They’ll give you a small handful of examples, of which a number occurred in the UK (famously not a member of the EU), most of which were actually arrests for incitement, and of the remainder the majority were thrown out before ever going to trial, or subsequently on appeal.
Very few of the cases they present will have involved citizens being murdered in the streets by the government for exercising their absolute right to free speech.
The UK has more arrests for social media posts than any other country in the world, including authoritarian countries like Russia, Belarus, etc. Germany is the third highest. Both have thousands, not "a small handful".
In 2023, UK police forces made around 12,000 arrests under the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988. These laws cover sending messages that are "grossly offensive, threatening, indecent, or menacing over communications networks" (which includes social media). Prosecutions resulting tend to come from a small subset of serious crimes - stalking, incitement to hatred, endangering minors etc...
This was gleefully misinterpreted by Musk, Steven Forbes and the rest of the right-wing braintrust as "12,000 people were arrested for saying politically incorrect things."
Germany at third highest is equally in the realm of complete fantasy. The Tagesschau debunked it and concluded that the German numbers make no sense. There is no statistic in Germany for the number of arrests, but the number of people investigated is lower for the period claimed and not all led to arrests so the number is simply a fabrication.
Finally, the notion that China or Russia would self-report less cases than the UK and expect the figure to be believed is farcical. There isn't even something comparable to the anti-activism laws or the HK47 in the UK.
They’ll give you a small handful of examples, of which a number occurred in the UK (famously not a member of the EU), most of which were actually arrests for incitement, and of the remainder the majority were thrown out before ever going to trial, or subsequently on appeal.
Very few of the cases they present will have involved citizens being murdered in the streets by the government for exercising their absolute right to free speech.
The UK has more arrests for social media posts than any other country in the world, including authoritarian countries like Russia, Belarus, etc. Germany is the third highest. Both have thousands, not "a small handful".
Ah, the Joe Rogan school of geopolitics finally rears its HGH malformed head
{1}https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wales-englan... {2}https://pa.media/blogs/fact-check/fact-check-international-d... {3}https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-cla...
Most of the erroneous conclusions come from a cursory interpretation of a Times article from last year:
{4} https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...
In 2023, UK police forces made around 12,000 arrests under the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988. These laws cover sending messages that are "grossly offensive, threatening, indecent, or menacing over communications networks" (which includes social media). Prosecutions resulting tend to come from a small subset of serious crimes - stalking, incitement to hatred, endangering minors etc...
This was gleefully misinterpreted by Musk, Steven Forbes and the rest of the right-wing braintrust as "12,000 people were arrested for saying politically incorrect things."
Germany at third highest is equally in the realm of complete fantasy. The Tagesschau debunked it and concluded that the German numbers make no sense. There is no statistic in Germany for the number of arrests, but the number of people investigated is lower for the period claimed and not all led to arrests so the number is simply a fabrication.
https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/grafik-festnahmen-onl...
Finally, the notion that China or Russia would self-report less cases than the UK and expect the figure to be believed is farcical. There isn't even something comparable to the anti-activism laws or the HK47 in the UK.