Comment by torstenvl
14 hours ago
> This is particularly problematic given the ways that it could be abused by some of the more authoritarian governments in the EU.
> Yes, I'm thinking of Viktor Orbán of Hungary.
Lol what?
The UK leads [edit: in Europe overall, obviously not the EU] with approximately 18 per 100k prosecuted for online speech. Germany is at about 4 per 100k. Poland at about 0.8 per 100k. Hungary about 0.1 per 100K.
For any definition of authoritarian that relates to chat control, the UK is two base-10 orders of magnitude more authoritarian than Hungary (7 base-2 orders of magnitude).
This figure in the UK is unsourced and I'm fairly sure is not true (or at least not what you've labelled it), and has been quoted out of context by people trying to stir trouble not reasoned debate. I'll assume good faith here and say the start of the video lays out why the figure is not what you've labelled it to be
https://youtu.be/tB3WVygAM8I?si=2KVNjw7mc29sNbQw
The issue isn't how much free speech online is being punished. It is how surveillance could be used to reinforce authoritarianism.
The UK does a lot of prosecuting people for having said nasty things online that someone else didn't like.
Hungary is far more inclined to surveil political opponents, put people in their network in jail without fair trial, surveil successful businesses whose bribes were insufficient, find excuses to punish those businesses.
Sources please
UK prosecutions happen in public. So I presume that the Hungary accusations need justification.
Lack of fair trials: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20251120IP...
Illegal surveillance of political opposition: https://rm.coe.int/pegasus-and-similar-spyware-and-secret-st...
Strong arming companies into bribes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Fidesz
Not only are there not similar reports about the UK, but its better position in international corruption rankings points to a culture that would be less likely to tolerate this.
Any further questions about why there should be concerns about how Hungary would be likely to abuse a law like this?
The UK isn't in the EU anymore though.
Germany and Poland are. Does the existence of a non-EU country in a data set about European countries detract from the fact that Hungary doesn't prosecute people for online speech to the same extent as other European (incl. EU) countries?
Leave it to the British to beat the Germans at their own game.
I'm quite sure they thought about the UK as well, given the practice of prosecuting for lawful speech, jailing or arresting for planning peaceful protests (or threatening to arrest a man with an EMPTY placard), jailing for opposing the genocide or voicing support for the unlawfully proscribed organisation.
Etc.
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