Comment by BeetleB
2 days ago
> and, at least for now, still post on social media without getting a knock on my door.
That's called "luck".
A friend of mine did likewise, and got a knock, then handcuffs, then a trial. He was acquitted because everything he said was allowed under the first amendment. In fact, several academics had published the same/similar stuff he did and not had any problems (or ever worried about them). But he was of the wrong race/religion...
There was never a time in the 20th-21st century where you can practice your 1st amendment rights and be absolutely sure you wouldn't get a knock on your door.
> That's called "luck".
I think it's actually called statistics. In 2026, it would seem I'm statistically less likely to get arrested for a social media post in the US than the UK. I mean it's not like the reason is hidden. Arrests typically require crossing into narrow unprotected categories under the First Amendment: true threats (Virginia v. Black standard), incitement to imminent lawless action (Brandenburg v. Ohio), or specific crimes like credible harassment, cyberstalking, or extortion.
It's quite a bit different than the UK's hate speech laws and the comparative result makes complete sense.
Luck is statistical :-)
Then we agree that it's not unreasonable for me to feel confident I am unlikely to get arrested in the US over a social media post than in the UK, which is the whole point I was making all along.
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Got a link for those UK stats? Last time I went looking, even a Parliamentary report expressed that the stats are difficult to find, because the crime is eg malicious communications which covers a lot of acts.
Your links in another comment do not contain nearly enough detail to support the argument you're attempting to make. The 2 laws mentioned therein are broad and could cover many acts.
It's like a newspaper looking at the statistics for murder and creating a story that murder by asphyxiation with a pillow is on the rise.
n.b. I am not disagreeing that the police are policing social media. It's obviously an easy target. But we should be careful of newspapers pushing narratives, by asking for precise data
Well, that presents a problem when the news organizations that did investigate are just outright dismissed. The Times did a FOI request and are the ones who published the 12,183 figure which ultimately demonstrated the massive increase year over year.
The fact that there were signed petitions, two reports from supposably untrustworthy news organizations (that I could fine, there's probably more), and that it's been discussed at the national level multiple times, will either convince someone that it's 100% fabricated if they lean one way politically or that it's true if they lean the other way.
More and more I've found that it has nothing to do with data anymore. People will just ignore whatever isn't suitable to their beliefs.
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