Comment by Aurornis
9 days ago
In the U.K. people can be prosecuted for speech found to be offensive.
There have been several high profile cases used as examples, like the guy who was convicted for making a video of his girlfriend’s dog pretending to do a Nazi salute: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan
Doing anything considered “grossly offensive” online can result in the police knocking on your door and financial penalties. It’s a foreign concept if you’re in a country where making jokes online doesn’t constitute a risk to your freedoms and finances (which is more than just the U.S.)
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I found these two:
https://www.womenarehuman.com/man-arrested-for-sharing-meme-...
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-teens-who-mocked-ge...
I’ve had too many circular discussions of this issue on HN already, but arrests are a low bar. You can find examples of people being arrested for stupid reasons in pretty much any country if you google for it. The exact reasons might vary, but any individual police officer being a moron at any moment can lead to someone being arrested.
There are also some examples of people being convicted for questionable reasons, but the UK is far from the only country with laws against hate speech. It is really the US that is the outlier in having a fundamental legal guarantee of the right to hate speech.
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You can be caged, too, mate.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127
Well, not by the UK at least, since I don't live there.
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https://www.cps.gov.uk/north-west/news/man-jailed-offensive-...