Comment by bargainbin
6 days ago
No, people are being arrested for making malicious communications. They would have suffered the same punishment if they had used email, letter, graffiti on a billboard.
You cannot go around threatening to harm people without repercussions.
"Malicious communications" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. This veteran was arrested for retweeting this meme (https://abuwjaawap.cloudimg.io/v7/_lgbtqnation-assets_/asset...).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11066477/Veteran-ar...
He was offered to undergo "re-education." You might not like this meme. You might find it offensive. But should he be arrested by several officers for it? Of course not. This is just one example of many people being being arrested and imprisoned for offending people. It is against the law to offend people in the UK.
He was arrested for refusing to allow officers to enter his home on a pre-agreed return visit to discuss the complaints:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/arrest_of_mr_darren_b...
This is why the Daily Mail causes rolled eyes (along with Spiked and the rest of the right-wing agitprop).
Re-read what you just linked. In the response from the JIMU:
"A 51-year-old man from Aldershot was arrested on suspicion of sending by public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing message or matter."
This is the legal basis for the arrest. Without the retweet, police would not have had authority to turn up to his place of residence - twice - and demand entry. No doubt they preferred Brady voluntarily submit himself for interview at the station, but he refused, which I hope we can all agree is the morally correct position. No one should have police turn up outside their house - TWICE - because of a parody retweet.
Why on earth was he legally obligated to have that discussion in the first place?
Those complaints should have been laughed at and ignored.
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Oh yes, the bastion of truth that is the Daily Mail.
Sorry, my eyes just rolled out if my head.
The story is widely reported:
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/irishman-arrested-for-...
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/irishman-arrested...
https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/03/memes-police-matter...
https://www.hrla.org.au/uk_man_arrested_for_social_media_mem...
Is this normally how you evade things which make you uncomfortable? Attacking the source?
Just Google it. It's been reported on various news sites. eg:
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/irishman-arrested-for-...
Maybe it's not on The Guardian or the BBC but it obviously doesn't fit their bias so you may have to accept other sources.
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Nope. People are certainly being arrested for speech (e.g. opinions) that would be protected by the first amendment in the US.
Guising it under a scary sounding law doesn’t change the nature of it.
People are certainly being arrested *in the USA* for speech (e.g. opinions) that are theoretically protected by the first amendment.
Unfortunately, last I tried to look this up, I found that there simply do not exist useful and easy to find stats for "malicious communications" in the UK such that stalkers and people making death threats can be separated from mere political correctness.
And even with actual death threats, there's stuff like this, where I don't myself have a single sustained state of my own mind about how I would respond to such a tweet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_joke_trial
It’s bad now and not perfect for sure, but I doubt these instances would be upheld by the higher courts.
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The people in Europe have a different view of freedom of speech and that’s fine. Not everything that’s a slightly different perspective on freedom of speech and what that entails and includes is tyranny.
I’m European and I do not. France and the UK especially come from the same liberal intellectual root as the USA. What we see today is a bastardisation of these principles in Europe. Only the US was smart enough to canonise it into law.
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So there is censorship, you just think that it is good. That's fine! But you should own the position and justify it on its own terms instead of pretending that it doesn't count as censorship.
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Examples please.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/14/transgender-...
[2] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Scottow-...
”Margaret Dodd of one offence of improper use of a public communications network, contrary to section 127(2)(c) of the Communications Act 2003. This provides that a person commits an offence if “for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another [she] … persistently makes use of a public electronic network”.”
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/23/uk-police-le...
Regarding Graham Linehan who is by far the best example.
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