The placard carried by the individual* said “bring back witch burning… JK”.

      * I don’t see calling for such a thing as a typical female trait, but then again these protestors did also desecrate a Suffragette memorial, so I expect their ideas are a little confused.

    • It's an example of police ignoring death threats. It references Harry Potter, and JK Rowling is the most common target of the "TERF" epithet. In any case, it supports the claim that the UK police selectively enforce speech laws.

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