> This has got to stop. If you want to stop criminals, then focus on their illegal activites, not the streets they walk on.

That would be against everything european governments stand for.

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p0pularopinion 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> That would be against everything european governments stand for.

I really struggle to understand why the hell this is always only applied to european governments? The idea to take 1984 as a book of requirements seems to extend *far* beyond europe.

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dathinab 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

yes, and here is a fun fact, most of the push for mass surveillance comes from the European Council, the thing is that literally are "just" the locally elected leaders...

not some vague far away "the EU (personalized)" thing

which also mean you can locally enact pressure on them

furthermore the EU supreme court(s) might have more often hindered mass surveillance laws in member states then the council pushing for them...

and if we speak as of "now", not just the UK, but also the US and probably many other states have far more mass surveillance then the EU has "in general".

so year the whole "EU is at fault of everything" sentiment makes little sense. I guess in some cases it's an excuse for people having given up on politics. But given how often EU decisions are severely presented out of context I guess some degree of anti-EU propaganda is in there, too.

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josteink 4 days ago | parent [-]

> mass surveillance comes from the European Council, the thing is that literally are "just" the locally elected leaders...

Factually incorrect.

The European Parliament is elected. The Council is appointed, so there is no direct democratic incentive for the council to act on and no direct electorate to please.

On top of that the actually elected European Parliament can only approve (or turn down) directives authored by the Council. They have no authority to draft policies on their own.

To make matters even worse the European Council, which drafts the policies, has no public minutes to inspect. Which obviously makes it ripe for corruption. Which evidently there is a lot of!

Looking at the complete picture, the EU looks like a construct designed intentionally to superficially appear democratic while in reality being the opposite. The more you look at how it actually works, the worse it looks. Sadly.

Europe deserved something better than this.

	▲	dathinab 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Factually incorrect. no please read what I wrote _local elected leaders_ they are the leaders each member state democratically elected in their own way and that makes a lot of sense the EU isn't a country after all so using the already democratically elected leaders makes a lot of sense > They have no authority to draft policies on their own. yes neither did I claim so, the EU is by far not perfect > Which evidently there is a lot of! yes, but that is mainly a reflection of corruption in local Politics
	▲	yeahforsureman 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This is so off in many ways. In short, there are three core institutions, the "technocratic" European Commission, the European Parliament elected by direct popular vote, and the Council ("of the EU"/"of ministers") made up of the relevant (in terms of subject matter) ministers of the standing national govs. The law-making procedures depend on policy areas etc. but usually in the policy areas where EU is fully competent, the Commission — the democratically least accountable of the three bodies — by default makes the initiatives and negotiates/mediates them further along with the Parliament and Council, but only the last two together really have the power to finally approve actual legislation, usually either Regulations (directly applicable in member states as such — so an increasingly preferred instrument of near-full harmonisation), or Directives (requiring separate national transposition / implementation and usually leaving more room for national-level discretion otherwise as well). While not fully comparable to nation-state parliaments, the powers of the EU Parliament have been strengthened vis-à-vis both the Commission and the Council, and it's certainly long been a misrepresentation to say that they, e.g., only have the power to "approve or turn down" proposals of the Commission and/or the Council.

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nisegami 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There's societal memory of monarchies and kings that held a lot of power that still impacts things to this day, sometimes unconsciously and sometimes consciously.

	▲	psd1 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The NSA is an American body, and Trump is the subject of a personality cult far in excess of any European monarch. Authoritarianism is a personality trait independent of political structures.

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4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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dathinab 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

this is simply not true

it was the EU which had stopped many similar unhinged attempts from the UK when the UK was still a member

similar it had been the EU which had shut down various other surveillance nonsense of the EU

you are basically pretending the EU is a person with one uniform opinion and goals

but it's like the opposite of it, like in a lot of way

it's a union of states, each having a vastly different goals and culture and non of them having a "single uniform opinion" either but (in most cases) a more complex political field then the US (on a federal level)

Furthermore the most influential organ of the EU when it comes to making changes is literally a composition of the elected leaders of the member states. So for most big controversial decisions the driving and directing force isn't "the EU" but but the various elected leaders of the member states. For EU citizens blaming "the EU" instead of blaming your own elected leaders is common, but pretty counter productive, as it's basically pretending you have no power to change things.

Furthermore in the EU you have an additional parliament which (in general) needs to ratify laws and two high courts which can (and in context of mass surveillance repeatedly have) shut down misguided "laws", including in many cases local attempts at mass surveillance laws.

So while some parts of the EU have consistently pushed for mass surveillance in recent years other parts also have consistently moved against it.

In general while the EU needs a lot more transparency and some more democratic processes in some aspects a lot (not all) of the "stories told to make the EU look dump/bad" have a lot of important context stripped from that (like e.g. that a lot of the current push for surveillance comes from the locally elected leaders not the EU parliament or some other abstract "the EU" thing, it's your own countries leader/lead party(1) which does or at least tolerates that shit).

	▲	blitzar 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> blaming "the EU" instead of blaming your own elected leaders The elected leaders like to blame the EU (or for those without an EU - any external body or even the mythical deep state) for everything adverse. The reality is these "failures" they blame on someone else are generally in alignment with their own policies goals and objectives.

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immibis 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is that why they rejected Chat Control 1.0?

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findyoucef 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They're supposedly against genocide but that hasn't stopped them from shamelessly supporting one.

	▲	hirako2000 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		And messages like these should be monitored. Who knows, we may need to lock all your bank accounts for "suspicious activity".

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miroljub 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't understand why you got heavily downvoted.

Yes, there are governments that are worse than European, but the decline of European government is the fastest.

You may be surprised that the UK is the world leader in the number of people arrested because of internet posts. And that Germany, which is still way behind the UK, has more people arrested for the same reason than Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, and a few others combined.

And many people still believe that those countries are beacons of democracy while the others are backward dictatorships.

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mosura 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Indeed: https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/17/man-jailed-burning-migrant-ho...

“An X user who posted two anti-immigration tweets been handed a 18-month jail sentence.”

Edit to point out 1. That is a quote and 2. The UK considers this Ok though https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjeykklwn7vo

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_bohm 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Not that I believe people should be jailed for speech, but merely referring to what he said as “anti-immigration” is very much burying the lede

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creata 4 days ago | parent [-]

For people too lazy to click, the second post was:

> I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter.

> Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE.

I'm not sure what the punishment for such a clear but ineffective incitement to violence should be, but it shouldn't be nothing.

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bennyp101 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

"then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament" - that's the bit that probably set it in motion

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brigandish 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The US has a three part test[1] for what constitutes incitement:

- intent

- imminence

- likelihood

If the UK had speech protections like the US (which I wish they would) then it would fail the imminence and probably the likelihood tests (you rightly note that it is ineffective).

[1] https://uslawexplained.com/incitement

	▲	josteink 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		These tweets had 33 views. At least before being made a charge. I think that puts the likelihood-factor at zero.

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46996435797643 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sounds fine.

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MangoToupe 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This is an convictable crime in the US. Inciting violence is emphatically not protected speech.

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jandrewrogers 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is definitely not a crime in the US per the US Supreme Court. Several additional conditions not in evidence are required for speech of this type to fall outside of First Amendment protections.

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MangoToupe 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/373

> Several additional conditions not in evidence are required for speech of this type to fall outside of First Amendment protections.

Perhaps your point would be clearer if you indicated what specific conditions you believe are missing. Maybe the tweeter had no followers? Idk, I can only vaguely guess at what you're referring to.

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fao_ 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The Something Awful Forums got investigated by the FBI after one or two people posted threats about the current president.

So, uh, yes. It's definitely something that the federal authorities take a dim view on.

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brigandish 4 days ago | parent [-]

You're mixing up "take a dim view" on and investigation, with charging and conviction.

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MangoToupe 3 days ago | parent [-]

Inciting violence is certainly an arrestable offence, and likely convictable. What hill are you trying to die on?

	▲	brigandish 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The hill where take a dim view on and investigation are distinct from charging and conviction, because they are. You would also have to contend with the problem where you've decided that it is incitement, as if conviction is a formality, even though: - investigation - charging - court process all come before conviction, which is convenient but not particularly bright or persuasive when they're mentioned in the comment you replied to.

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joe463369 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It didn't happen in the US though, so that's neither here nor there. America's political system is not some benchmark that the rest of the world needs to judge themselves against.

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4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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fao_ 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Yarwood replied: ‘Head for the hotels housing them and burn them to the ground.’

That's terrorist speech tho. My problem is that everyone can reasonably get on board with banning speech that indicates violent action, and that the reliance on "muh free speech!!!" has been a net negative for actually defending the right of people to have privacy, because people rely on that sans any other (better) arguments.

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immibis 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What were the tweets?

That would be important context to mention, don't you think?

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n4r9 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You may be surprised that the UK is the world leader in the number of people arrested because of internet posts

This is untrue, as I've previously pointed out here [0] and here [1].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41488099

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45412989

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MalikTerm 4 days ago | parent [-]

As you seem to be unaware of where the 12,183 arrests figure comes from, and suggest that you haven't seen compelling evidence for this figure, you should know that it's from The Times(0). They found that this led to 1,119 sentencings.

In your linked post [1] you suggest that this figure is completely wrong. To demonstrate this, you linked to a FOI request for the Metropolitan Police which shows that the actual figures for 2023 are 124 for Section 127 of the Communications Act and 1,585 for Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act. This is, ironically, completely wrong. These figures are only applicable for the Metropolitan Police in the Greater London area, if you want figures for the UK you need to file FOI requests for all 45 territorial police forces in the UK. This is what The Times did, and 37 of them responded.

The Standard(1) attempts to address the claim of whether the UK arrests more people for social media posts by looking at figures from other countries, fails to point out a country with more arrests for social media posts, and concludes that open and liberal societies will have more arrests for social media posts because we are more free to do so. Go figure.

You also suggest that racial harassment, domestic abuse, stalking, and grooming are covered under the law, which is somewhat true, The Times quoted a spokesperson from Leicestershire police which stated that the laws cover any communications and may deal with cases of domestic abuse, and this is often the only example given to explain the figures. However it should be noted that the Communications Act(2) only covers electronic communications that are 'grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character' (or posts a message known to be false for the purposes of causing 'annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety', prior to 2024), and the Malicious Communications Act(3) while covering letters, EC, articles, etc, only applies if the communication is 'indecent or grossly offensive' (or a threat, prior to 2024).

For some of those issues it can be easy to point to communications that are 'grossly offensive' or threatening/menacing, however there are other more applicable laws to choose from such as the Public Order Act, the Crime and Disorder Act, and the Domestic Abuse Act which largely covers hate crimes and domestic abuse. An order of magnitude more people are arrested for hate crimes under these and similar laws than they are for malicious communications. The Protection from Harassment Act which covers harassment and stalking, the Serious Crime Act covers controlling and coercive behaviour, the Criminal Justice and Courts Act for revenge porn, and the Sexual Offences Act which covers an incredible amount of offences (it's a large act), including everything related to grooming.

The CPS largely discourage using communications offences (unsourced, but (4) is a good starting point), possibly because of the mens rea requirements for 'grossly offensive' or causing distress or anxiety, possibly because the sentencing limit for either communications act limited at 6 months or 12 months for malicious communications (also 6 months for offences prior to 2022), possibly because it has to weigh whether the sentencing is within the public interest with regards to the chilling effect it can have on speech, especially when concerns about Article 10 of the ECHR are brought up, but it has recommended using these acts as a fallback. Prior to 2015 revenge porn wasn't a specific offence but could still be considered under the communications acts for instance.

All of this to say, if the communications acts are being used as a fallback for the issues you mention, it can't be seen as anything other than a failure that the more specific legislation fails to address issues of or prosecuting issues of 'grossly offensive' or 'threatening' communications appropriately, which seems unlikely, but if it is the case, why then is the sentencing rate so pitiful? 10%? For 'racial harassment' and domestic abuse? In a country that records around 130k hate crimes and 230k cases of domestic abuse (of which 35% are related to malicious communications, do the maths) yearly? When the bar is as low as racial slurs or 'threats'?

For a number of high profile cases you could perhaps make the case that the arrest was justified, but these cases are high profile for a reason, they're testing the limits of what can be considered 'grossly offensive' that aren't covered by other more applicable laws. But even then, there are high profile cases simply because the police had absolutely no business arresting anybody(5). For it to be the case that these laws, specific to 'grossly offensive' and 'threatening' behaviour, are being used to address these issues it needs to be demonstrated, and I don't think that has been the case, and the issue of wasted police time needs to be addressed when 90% of arrests didn't need to be made. The last point is especially relevant at a time where petty crime has all but decriminalised over the past decade and when police chiefs are suggesting citizens are the ones that need to do something about shop lifters(6).

In the greater context of the conversation, it should be obvious that police are arresting people for social media posts, regardless of whether you agree with the intent or not, and it should be obvious that the police are interested in policing social media given the absurd number of Non-Crime Hate Incidents being recorded, also around 13,000(7) a year, and I can't see things getting better with the introduction of the OSA. Blaming these issues on a 'right-wing narrative' seems naive at best and missing the forest for the trees at worst. Labour having absolutely abysmal polling issues should suggest that this isn't a partisan issue in the slightest.

(0) https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...

(1) https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-cla...

(2) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127

(3) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/27/section/1

(4) https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/communications-o...

(5) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gz1qy30v5o

(6) https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/its-up-to-the-public-to-stand-...

(7) https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2024-11-19/debates/0DE7E...

	▲	n4r9 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		You're right about the figures, that's my mistake, thanks for teaching me. I'm not convinced by the rest of your argument. For example: > there are other more applicable laws to choose from such as the Public Order Act, the Crime and Disorder Act, and the Domestic Abuse Act which largely covers hate crimes and domestic abuse Isn't it possible that people get arrested on multiple charges - both for malicious communications and for harrassment, say? > In the greater context of the conversation, it should be obvious that police are arresting people for social media posts Yes, but what's not obvious (or even likely) is that 12000 people are being arrested for "online comments" [0], or that the UK leads the world in such arrests. Sentences have been handed out for various other activities, such as sending photographs or abusive private emails. That's the bit that makes it a right-wing narrative: taking a statistic and giving it a misleading interpretation that happens to support your cause. Has Tommy Robinson said anything in defense/support of Joey Barton? I'm guessing not, because the victims were neither Muslim nor immigrants. [0] https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-cla...

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sjzhakaijzg 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No one is getting 20 years for tweet content in the UK like they are in Saudi Arabia. No grandmother is being arrested for holding up a blank sign like in Russia. I can go on just with the reported stuff from memory for an hour wrt Iran, North Korea and China. I don't even know how many books it would take to read to learn of all the examples worse that aren't.

Look I think there are problems with the UK's policy here, but this comment is either disingenuous or naive.

	▲	Tostino 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		They may not be arrested for a blank sign, but they are being arrested for holding anti-genocide signs.

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pjmlp 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What European Government?

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gitremote 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The decline of the US government is the faster than "Europe", because it's been declining rapidly in a few months. The US government currently has a monthly quota for ICE arrests. ICE agents racially profile people and ignore non-white people telling them they are US citizens because they assume they are lying. Non-white US citizens need to have papers on them that prove their status (US citizen), or else might be disappeared. The US government now bans immigrants from a list of dark skin countries but fast-tracks White South Africans for immigration. It politically persecutes their political opponents and ignores the rule of law. It is preparing for war with Venezuela, which would conveniently tie up US resources as Russia positions itself for entering Europe.

The UK is rapidly declining as a close second, but calling it "European" (especially when UK citizens see themselves as non-European) is just a lazy generalization.

	▲	hactually 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		As someone not in the US. Isnt ICE just enforcing the immigration law of the country? Is that a bad thing? I've got friends in the UK crying out for something like ICE so keen to understand why it's viewed as rapid decline.

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Kbelicius 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I don't understand why you got heavily downvoted.

Because his post contributes nothing to the discussion.

> Yes, there are governments that are worse than European, but the decline of European government is the fastest.

What makes it the fastest?

> You may be surprised that the UK is the world leader in the number of people arrested because of internet posts. And that Germany, which is still way behind the UK, has more people arrested for the same reason than Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, and a few others combined.

Don't know about you but I'd rather be arrested for posting something in EU then be disappeared in any of the countries that you mentioned.

> And many people still believe that those countries are beacons of democracy while the others are backward dictatorships.

That is because Germany and UK are beacons of democracy when compared to the countries that you listed.

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miroljub 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

The UK arrests 12k people per year for social media posts, using vague laws to undermine free speech. Here's the citation from the EU parliament itself [1], since I doubt you'd believe non-government sources.

> That is because Germany and UK are beacons of democracy when compared to the countries that you listed.

Read my comment again. The fact that the UK and Germany are in some aspects still better than the ones I mentioned doesn't make them beacons of democracy. It's sad that those countries declined so fast that we are now comparing them.

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-10-2025-0022...

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Kbelicius 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> The UK arrests 12k people per year for social media posts, using vague laws to undermine free speech.

This doesn't mean anything in isolation.

> Here's the citation from the EU parliament itself [1], since I doubt you'd believe non-government sources.

Do we know each other?

> The fact that the UK and Germany are in some aspects still better than the ones I mentioned doesn't make them beacons of democracy.

No, but there aren't many that are much better so when you take all of that in to account, yes UK an Germany are beacons of democracy.

> It's sad that those countries declined so fast that we are now comparing them.

I already asked this but by what metric are they declining faste?

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miroljub 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

>> The UK arrests 12k people per year for social media posts, using vague laws to undermine free speech. > This doesn't mean anything in isolation.

It's pretty good proxy for freedom of speech, one of the features without which democracy is not possible.

>> Here's the citation from the EU parliament itself [1], since I doubt you'd believe non-government sources.

> Do we know each other?

Probably not, but I can smell a state believer when I see him.

> No, but there aren't many that are much better so when you take all of that in to account, yes UK an Germany are beacons of democracy.

If they are, it's a pretty low baseline. They are but a shadow of what they once were.

>> It's sad that those countries declined so fast that we are now comparing them.

> I already asked this but by what metric are they declining faste?

The article I posted has a link [1]. There you can see the number of people arrested went up from 5502 in 2017 to 12183 in 2023. It's a pretty sharp decline in freedom of speech.

[1] https://archive.is/kC5x2

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fao_ 4 days ago | parent [-]

The problem here is that contextually you are falling into the trap of "talking about committing a terrorist act" as being relevant to "having private communications", and in the process you are conflating the two. This means you are falling into the trap that the UK government intentionally creates to suppress privacy — within a reader's head, now the two are related. This also means you haven't had to develop any arguments other than "muh free speech!" with respect to why having private communication is important.

The second problem is that American conservatives have framed Nazi speech as a free speech issue, so to an onlooker who is not in the USA, when people talk about "free speech", it comes across as someone defending someone's right to say incredibly harmful, violent things about Jewish people, Transgender people, and so on. I think for most people outside of the USA (and, to be honest, most minority populations within the USA) you should consider "free speech" as being an incredibly tainted phrase for that purpose.

The flipside of all of this is that fascism is very, very possible even with freedom of speech (actually it seems to rely on it, given how virulent the spread of outright Nazi rhetoric has been in the USA so far). Freedom of speech is not the sole thing that holds up a democracy and it weakens your arguments for you to rely upon it like this.

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jandrewrogers 4 days ago | parent [-]

> American conservatives have framed Nazi speech as a free speech issue

The famous US Supreme Court case[0] that explicitly confirmed that "Nazi speech is free speech" was brought to the court by the ACLU[1], a left-leaning organization that defends things like LGBTQ rights. Your take is completely divorced from factual reality.

American conservatives aren't "framing" it. They are restating what the US Supreme Court has already determined in a case brought to the court by the liberal left. This is a principled defense of free speech that has historically been supported by people across the political spectrum.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...

[1] https://www.aclu.org

	▲	fao_ 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		You completely missed the point of what I wrote and ignored the majority, just so you could claim that Nazi speech is actually a left-wing issue — which is not a claim I think many people outside of the USA would agree with. I do not think you understand the optics of how this looks outside of your USA-centric echo-chamber audience.

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everdrive 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>> The UK arrests 12k people per year for social media posts, using vague laws to undermine free speech.

>This doesn't mean anything in isolation.

For anyone who cares about free speech, this is very scary and very troubling, regardless of any other factors at play.

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nxm 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

No they’re not. Without free speech there is no democracy because only speech that is allowed is by those in power/who they direct money to police

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dbdr 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The UK arrests 12k people per year for social media posts, using vague laws to undermine free speech.

A spokesperson for Leicestershire police clarified that offences under section 127 and section 1 can include any form of communication and may also be “serious domestic abuse-related crimes”. [1]

It seems misleading to count arrests related to domestic abuse as "anti-free speech".

[1]: https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/select-communications-off...

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josteink 4 days ago | parent [-]

It seems very politically convenient to be able to hide that one number behind the other. To obfuscate something highly controversial by making it artificially conflated with something everyone would agree on with.

This is what governments do when they want to avoid public scrutiny. This is not the win you are looking for.

	▲	dbdr 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It would indeed be better to have the separate counts. It's also wrong to attribute to only one case what is a actually a larger category, unless there is actual evidence that it's the overwhelming majority anyways. Both can be true at the same time. I'm not trying to win anything, and I do support privacy. I just think any argument, especially those citing specific numbers, should be based on an accurate description of reality.

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immibis 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What did those people post?

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dbdr 4 days ago | parent [-]

One example is: "I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter."

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miroljub 4 days ago | parent [-]

Congratulations. You found one.

What about the other 11999?

	▲	immibis 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Why don't you share them, since you seem to know them well?

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FpUser 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>"That is because Germany and UK are beacons of democracy when compared to the countries that you listed."

Give them a little time. They'll catch up. Comparatively to what the UK used to be it is sliding down, more and more. One should be more concerned about what is happening in their country rather than consoling themselves that there are worce places.

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ipaddr 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If they are beacons maybe democracy has outlived its usefulness. Bad pr for democracy as a concept.

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4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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TheOtherHobbes 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The UK is not part of the EU, and its security services are barely affiliated with it. That all ended with Brexit.

It's absolutely hopeless at protecting citizens from foreign threats.

95% of the arrests aren't actually arrests. The police send you a polite letter, you write a polite response, and at least 90% of the time the case is dropped.

Compare with various authoritarian dictatorships where if the police turn up at your door you're unlikely to survive.

And - unlike the US - no one is hauling random British brown people off the streets and sending them to prison camps.

The UK does have a far-right party desperate to end judicial oversight and remove legal protections from torture, etc, by ending support for the ECHR.

There's currently a huge online campaign, funded in part with foreign money and supported by most of the British press (foreign billionaire owned...), to make their far-right dictatorship seem like a political inevitability.

It isn't. But they're trying really really hard to pretend otherwise.

Putin is also really, really pissed at the EU for taking Russian money and using it for defence and reparations.

But - you know - if you start a war because you're a grandiose psychopath, that's what happens.

	▲	DaSHacka 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> 95% of the arrests aren't actually arrests. The police send you a polite letter, you write a polite response, and at least 90% of the time the case is dropped. Bahaha, as if that's any better. Guess cops showing up to your door for being mean to someone online is just an inevitability when there is no "second amendment" equivalent in said country. Sad state of affairs, if they weren't british I'd almost feel bad.