Comment by phatfish
12 days ago
Most users here are American, have you seen what is happening in America?
The funny (sad) thing is all the hot takes about the UK or Europe being a "police state" because porn is being blocked for kids, or persistent abuse on social media actually has repercussion (as it does in the real world already).
Meanwhile ICE are murdering US citizens in the streets. Turns out American "free speech" doesn't prevent an authoritarian regime taking hold.
To clarify, i do believe in free speech. But until you are bundled into a black car for holding up poster with a political statement (like in Russia or China), you have free speech. Attempting to stop abuse on social media is not the same. The closest we have to preventing free speech in the UK is the Israel/Gaza "issue".
Lucy Connolly was imprisoned for about a year in the UK for posting an inflammatory anti-immigration social media post which was deemed illegal under UK law, and is currently being threatened (https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2157938/lucy-connolly-pris... ) with being returned to jail for posting social media content attacking the current UK government.
This is hardly the only example of the UK, or other Anglophone democracies, criminalizing speech with actual prison time. I'm not happy with UK laws trying to block VPNs under the pretense of blocking porn for minors either.
Can’t even incite murder anymore without being put in prison; it’s political correctness gone mad!
There is no country in the world where inciting arson of housing counts as free speech. The UK has actual problems with free speech (particularly the Online Safety Act), but this isn't one of them.
In whatsapp:
> She said that if Ofsted were to get involved, she would tell them it was not her and that she had been the victim of doxing
Bit more crime, there (she worked in a regulated industry around kids; lying to the regulator isn't allowed).
> She went on to say that if she got arrested she would “play the mental health card”.
PLEASE STOP SAYING YOU WILL DO CRIMES.
(I'm always amazed that so many criminals end up having these incriminating conversations on WhatsApp and similar; have they never read the news or watched any crime drama? In a vacuum she'd probably have got off!)
> There is no country in the world where inciting arson of housing counts as free speech.
Wrong. In the USA that speech would have been protected. It obviously does not meet the imminent lawless action standard and is not meaningfully incitement.
What she actually said was:
> “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f*** hotels full of the ba***s for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it.”
This is clearly someone just angrily ranting. It's absurd nonsense to pretend otherwise. Imagine arresting everyone who said "punch Nazis" because that's "incitement." The UK is one of the worst speech control regimes in the world on any honest scale - even in most third-world dictatorships at least the state isn't strong or coordinated enough to go after most people for this stuff. Sorry, most of the world doesn’t punish angry hateful off the cuff comments with prison. You are an outlier.
What did the post say?
<insert angry goose meme>
"Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f** hotels full of the ba**s for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it."
Which is an insane thing to imprison someone for a year for and to continue threatening them with prison for on account of their continued social media political criticism of their government.
Honestly I'm not sure if it would be legal for me to write this very comment quoting the original tweet if I was subject to UK law.
… did you read your own linked article?
> she was jailed for calling for mass deportation and for migrant hotels to be set on fire
That’s literally calling for violence?
Many people in the UK were detained or interviewed by police for protesting Israeli actions.
Yup, I called out Israel/Palestine.
Have a go (in the UK) with a poster reading "I support Palestine Action"
Yup, I called out Israel/Palestine. I don't agree with how speech is suppressed on this issue, it has been that way for a long time though.