Comment by okeuro49
2 hours ago
In the UK 30 people are arrested a day for social media posts online. Only about 10 percent resulting in convictions.
Police don't face criminal charges for this.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...
I find it ironic; George Orwell was English!
Note that the quoted laws also cover things that would be restraining or harassment orders in the USA.
The laws sure, maybe they're similar to US ones, the problem with EU and especially UK speech laws is the way they're interpreted and applied by the justice system, in way more draconical and abusive ways than in the US.
For example a UK comedian got arrested for posting a photo he took outside his balcony of a large congregation of citizens of brown skinned complexion from the Indian subcontinent captioned "imagine the smell".
Those 30 aren’t arrested for just for writing “social media posts” but for possibly “harmful communication including incitement to terrorism and violence, online threats and abuse, and unwanted communication via email and other means”
Of the 90% many will accept their fault and receive a caution or warning
Edit: and none of those cases would involve pretrial remand/jail
The vast majority of those arrested are just for mild insults, which are illegal under the censorious UK regime; not incitement to terrorism or threats.
I'm pretty sure it's threat of violence. Sure, in some of the cases, the threats are mild ('i will fuck you up'), but they are often repeated, which, to be clear, should be considered harassment in any case (and the fact that it still isn't in other countries is wild. Someone keeps sending me insults, I should be able to legally retaliate to make him stop, no?)
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Not UK but in Germany you can face criminal prosecution for insulting the chancellor,
https://x.com/Pirat_Nation/status/2056692341399081235
While here in the UK you can be arrested and charged for saying mean things about the royal family on private whatsapp groups,
https://www.itv.com/news/london/2023-09-07/five-former-met-p...
>Of the 90% many will accept their fault and receive a caution or warning
Why do you need to arrest someone just to warn them?
I mean, this is exactly what the Tennessee sheriff accused this guy of doing. The Sheriff said that a meme referencing Trump saying that people 'needed to get over' a school shooting was actually a threat against the school.
This is the problem with going after 'harmful communication'. It is not something that can be defined precisely, which allows government officials to choose to interpret it in whatever way they want when the enforce it. Obviously in these cases, the courts ruled against the official's interpretation, but that didn't stop this guy from having to spend 37 days in jail before they released him.
As they say "you can beat the rap but you can't beat the ride".
While it is good that the UK version doesn't send you to pretrial jail, you still have to fight the charge. You have to respond, spend time in court, hire council, and hope you can convince the courts that your post doesn't fit the definition of incitement to violence.
This has a chilling effect on free speech, even if all the cases are eventually thrown out. This is a tactic the Trump administration has used repeatedly. Go after people in court for things that are clearly not illegal. You make the person fight the charges, both in court and in the public eye, and then the cases are dismissed eventually and the administration moves on. All it does is make people factor this in when deciding how to act; is my act of protest worth having to fight this in court?
And harmful communication can be "Fuck Hamas" which may be hateful, but not harmful.
Excuse the whataboutism, but how many Americans are arrested for “disorderly conduct” each day? (Which from my YouTube police footage watching appears to be “being an annoying arsehole in public” [1] ie a broadly similar moral misbehaviour)
> [1] An overt act or conduct in public (or affecting the public) that disturbs the peace, safety, morals, or order (e.g., fighting, making unreasonable noise, using obscene/abusive language or gestures, obstructing traffic, creating hazardous/physically offensive conditions, refusing to disperse).
Our online laws which Americans often seem to view entirely through the lens of free speech are more about public (dis)order. It’s not ideas that are being censored, it’s personal conduct online which may be harassing, threatening, abusive or may create a breach of the peace.
That’s not Europe. They had a whole vote about it and everything!
Telegram creator arrested for the crimes of his users on his platform. He did not commit any of these crimes, he's being held as complicit, when every other social media giant is not being held to this standard, and its ridiculous to hold most platforms like this liable, unless it's the only thing they host.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel...
Europe is a continent which the UK is a part of.
this is false
The UK has different speech laws than the United States. Presumably, the actions of the police making those arrests are within the scope of UK law. Even if 90% don't result in a conviction, the police may still be operating within the scope of their authority in those arrests.
[flagged]
Linehan was arrested for making this post:
> If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls
This seems like a straightforward call to violence to me. And he was released after police ascertained that he had no intent to act on these statements.
If someone made posts along the lines of "Christians are abusive, punch them" would it be surprising if CBP took them aside for further questioning?
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The suggestion that the actions within UK happen everywhere in Europe is just as misleading.
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UK voted not to be a part of Europe. Well, at least the England part of the UK did.
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It is similar in Germany, where you can be arrested for simply posting an insult (non-violent) to a politician. No police will face charges if you aren't convicted. And you will NEVER get a settlement.
I don't know why HN has become full of authoritarian anti-free-speech apologists. The current political divisions are turning people insane.
The UK doesn’t have free speech