| ▲ | failbuffer 7 hours ago |
| No need to speculate that the UK government "might" one day become the bad guys: they already arrest over 30 people a day for speech that offends the prevailing political orthodoxy. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-a... |
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| ▲ | Aurornis 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Everyone should read the case of the IT consultant getting arrested in the UK because he posted a photo of him doing some target shooting during a trip to the US: https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/consultant-arrested-linkedin-s... Stories like this quickly put to rest the idea that everyone who gets arrested must actually deserve it. The bar for posting content that violates the law is very low. There was also the tragic story of the Cambridge professor who was completely unqualified and had a fake life story. When journalists would get close to the story he would report them to the police for harassment to spike the stories. |
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| ▲ | chmod775 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't know about that case, but the bar is as low as it can be anyways. Hapless UK police are willing to play attack dog for nearly anyone. Someone got arrested and intimidated by police because they criticized someone with even only a modicom of authority: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/29/parents-arre... Imagine getting six police officers sent to your house and spending 11 hours at a police station for causing "disharmony" by disagreeing with how your daughter's school operates in a WhatsApp group. In a sensible country that might've been a phone call or a single officer stopping to chat and defusing the situation if police decided to get involved at all. | | |
| ▲ | foldr 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | This was, obviously, stupid and wrong, but: * The Police admitted their obvious error and paid £20k in damages: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gz1qy30v5o * This bizarre case has nothing to do with "speech that offends the prevailing political orthodoxy" (root comment). If you look for examples of the police arresting people for stupid and unjustifiable reasons, you can find them in lots of countries, including the US. For example, here is someone being arrested in Kansas for clapping too loudly during a meeting: https://www.kbtx.com/2026/07/27/teacher-arrested-repeatedly-... It's absolutely right that this sort of thing is reported and it's right for people to be outraged about it. However, I'd be cautious about drawing overly sweeping conclusions about the UK from such cases. |
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| ▲ | amiga386 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In this particular case, the IT consultant was owed money by a failing business, and he put 1) a picture of the business premises, and 2) pictures of him firing guns, on a website where he was sure the business owner would see it. That's textbook intimidation, which in certain cases is a crime in the UK, and even some US states. You can also do it offline, for example, by sending a letter to the victim containing a photograph of the front of their house, and a photograph of you firing guns. The implication is pretty straightforward and doesn't even need to be stated: "I have guns and I know where you live. Pay me that money you owe me or I might use them." That implication is still there, for the victim, even if you add surface text like "Hey everyone look at these cool things!" Only _after_ he was arrested, and the police went looking around his house for guns... did he admit that the pictures were taken overseas, he doesn't actually own the guns. And yet that's what the article leads with, like it was a known fact from the get-go and those silly-billy police knew that but went looking for them in the UK anyway. This article is a great lesson in how to mislead without saying anything untrue. His own words in a different article make the reason for the arrest clear: https://nypost.com/2025/12/04/us-news/british-man-says-he-wa... > “The arrest was based on two separate social media posts,” he said. “One was the photo of myself with the shotgun, [...] And the second one was my LinkedIn banner at the top of the page.” > “I used the photo my business partner took on his premises as a header photo on LinkedIn with the intention he would look at that and go, ‘Why’s this guy posting that? I’d better call him and find out rather than dodging me’ as it had done for months,” he said. EDIT 2: for avoidance of doubt, he did three days in a row of LinkedIn blog posts, where 1) his PFP at the time (shown in the top-right corner) was a picture of the business premises 2) the text of the post talked about the "delinquent client" 3) the post ended with a no-context-given picture of him posing with guns Example: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash... EDIT: and your second example is also dangerously misleading. Jason Arday (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Arday) and/or his university reported 2 professors and 1 journalist to the police, pretending their requests for comment on his plagiarism were harrassment. For all three reports, police chose to take no action (nonetheless it still had a chilling effect on speech). What spiked the story is that Jason Arday and/or his university got very expensive reputation lawyers Carter-Fuck to send a C&D to the journalist's newspaper, promising expensive litigation if they published the story. That is what spiked the story, not intimidation via false harassment claims. Expensive lawyers making baseless threats work equally well in the US and UK to chill legal speech, it's not a policy issue. | | |
| ▲ | kvuj 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > In this particular case, the IT consultant was owed money by a failing business, and he put 1) a picture of the business premises, and 2) pictures of him firing guns, on a website where he was sure the business owner would see it. From your own link, this was from 2 separate posts. I don't know man, this sounds like an excuse from the company to cause trouble and avoid having to pay the owed money. | | |
| ▲ | Aurornis 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Also the “website where he was sure the business owner would see it” is a cheap way to hide the fact that he posted on his on LinkedIn, which he used as his social media network. You can just say LinkedIn. We know what LinkedIn is. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm glad you know what LinkedIn is. Now imagine you owe this guy money, he's admitted in public that he put a picture of your business premises at the top of every blog post he makes on LinkedIn in order to get your attention, and his latest blog posts on the LinkedIn website therefore shows YOUR WORKPLACE and HIM SHOOTING GUNS. Juxtaposition that he admits he wants you to see. You can read all three blogposts. Note he has switched out the picture of the workplace (top-right PFP): 1. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash... > Top of my agenda Today is getting a follow-up email to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade regarding my delinquent Client "delinquent client" and no mention of why there's a picture of him with guns or where it was taken 2. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash... > I am disappointed that absolutely nothing has come back from the Secretary of State for Business and Trade (OR his Department) regarding my delinquent Client.. this is concerning as despite continuing to owe me "delinquent client" who "owes" him and once again, picture of him shooting guns apropos of nothing, nothing explaining where he is, whose guns they are, just him shooting guns. Guess he just likes to shoot guns while talking about his "delinquent client" who "owes" him and he's put a picture of the delinquent client's premises as his PFP. 3. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash... > Today I'll be following up on my message to the Yorkshire Post by calling the Secretary of State for Business and Trade regarding my delinquent Client.. it's become necessary given what the Owner of said Client is currently doing. I'm also going to escalate my concerns to North Yorkshire Police, then I'll grab the Popcorn and see where this goes. And again no-context gun photo to add to the blog post about his delinquent client Hopefully you can understand why the guy who owes him money would feel intimidated and call the police, and you can see why there appears to be enough evidence to charge the guy for harrassing the ower, and to arrest him so you can establish if he possesses the guns he has posted himself shooting. | | |
| ▲ | Aurornis 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I read the posts. He's obviously writing daily updates and posts and includes pictures from his travels. The photos are obviously target shooting. This is a common sport in many countries. Your argument is that because he wrote long daily updates about what he was doing and included two unrelated things, that he's implying that the guns are for those offhand remarks? We get getting farther and farther from the real problem, which is that the UK police have been weaponized to respond to people's social media posts about how they make others feel. That's a ridiculously low bar. From https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/consultant-arrested-posi... > However, he said that a police officer later visited his home to warn him that concerns had been raised about the post. > "I was told to be careful what I say online and I need to understand how it makes people feel," he said. | |
| ▲ | IslandRebel 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Hopefully you can understand why the guy who owes him money would feel intimidated and call the police, and you can see why there appears to be enough evidence to charge the guy for harrassing the ower, and to arrest him so you can establish if he possesses the guns he has posted himself shooting. No, I don't understand why he would. Nothing there was intimidation. Pretending it is intimidation is stretching crudility. The fact that he got arrested over this is straight up nonsense, IMO. All the posts read like blog-style posts, and there wasn't any aggressive language used there at all. He also mentioned he was meeting with people to resolve the issue through legal means in the posts. I suspect the owner who owed him money was acting maliciously. |
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| ▲ | amiga386 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash... This is one of three days worth of posts where he talks about his "delinquent client" and ends with a picture of him and guns (with no explanation of why, where or how him and the guns are related to the body text). He put an image of the business owner's premises as his PFP in the top-right corner, which is now a picture of some people sitting in chairs. The business premises, "delinquent client" body text and gun photos appear on the same page. Further details: https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/12/01/uk-police-arrest-gun-... |
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| ▲ | joenot443 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash... > Today I'll be following up on my message to the Yorkshire Post by calling the Secretary of State for Business and Trade regarding my delinquent Client.. it's become necessary given what the Owner of said Client is currently doing. I'm also going to escalate my concerns to North Yorkshire Police, then I'll grab the Popcorn and see where this goes. Wait, this is the threat? I'm bewildered this could be grounds for an arrest. That's pretty scary. | | |
| ▲ | foldr 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, the comment by itself wasn't the threat. Explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831263 Or just look at this post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonrichelieu-booth_jonthehash... It's the combination of the paragraph about the 'delinquent client' and the picture of him pointing a gun which could be construed as an implied threat. I don't know if that would hold up legally, but in any case, no charges were brought in the end. As to why the police did anything at all, the most likely explanation is that once the 'delinquent client' reported the LinkedIn posts, the Police saw a photo of someone using a shotgun who didn't have a shotgun license. Unaware that the photo was taken outside the UK, they probably decided that the combination of an unlicensed firearm and a possible implied threat was worth investigating. |
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| ▲ | pepperoni_pizza an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > That's textbook intimidation, Exactly. Every time I hear a story of "horrible abuses in UK where people get arrested for talking on the internet" it turns our they intimidated or scammed or bullied someone. I wonder why people keep lying about it. | |
| ▲ | ifh-hn 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Argh yes, context. I was wondering why the police were doing what they were doing. Police don't randomly do that to someone, there had to be a reason. Context is king. | | |
| ▲ | Aurornis 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Read the actual articles the person linked. The comment you’re replying to uses weasel words like saying “put them on a website” to conceal the fact that the “website” was the guy posting different unrelated things on his social media feed. In the second case, the person involved was weaponizing the police against a journalist who had uncovered something about a completely unqualified university professor who had a fraudulent background story. The police didn’t do it “randomly”. The professor knew how to use the laws to intimidate and silence his critics (when even the GP comment admits). Even the police later admitted they should not have gone as far as they did. | | |
| ▲ | blipvert an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Could you elaborate on how he was “completely unqualified”? AIUI his PhD was cleared on any claims of. It being untoward. Maybe something I missed, of course. | |
| ▲ | ifh-hn 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I did read the article, and my only takeaway was that it was missing context. But I agree that the law is being weaponised by bad actors, but irrespective of that the police are duty bound to investigate. They take the blame too. It's one of the few jobs everyone else knows how to do better than the people doing it. | |
| ▲ | amiga386 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The website, which is also his social media feed, is LinkedIn. Both the header image (of the ower's premises) and pictures of the owee shooting guns are on the same site. Hence the complaint of intimidation from the ower. In the second case, once again you repeat your nonsense. The chilling effect the police had, a wrong in and of itself, did not put the journalist off publishing. You can read the journalist's own words right here: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/i-was-reported-... > Despite the thoroughness of my investigation, THE did not run the story. While I was personally disappointed, I understood; by this point, Arday’s solicitors had been in touch with THE and it was clear that the story could tie the publication up in months of expensive litigation. Even if we were right – and I stand by my reporting – it would have been ruinously expensive. You want to say POLICE POLICE POLICE were chilling speech here. Bullshit. It was LAWYERS LAWYERS LAWYERS suppressing the story. | | |
| ▲ | Aurornis 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > You want to say POLICE POLICE POLICE were chilling speech here. Bullshit. You're the only person in this thread using the phrase "chilling speech" and you keep admitting that they did. Let me quote you on this topic: > The chilling effect the police had, a wrong in and of itself, > In the case of the journalist Arday reported in 2025, police again did not arrest or charge him, but they (wrongly, in my opinion) phoned him and asked him not to contact Arday. This had a chilling effect > For all three reports, police chose to take no action (nonetheless it still had a chilling effect on speech). These are all three your own quotes from this thread. The last quote isn't even accurate because the police DID take action in the form of contacting the journalist and telling him to desist. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I am in generally in favour of some sentiments you're expressing, but you're also wrong on the facts. If your facts are wrong, it harms everyone who shares your sentiments because you're arguing with verifiable bullshit. You're trying to argue that Jason Arday held journalists at bay by reporting them for harrassment, therefore the UK speech laws are bad because they let wrongdoers avoid scrutiny by making harrassment claims against their scrutinisers. That is incorrect. There was only one journalist, and Arday held him off by engaging private lawyers. The harrassment reporting did not stop the journalist. Arday falsely reported two people for harrassment to the Metropolitan Police, one professor in 2023 and one journalist in 2025. The (Devon and Cornwall) police declined to pursue the 2023 case. The (Metropolitan) police investigated the 2025 case for four months, then decided to take no action (no charge, arrest or caution). The investigating officer phoned the journalist to tell him the case was closed (they can do that). The fact that there had even been an investigation caused a chilling effect: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/i-was-reported-... > But were my enquiries grounds for a criminal complaint? That was hugely troubling to me as a reporter who specialises in examining issues of research integrity and ethics. I'd say that even in the professor's case, it could've had a chilling effect. If the police had interviewed anyone related to the professor, there could've been leaks and/or career-stunting rumours. The officer requested the journalist not contact Arday. That's overreach, and shouldn't have happened. The head of the Metropolitan police admitted the investigation should not have even been started. That's not the law at fault, that's shoddy policing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rd9y99grzo But ultimately, it did not "spike the story". That was 100% on the lawsuit. Both things are bad |
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| ▲ | Aurornis 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Your own quote clearly says it was “two separate social media posts”. The article I linked clearly says he was arrested for one count of stalking and another account of suspicion of possession of a firearm: > A week later, on August 23, the officers returned and arrested him on suspicion of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and another allegation of stalking related to a photograph of a house that appeared on his social media. You’re trying hard to link the two as “textbook intimidation” but the firearm post that triggered this was just a vacation photo and post about his vacation. You’re being misleading by saying he “posted them to a website” without explaining that what you mean by “website” is that he posted them on his personal social media. > For all three reports, police chose to take no action (nonetheless it still had a chilling effect on speech). Incorrect to say the police “took no action”. They contacted the journalist and instructed him to desist. The police later admitted it was a mistake to pursue the case. It says all of this in the link you used: > Arday made a complaint about Grove to the Metropolitan Police, alleging harassment that was affecting his mental health; the police asked Grove to desist from further contact with Arday.[80] Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, later said that the complaint about Grove should not have been taken forward.[81] It’s confusing that you’re trying to claim the police “took no action” when they admitted fault for following through with the complaint and they told the reporter to desist. > Expensive lawyers making baseless threats work equally well in the US and UK to chill legal speech, it's not a policy issue. If the expensive lawyers are equal in the UK and US, then that’s not the important point of this story. It’s the part about him engaging the police and the police following through with it. I also strongly disagree that it’s equivalent in the US. That expensive legal firm would be utilizing the maximum extent of the laws available to them in the UK, which includes the very harassment laws we’re talking about! You can’t say it’s “not a policy issue” by pointing to literal lawyers who are using the law. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > You can’t say it’s “not a policy issue” by pointing to literal lawyers who are using the law. It's not a UK speech policing policy issue, the topic of your post. The criminal law doesn't support Arday using false claims of harrassment to deter journalists. You could say it's a worldwide civil law policy issue in terms of barratry / SLAPPs / cost of litigation / etc. No country, certainly not the US, has sufficient protection for whistleblowers against well-resourced litigants, and it is they (not the UK criminal law) who are successfully chilling speech. | | |
| ▲ | Aurornis 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It's not a UK speech policing policy issue It's the thing we're talking about. The UK law was used to get police involved and the police told the journalist to desist. > You could say it's a worldwide civil law policy issue The fact that lawsuits exist everywhere does not make it equal everywhere. We're talking about the UK's specific laws. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Here's the full text of what you said. It's what we're talking about: > There was also the tragic story of the Cambridge professor who was completely unqualified and had a fake life story. When journalists would get close to the story he would report them to the police for harassment to spike the stories. You don't mention the threat that civil lawsuits pose to speech at all. And yet it was the threat of a civil lawsuit that actually quelled speech here. You have no evidence that action A ("he would report them to the police for harassment") led to outcome B ("to spike the stories"). Jason Arday did not spike any journalist's story by reporting them for harrassment. He, or his universty, did spike the story by engaging reputation lawyers. He could do that in almost any country, including the US, despite its stronger free speech laws. Unless a US state has an effective anti-SLAPP law, it is very likely all that is needed to shut people up is to threaten a lawsuit they can't afford. The thing you want to be mad about -- the police unlawfully instructing a journalist not to contact someone -- is a bad thing, is not even legal (i.e. the UK state doesn't actually allow it, let alone condone it), and it had no effect on the journalist. They still wanted their story published. It was the private threat of a lawsuit that spiked it. | |
| ▲ | avianlyric 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | “Getting the police involved” is a lot less exciting in the UK compared to the US. Our police don’t have a nasty habit of getting scared in the dark and shooting anything that moves. Mostly because most officers in the UK don’t carry firearms, and the UK often struggles to recruit officers into firearms units because officers just don’t want to mess with guns. As a result getting the police involved is often little more than a slightly awkward chat at the front door where the officers politely ask you to stop being arsehole, but everyone knows the police are a bit limited in what they can actual do. Either because no crime has actually been committed, or because they don’t really have the time to properly investigate even if a crime had been committed. Actually getting arrested takes some effort. The police really don’t want to deal with all the paperwork and mess that comes afterwards if they can avoid it. |
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| ▲ | someonebaggy 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > arrested on... another [count] of suspicion of possession of a firearm: That's not how it works. You get arrested on suspicion, the cops figure out if you actually did it or not, once they know you did it they charge you with counts of actual offences (not suspicions). | | |
| ▲ | Aurornis 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > > arrested on... another [count] of suspicion of possession of a firearm: > That's not how it works. You get arrested on suspicion, the cops figure out if you actually did it or not, once they know you did it they charge you with counts of actual offences (not suspicions). Isn’t that literally what the quote, which was from the article, says? It didn’t contain the word “count”. You added that. The quote says he was arrested on suspicion. | | |
| ▲ | someonebaggy 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | "account" appears to be a simple autocorrect typo of "count" since the other half of the sentence is about "count" | | |
| ▲ | Aurornis 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, I'm saying the word "count" doesn't appear in the quote in the article. This is the quote from the article: > > A week later, on August 23, the officers returned and arrested him on suspicion of possessing a firearm You falsely added "[count]" to the quote and then argued about the count, which isn't in the quote. | | |
| ▲ | someonebaggy 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Actually, here's what you said and I quoted: > The article I linked clearly says he was arrested for one count of stalking and another account of suspicion of possession of a firearm: |
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| ▲ | tigershark 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Are you really defending Arday harassing journalists through the police and being overjoyed because just this time the police was not overzealous enough to arrest them (very likely they were fine only thanks to the huge media attention)? Unbelievable. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not defending Arday at all. I'm pointing out OP's claims are bullshit. At no point did anyone "spike" stories because Arday called the police on them. OP appears to claim that involving the police is the way to get journalists off your tail. It isn't, and it didn't deter either the professors or the journalist. The much more effective way to get journalists off your tail, which OP didn't even mention, is lawyers. But that doesn't let OP rage against UK laws so he went with the bullshit claim instead. There was absolutely zero media attention at the time police processed Arday's complaint against professor David Harris, in 2023. They closed the complaint without taking action. The professor didn't even know he was being investigated. His colleague Martyn Hammersley then went over Arday's head straight to the faculty. So much for the police getting people off your case! In the case of the journalist Arday reported in 2025, police again did not arrest or charge him, but they (wrongly, in my opinion) phoned him and asked him not to contact Arday. This had a chilling effect and the police had no legal basis to direct him so. Again, this was long before any 2026 media attention. It wasn't media attention that saved these people, it was that what they did wasn't illegal. The police shouldn't have given Arday's claims as much merit as they did, but no matter what Arday said, there was no evidence of crime there, it was never going any further than that. Only once the deets about Arday were leaked by Cambridge faculty to Cofnas and he published them, and the media firestorm begain, did the details of the police phoning the journalist become known, and in reaction to that, the head of the police said that was clearly wrong and should not have happened: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rd9y99grzo | |
| ▲ | Tanjreeve 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well he's dead now in no small part because he was 100% correct that partisan activists amplified by friendly "journalists' would follow the usual playbook of creating a reality distortion field by repeatedly lying and republishing each others half truths and outright lies into a massive gish gallop. | | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | He is dead because he killed himself because his web of lies was unraveling. | | |
| ▲ | Tanjreeve an hour ago | parent [-] | | Same question as always. What were the lies? Because all the ones I've seen were either found to be true or they were exaggerated versions of statements and then attacking that as a lie. Especially rich to talk about habitual liars when it's a bunch of British press outlets and activists accusing others of being liars. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 36 minutes ago | parent [-] | | https://gidmk.substack.com/p/the-jason-arday-saga-is-terribl... > 1 The Racism Of It All: It is not news when white men commit academic misconduct. It gets reported in a handful of stories, there’s a bit of media attention, but everyone quickly forgets about the problems. > 2 Arday Was Definitely Guilty: The second point is somehow even more frustrating. Yes, Jason Arday was hounded by a society that demands different standards for young Black men than white guys. Yes, the amount of scrutiny he received was obviously connected to the colour of his skin. But also, he definitely did plagiarize. And not just a little bit. His work is riddled with clear, obvious, and extensive theft from other published academic papers. > You do not need to trust race realists or other unpleasant people. Just download the thesis and check for yourself. It is clear that a significant portion of the thesis was copied directly from other people’s work. This is not in doubt, it’s not in question, and the fact that so many people online are arguing that the plagiarism charges are false because a university said so is deeply depressing. It’s arguably the worst case of plagiarism I’ve ever seen. > Whatever your thoughts on plagiarism, it’s clear that Arday’s work harmed very few people. As he himself said, “I didn't murder somebody”. If he hadn’t been a Black academic and a poster child for diversity at Cambridge university, we’d probably have never known his name. You sound like one of the Arday Truthers: https://archive.is/KkqkY > For some of Arday’s supporters, acknowledging that any of the media scrutiny was justified has become tantamount to siding with his “killers.” He is instead a martyr—the victim of a “lynching”—and the inconvenient fact of his fabulism must be tidied away from the virtual shrine. This is an emotional position rather than a rational one, and its very indefensibility makes it a greater demonstration of tribal loyalty. Insisting that the academic was completely innocent, in the face of all the evidence, sends a strong social signal that you hate the right-wing media and care about racism. > The postmortem airbrushing of Arday’s story also ignores how that story twisted and turned while he was alive. When The Guardian confronted him with the implausibility of some of his tall tales, Arday responded by editing them in real time: Yes, he had once claimed to have run 600 miles in six days, an exceptional feat for an endurance athlete, but what he actually meant was that he took daylong rest breaks in between. Yes, he had claimed to have raised more than £5 million for charity, but actually this was with the help of “many fundraising collectives” whose participants he could not name because they had signed nondisclosure agreements. As they might say on Reddit, "Everybody Sucks Here". Arday the fabulist and plagiarist, the academic institutions who didn't vet him because they were razzle-dazzled by his bullshit lifestory (then drop him like a stone when their attempts to keep his plagiarism hidden don't work any more), the popular press who are happy to amp up a public shaming for clicks and views, the anti-woke and the racists who say this just confirms what they thought about DEI, and the anti-anti-woke and anti-racists who will deny the bleeding obvious if it makes them appear virtuous to their peers. | | |
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| ▲ | someonebaggy 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's intimidation in the form of speech. Enforcing it is enforcing speech. |
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| ▲ | 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
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| ▲ | shrubby 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | UK is substantially more democratic than the US. - We just changed our PM, despite his party having a historic majority. - Parliament routinely rebels against the government, and backbenchers have a lot of say about the business of government. - We have a number of upstart parties; they might be populist, but at least it's not a two-party-forever system. - We had a coalition government just a few years ago. - We changed our constitution a few months ago (abolishing hereditary peers) and it was just another news among many. - We ejected one of the previous PMs for having a party during a lockdown, with a massive scandal before that when the PM accepted a gift of some wallpaper. Compare and contrast to the ossified and corrupt American system, where the president is openly enriching himself and his family and friends, and there's nothing threatening the presidency. The last amendment was passed half a century ago, and there's zero hope for reform. Democracy is a living, breathing system of government, not a number of checkboxes like "can I shoot a gun for fun" or "can I call someone N-word online". It's important to see the forest for the trees. | | |
| ▲ | 4ndrewl 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > We ejected one of the previous PMs for having a party during a lockdown Weirdly that never happened, but that's how many people remember it. He was ejected because he lost the support of his ministers (most of who resigned over a period of a few weeks) after he had made them to go out and lie to the public on his behalf in the case of Chris Pincher MP. | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | To be entirely fair, that was a combination of many things (Pincher, wallpaper, partygate, covid deaths, covid deals, brexit, etc). The ministers are also MPs, and they want to be reelected. By that point it was clear that the partygate is not going away, so they needed a scapegoat. The point still stands though. A populist PM who did a tiny bit of mismanagement and corruption (relative to his current peer in the US) was forced to resign. Trump isn't. |
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| ▲ | tomp 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > - We just changed our PM non-democratically. there was no election. the ruling party simply made a decision itself. Just like in China. | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | A representative democracy is still a democracy. The ruling party has changed just two years ago. Hardly China, is it | | |
| ▲ | AlexandrB 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't get why you're making excuses for this stuff. Trump is one kind of bad, but almost all western governments are increasingly unaccountable to their voters. And these are usually the folks that claim to be defenders of democracy. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > almost all western governments are increasingly unaccountable to their voters In this country, the government with a vast majority couldn't even withdraw a small cash payment from better off pensioners without a rebellion from their own MPs. Those generalising takes are entirely disconnected from the political reality of the UK outside of twitter. | |
| ▲ | tavavex 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They're making excuses for this stuff because the wording used around it in this comment thread has been quite hysterical. For all the problems plaguing modern democracies, leadership elections are not one of them. In representative democracies, the leader of the party isn't god like how a president is in non-parliamentary systems. The role has some additional powers, but it doesn't get its own branch of government. Most importantly, party leaders are still MPs who were democratically elected by their constituents - the party leader designation is an internal role. You can even affect it by becoming a party member in most cases. This is incredibly mundane stuff that has existed for decades to centuries, so people here immediately jumping in to talk about China or say that this is somehow worse than Trump just seems like enraged flailing in an attempt to portray many other democracies not being exactly like the US as horrific injustice. |
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| ▲ | sippingabonedry 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You left a few items off the list, for instance: - We can't beat off to porn anymore without a VPN, because our nanny government has blocked it. - Our government sends hilarious fines to foreign websites when it disapproves of their moderation. | | |
| ▲ | OkayPhysicist 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's not necessarily evidence of undemocratic processes. One of the big downsides of democracy is that it gives the absolute knuckledraggers the same vote as anybody else. It seems to me like the UK has the same problem as the US: they have a revealed preference for autocratic policies, because no one gets excited about the government apparently doing nothing. | | |
| ▲ | PorciiVorbesc 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | >because no one gets excited about the government apparently doing nothing. Well yes. Precisely because the government was "doing nothing" while issues that plagued the voting population like migration, wealth disparity and affordability crisis were constantly growing for the past ~15 years until it reached breaking point. Hence why people affected by this are now voting to give the new extremist parties a chance at the helm, because just voting more "doing nothing" by the parties who stood by and enabled this, just guarantees the same issues aggravating. So then what else do you expect to happen at the elections? | | |
| ▲ | pocksuppet an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Can you elaborate on "migration" being an "issue that plagues the voting population"? | |
| ▲ | someonebaggy 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I expect a variety of more extremist parties - some offering to kick out the immigrants, others offering to delete all regulations and let the free market prevail, others offering to delete billionaire wealth. Like in the Berlin mayor vote this week, where both the extreme left seize-billionaire-wealth party and the extreme right ban-immigrants party both won sizeable shares (in fact the extreme left party won a plurality) | | |
| ▲ | PorciiVorbesc 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Like in the Berlin mayor vote this week, where both the extreme left seize-billionaire-wealth party And how is Berlin planning to seize the wealth of billionaires? Because I've seen this play out before, where every supposed promise to tax the billionaires, just ends up as another tax burden on the working class high earners and entrepreneurs who already pay the highest tax rates and are the furthest thing possible from billionaires, but still gets political support from the unwashed masses since it's entirely envy driven. | | |
| ▲ | someonebaggy 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | How is the ban immigrants party going to ban immigrants? How is the delete regulations party going to delete regulations? Last time the extreme left party had any power, it set a city law saying rent couldn't be higher than a certain amount, but the landlords sued the city government in federal court, and won because apparently there is a constitutional right for landlords to collect as much money as possible. |
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| ▲ | RobotToaster 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > despite his party having a historic majority. 33% of the vote is a historically low majority, so I guess you're technically correct. | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | As you're well aware, we have a first-past-the-post system and what matters in this system is the number of MPs. | | |
| ▲ | RobotToaster 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | A system where the government is chosen by 33% of voters has no legitimate claim to be democracy, that is, rule by the people. | | |
| ▲ | Analemma_ 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is not an actionable claim. What are you supposed to do in a multi-party system if nobody wins a majority and voter turnout is 60%? Just have anarchy until someone wins an outright majority? | | | |
| ▲ | foldr 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's a substantially larger vote share than any other party: https://electionresults.parliament.uk/general-elections/6 The electoral college would throw up equally weird results if the US didn't have a fully two-party system. (How's that working out?) |
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| ▲ | MadrasThorn 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | UK does not have freedom of expression. Both the UK and the US fail in rule of law regarding "all citizens and leaders must be equal before the law, supported by strong anti-corruption measures." UK has stated separation of powers but the crown reportedly nudged Starmer to step down. The king is the one that can formally appoint government following elections. Prince Andrew had and other royals have control over military forces in the UK, canada, australia, nz, ect. You can hem and haw all you want but the crown has constitutional and ceremonial control over the armed forces. The King gives 'the kings speech' which is used to set the governments legislative agenda to parliment. The king also gives royal assent to bills passed by parliment. Black spider memos The king also steers diplomatic efforts abroad. every single aspect of UKs democracy can be cut by the King whenever he wants. | | |
| ▲ | spiralpolitik 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The UK constitutional system is built around mutually assured destruction. If one part doesn't follow convention, the whole system will collapse and everyone loses. Yes, the monarch can in theory override the government by blocking legislation, but won't because one time a monarch did that, he ended up with his head cut off. If a monarch ever did that in modern times, Britain would quickly be a republic. Everyone follows convention and stays in their lane and doesn't rock the boat. The last time a bill didn't get royal assent was in 1708. It simply hasn't happened since. 'The kings speech' is written by the government usually based on the manifesto they were elected on. The monarch just reads it. The monarch's role in modern times is to advise the prime minister and act as continuity advisor across governments. While the monarch may offer commentary on legislation, they won't block it, and the government is free to ignore it. Same with the armed forces. It's ministers that control the army not the monarch. In modern Britain, the monarch's role is purely ceremonial. The monarch cannot order the armed forces into conflict. Usually legislation gets blocked in the House Of Lords (the unelected chamber) which is why a lot constitutional reform is focused on cleaning that up, but it's game of inches because neither party wants to lose influence. While the constitutional system may make it seem like the monarch has a lot of hard power, in reality they have none, and since the civil war can't do anything without the approval of Parliament. | | |
| ▲ | someonebaggy 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Last time I'm aware the monarch did something, it was the firing of the entire Australian parliament and calling a snap election. Which is quite a sensible thing to do if parliament is completely jammed, and since it was reasonably sensible and popular in the situation it happened, nothing happened to the monarch. (Imagine if someone had the power to do that to Congress! Maybe they'd actually do stuff again, and we'd have to rename them to Progress) This is an alright use of a monarch IMO. | | |
| ▲ | spiralpolitik 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes. This fits with the UK monarch's modern role which is to ensure continuity of government. The UK example would be if the UK government lost a vote of confidence, the monarch might ask the opposition parties to see if they could form a government that could pass a vote of confidence to avoid a general election. Although parliamentary math makes such a scenario unlikely in practice. On the UK end I don't think the monarch can sack the Prime Minister. While the UK monarch could strongly suggest to a Prime Minister that it's time to resign. Usually when a Prime Minister gets to that point, it's usually the end of the road and they won't last much longer anyway even if they pushed forward. The monarch has a lot of soft power which under the modern system is usually deployed to ensure continuity of government rather than in a controlling manner. (The Australia, Canada, etc constitutions gives the monarch different powers than the UK and it's usually delegated to whoever is the governor for that nation) |
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| ▲ | avianlyric 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah, I don’t think you have any understanding of how the crown interacts with the rest of the UK government. There are some oddities, but the idea that the crown could actually exercise any of their powers, without causing a constitutional crisis, and UK rapidly becoming a republic, is farcical. > The King gives 'the kings speech' which is used to set the governments legislative agenda to parliment. You’re aware that the kings speech is written by the government, not the crown. It’s how the government lays out its parliamentary agenda to parliament, the civil service and the country at large. Heck there’s a whole ritual around the crown having to beg permission to enter the commons etc to emphasise the point that crown enters and speaks at the pleasure of the commons. > The king also steers diplomatic efforts abroad. No, the king is given instructions by the foreign office on what he’s expected to help with. Every trip and meeting the king does is checked and cleared by the uk government, and they can and have vetoed trips before. > every single aspect of UKs democracy can be cut by the King whenever he wants. You should watch the Jonny English movies, they’re a great documentary on how this could happen. | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | What is the actual purpose of freedom of expression in a democracy? Is it being able to call people N-word online with no repercussions, or is it being able to organise, form political parties, and change the country? If it's the former, then indeed the US has more of it. If it's the latter, the UK has three new major parties with very different policies that openly and vocally oppose Labour, Conservatives, and Libdems. Mainstream media regularly broadcasts their views. I might strongly disagree with those views, but these parties are clearly freely operating political organisations. How is the US doing with viable non-Dem and non-Republican parties? I won't comment on your Crown conspiracy theories. | | |
| ▲ | zer00eyz 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > What is the actual purpose of freedom of expression in a democracy? Is it being able to call people N-word online with no repercussions, or is it being able to organise, form political parties, and change the country? What is the difference between the two? Because you're going to make a cultural argument and NOT a legal one. The C-word is one you throw around (and the Aussies to) but would cause an American woman be pretty upset. You seem perfectly fine with its use, but we frown on both terms socially but they are strictly legal. Defamation VS political speech would be a better comparison, and I could make the argument that Americans being more lenient are better off with our freedoms. | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Being as charitable as possible: there is a lot of difference between - swear words - slurs - speech enabling political organising …which is not a matter of "upset". |
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| ▲ | OkayPhysicist 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | From your list of purposes about freedom of expression, you're missing "the ability to criticize powerful individuals". If you cannot prove, in a court of law, that your statements are 100% true, you can absolutely lose your shirt in a defamation suit in the UK. It's so egregious that the US had to pass a law specifically shielding American free speech from the UK's libel laws. (to their credit, in 2013 they improved their laws substantially, such that you can no longer be found liable for provably true statements) In the US, in contrast, you can say pretty much anything, as long as it plausibly enough true that the plaintiff can't prove you don't believe it. "Donald Trump is a child rapist" is an example of speech that would not be protected in UK courts. Sure, I can point at all his visits to Epstein's Island, and his running child pageant shows, and complaints made against him to establish that it's not unreasonable to believe it, but I cannot prove in a court of law that he did it. So in the UK, he would win a defamation suit against me. On the flip side, here in the States that is quite safe to say in a public forum. It's quite difficult to prove a negative, and even if they passed that bar, they would then need to prove to a court that I did not believe that statement. |
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| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That's government theatre, not democracy. Here's the reality:
https://x.com/flying_rodent/status/2102527889556291773 And also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Wilson_plot_allegations | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Calling big changes in power, substantive shifts in policy, and constitutional changes "government theatre" to then link to "Flying_Rodent" on twitter as "reality" is just comically unselfaware. | | |
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| ▲ | drnick1 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | And yet, you were ordered to stay home during coronavirus and threatened with fines if you did not comply. Also, the Internet is censored by your ISPs, you increasingly need to prove your age/identity to do anything online, and it isn't clear for how long you will be able to work around that with VPNs. Apart from that, the UK truly looks like a democratic paradise. | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Parliament has absolutely no constitutional limits on it. It can and has made retroactive laws that are not allowed in the US. | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Parliament does have constitutional limits on it (for example, see timetabling powers or Erskine May), even if it can't pass acts that will bind future Parliaments. The constitution being (largely) unwritten and changeable doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The result is substantially more democratic, as per the list above. | | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Please explain the constitutional limits to Parliament in more detail. The result seems substantially more chaotic. And then there is the fact that the entire legal frame work is based on The Crown. If the king or queen killed someone they would have to prosecute themselves. This is the exact opposite of democracy. | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Parliament is not in control of its own timetable, for one. Bit of a restriction on exercising its sovereignty, innit. And yes democracies can be chaotic. It's entirely mad to me that I can make a list of easily verifiable, massively important examples of democratic processes in this country in the last few years and someone would just come up with a hypothetical like "but what if King kills someone" like it's somehow not just equal but has more weight than the list. Mad | | |
| ▲ | UltraSane 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm sorry but someone claiming to have such an amazingly democratic government when they have a monarch who has absolute personal immunity from civil and criminal proceedings under UK law and whose face is on all the bank notes is a bit silly. This is the least democratic thing possible. Queen Elizabeth used Queen's Consent many many times to prevent or modify laws she didn't like. An investigation by The Guardian revealed that more than 1,000 parliamentary bills were subjected to Queen's Consent or Prince's Consent during Queen Elizabeth II's reign. The British government feels like a delicate standoff between Parliament and the crown. The monarchy has used its structural privilege to quietly protect its own wealth and status while maintaining the public illusion of having no power. | |
| ▲ | zer00eyz 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > "but what if King kills someone" Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard would like a word. | | |
| ▲ | foldr 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | What would the argument even be here? That the UK can never be a democracy because of what Henry VIII did in the 16th century? |
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| ▲ | AlexandrB 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > We just changed our PM, despite his party having a historic majority. Yeah? The country got to vote for the PM? I don't recall there being a national election. Having a bunch of party insiders replace the leader who won an election with an unelected one is the opposite of democracy. | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | We have a representative democracy, not a direct one. I invite you to consider the rest of the points, too. | | |
| ▲ | AlexandrB 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | The leader of the party stepping down (for non-medical reasons) should trigger an election. The fact that it doesn't is scandalous. We have the same problems in Canada where we elected a minority Liberal government that has now magically turned into a majority due to legislators switching parties. How can someone flip from the opposition party to the ruling one and still claim to be representing the will of the people who voted for them? | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Funny thing is, your desired system is a constitutional change and it's entirely feasible in the UK if there's enough support for it. Which is exactly my point. |
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| ▲ | MrBuddyCasino 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Quite the opposite, the problem is democracy: "In democracy, one side always wins and makes its opponents illegal." “The claim to legality renders every rebellion and counter-measure an injustice and a legal violation or ‘illegality.’ If legality and illegality can be arbitrarily at the disposal of the majority, then the majority can, above all, declare their domestic competitors illegal, that is, hors-la-loi… Whoever controls 51 percent would be able legally to render the remaining 49 percent illegal… and to treat partisan opponents like common criminals, who are then perhaps reduced to kicking their boots against the locked door.” Carl Schmitt, Legality and Legitimacy https://x.com/Tool_Being/status/2102495046260150596 | | |
| ▲ | asah 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | this is not limited to democracy - every form of government does this to varying degree, and in fact democracy tends to be (perhaps marginally) better than say autocracy. as is often said with a sigh, "democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other." to me, democracy is really about giving the masses enough feeling of agency, because the alternatives are either revolution and/or disengagement / low productivity / low creativity, and both are "bad for business" i.e. cannot compete with democracies. China will be an interesting test of this theory. Notably, in China they have a terrific education system and the government is able to attract/retain smart ambitious people. Another test will be the power of governments to thwart revolutions using digital and kinetic assymmetry. The masses have individual hackers and pea shooters and the government has digital armies and autonomous drone swarms. In turn, since revolution is off the table, governments don't need the overhead of democracy. In the US, we see this with the rise of Executive Orders for example. | | |
| ▲ | MrBuddyCasino 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > to me, democracy is really about giving the masses enough feeling of agency, because the alternatives are either revolution and/or disengagement / low productivity / low creativity, and both are "bad for business" i.e. cannot compete with democracies. I'll pick this one because it is the easiest to refute (but the others are wrong, too). What form of government was predominant during the most creative and productive periods in recent history, namely the industrial revolution and the Italian Rennaissance? You even mention China yourself, but do not update your priors. | | |
| ▲ | throwawayqqq11 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | You cannot compare these eras, where one offers a zeitgeist of scientific progress and opportunity and the other of global scale problems met with ignorance and stagnation. The tides will turn in china, once that positive notion gets suffocated by misaligned elites. |
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| ▲ | smolder 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The problem is not democracy, it's corruption fueled by sociopaths who insist on controlling everything and buy politicians. The problem with everything in society is that many people are fundamentally broken. Plenty of people aren't broken and can get along without committing crimes or plotting to take over the world. | |
| ▲ | vkou 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The magic of democracy isn't that it promises good governance, the magic of it is that it provides a clear avenue for a peaceful transfer of power that is exercised every few years. Most functioning democracies require more than 51% of a senate and six justices and a criminal head of state to completely unravel. | | |
| ▲ | MrBuddyCasino 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > The magic of democracy isn't that it promises good governance, the magic of it is that it provides a clear avenue for a peaceful transfer of power that is exercised every few years. We are currently witnessing the dismantling of this illusion. The reason western governments increasingly engage in lawfare against the opposition is that for the first time since the post-WWII order, they are threatened by a real regime change. | | |
| ▲ | vkou 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > for the first time since the post-WWII order, they are threatened by a real regime change. It's only new if you are blind to post-WWII history. In the western world alone, there was no shortage of incredibly vicious fights with communist/socialist groups in in post-war Europe (Most prominently in Italy and Greece), to say nothing of the various domestic decolonisation movements (The British and French governments were scared shitless of them), secessionist movements in Quebec, Spain, that entire thing in North Ireland (the understatement of the century), the Civil Rights and universal suffrage movement in the US, collapse of prominent dictatorships in Portugal and Spain... State-threatening social upheaval is nothing new, we just have a particularly shitty flavour of it right now, as fascism and fascist-adjacent movements are currently waxing. | | |
| ▲ | MrBuddyCasino an hour ago | parent [-] | | You are mixing every western conflict you've heard of in one big bucket, stir vigorously and call it an argument. What do wars of religion (which happen under most forms of government, except perhaps communism) have to do with democracy? What is "the Civil Rights and universal suffrage movement in the US" if not a continuation of the leftist politics that Roosevelt started? What has the authoritarian Franco regime got to do with "democracy"? None of this makes any sense. | | |
| ▲ | vkou 27 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Most of the events I've listed cannot be described as 'one side wins and makes the other illegal'. Many of them ended with compromises, or partial success, or complete success, but the losers were not banished from public life. (They just held on to coalitions of waning influence. Some of them are resurging.) > What is "the Civil Rights and universal suffrage movement in the US" if not a continuation of the leftist politics that Roosevelt started The CRM was bottom-up, with personalities like Malcolm X and MLK both scaring the shit out of the government, due to their ability to mobilize millions of people. Did they win and make the other side illegal? No. Did the dipshits they fought win and make them illegal? I'd say no to that, as well. |
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| ▲ | Quarrelsome 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| yes, its not legal to harass women getting an abortion. That includes being in a given range of an abortion clinic and making a political statement. What part of that is hard to understand? People know the laws and yet they still do it thinking they're some sort of Catholic Batman. You want to change the law, do what we all do; write to your fucking MP, join a political party, campaign, donate. Don't harass someone vulnerable in a difficult state of mind and impose your morality upon them. Respect their choice and their agency. In the US you can be arrested for the following speech: * true threats of violence * incitement to break the law specifically * crimes of speech: soliciting crime, fraudulent representations, lying under oath * stalking/cyberstalking So lets quit this idea that its some abstract of "political orthodoxy". Stop framing crime as "difference of opinion". Hate speech and incitement to racial/religious hatred or violence are crimes here. People publishing hate speech online and then being all Pikachu face when they get arrested for breaking the law are not victims. The highest profile pretend victim was the wife of a Conservative Councillor who posted a message online that hundreds of thousands of people saw that encouraged people to set fire to hotels where asylum seekers were staying. The judges sentencing remarks were particularly eye opening given she demonstrated a relative lack of respect for the court ("If I get in trouble then I'll play the mental health card"). |
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| ▲ | cobbzilla 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Do you worry that if your worst enemies were in power, something that you or a friend might say would lead to an arrest? Who decides what is hate speech? Apparently the current UK government has decided these things (among others) are so hateful their perpetrators must be arrested: - private WhatsApp chats between friends - standing still in public with hands folded in prayer Be careful when you give sharp tools to the golem. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Do you worry that if your worst enemies were in power, something that you or a friend might say would lead to an arrest? I don't appreciate this thin end of the wedge argument. Policy is more pragmatic. Read up on what most of mainland Europe had to do in order to suppress all the Hitler Youth children after the second world war. They oppressed their free speech and it was the right thing to do. > Who decides what is hate speech? The rules are there for everyone to read[0]. If you want a rule of thumb, don't discriminate based on any aspect of the Equalities Act 2010 and you'll be fine. [0] https://www.cps.gov.uk/prosecution-guidance/racist-and-relig... > standing still in public with hands folded in prayer Don't whitewash this shit. You know full well what we're talking about is specifically going to a place that you know you're not allowed to be in, doing a protest you're not allowed to do. Playing with the line is still taking the piss and the UK believe in the spirit of the law to avoid all this mucking about with the specification. Otherwise I can block traffic all day and make up some bullshit excuse as to how I'm somehow innocent. These are feeble excuses that Palestine in Action would be proud of. > private WhatsApp chats between friends As far as I'm aware the only case of this being the primary cause of a conviction was when police officers were arrested for grossly offensive messages. However they weren't charged with hate speech but rather: improper use of a public electronic communications network. 12 weeks in jail. They were discovered because it was the same group chat that Wayne Couzens (also a police officer at the time) was in, who is currently serving a life sentence for the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard. | | |
| ▲ | like_any_other 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The rules are there for everyone to read[0]. If you want a rule of thumb, don't discriminate based on any aspect of the Equalities Act 2010 and you'll be fine. As usual, the written law only gives a vague outline, so people like you can defend it with motte-and-bailey. In practice, stickers with slogans such as "It's OK to be white" and "Natives losing jobs; migrants pouring in" get you sent to jail [1,2]. But I'm sure you're okay with banning "race hate" or "incitement", so here's a question for you - do you think "Black People!" by the poet laureate of New Jersey, Amiri Baraka, should be banned? Maybe even is already banned in the UK, since I'm sure their anti-hate laws are enforced evenly? Here are the lyrics: You can’t steal nothin’ from a white man. He’s already stole it. He owes you anything you want, even his life. All the stores will open if you will say the magic words. The magic words are: Up against the wall M-Fer, this is a stick up! [..] Run up and down Broad Street, Negroes, take the shit you want. Take their lives if need be, but get what you what, what you need. > we're talking about is specifically going to a place that you know you're not allowed to be in, doing a protest you're not allowed to do. "The law is good because you know you're not allowed to break the law." - yes, thank you, we know how laws work. That doesn't mean we agree with all of them. If she's not intimidating or obstructing anyone, she should be allowed. > However they weren't charged with hate speech but rather: improper use of a public electronic communications network. "Impropriety" is an even lower and vaguer standard than "hate". > They were discovered because it was the same group chat that Wayne Couzens (also a police officer at the time) was in, who is currently serving a life sentence for the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard. But he did not discuss or organize that murder on the chat, so this is just a sleazy attempt at guilt by association. Want to apply that standard evenly? Do you think everyone that shared group chats (where "improprieties" were spoken) with e.g. Tyler James Robinson, or Bryanna Dutcher, or Shannon Brandt, should go to jail? "Should" here refers to a moral, not legal standard - we're discussing what the law should be, not what it is, so don't bother with "laws in USA are different" counterarguments. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51zn2l33r9o [2] https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/03/04/the-tyrannical-jail... | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, how is [1] problematic exactly? Is this some yank shit where you're still so soft that you've managed to think that Neo-Nazism is ok? > so here's a question for you - do you think "Black People!" by the poet laureate of New Jersey, Amiri Baraka, should be banned? Yeah understanding the UK in 2027 based on a poem written in 1967 New Jersey USA is a great idea. Keep them coming squire, what's next: should I write a paper on volcanism based on the lasagne I cooked last night? It was quite hot. > That doesn't mean we agree with all of them that's fine. Just don't wutface when you get arrested and roll around on the floor like some kid in social acting all wounded. > But he did not discuss or organize that murder on the chat, so this is just a sleazy attempt at guilt by association. Is this really the hill you want to die on? Protecting a bunch of people who were good mates with a rapist murderer cop and participated in his group chat. Lets dig further, I wonder what they talked about: * sexually assaulting women * blaming domestic abuse victims for repeated abuse oh yeah. Huh. | | |
| ▲ | like_any_other 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Good job dodging all my questions. > you're still so soft that you've managed to think that Neo-Nazism is ok Just make sure next time you defend censorship, that you open with "It's OK to be white" is Nazism and jailable, instead of hiding behind "don't discriminate and you'll be fine!" | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ofc you lead with the softest one: * Britons Build Britain * Equality or Quality – you can only have one * Natives losing jobs; migrants pouring in * We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066 * Diversity – designed to fail, built to replace * Mass immigration is white genocide * They seek conquest not asylum * There is a war on whites * Second-generation? Third? Fourth? You have to go back * Stop immigration, start repatriation. Ofc many of these are in violation of the Equalities Act 2010. Idk wtf is going on in the US. Maybe you've conveniently forgotten WW2 but this shit is a thousand times more destructive then the thing it fears. If this shit isn't stamped on it gets us all killed. Nazism should always be illegal due to the tolerance paradox. It seeks to strip away people's rights, dehumanise them and murder them by initially claiming there is a specific filter that you're safe from. It then takes that same standard and applies it internally to any opposition without the filter. My grandparents were both part of that war. I haven't forgotten, you clearly have. | | |
| ▲ | etcetcetcetceta an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | If you think some words or even some of the above actions are worse than what has been happening you must truly live in ignorance. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 35 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I live in a continent that suffered the ravages of Nazism. Its a brutal philosophy that begins with a comforting lie: * What if; the problems in my society are not caused by people like me, but some external force? Its extraordinarily tempting to humans, especially those who find self-reflection uncomfortable. So instead of property prices being a consequence of decades of NIMBYism and failure to build social housing for decades (uh-oh that sounds like something I might have voted for), it's reframed as an issue directly linked to immigration (ahhhh, very calming, I never wanted that!). The problem is that its a mental health issue pretending to be a political movement. When a politician decides to discard all scruples and exploit this comforting lie in politics, they build a self-consuming state. By definition this state cannot be wrong and therefore everyone else is to blame. So when it makes mistakes, as all states do; it finds a scapegoat and once its done with the first scapegoat, it moves onto another, then another, then another, then another. We're all on this list, its just a case of order. If you try to push this then you'll get us all fucking killed you muppet. Nazis need therapy, not politics. Alternatively go first wave and find yourselves early victims like the brown shirts. There's no loyalty in these movements. |
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| ▲ | like_any_other an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Ofc you lead with the softest one Isn't it great how the judge didn't clarify which ones were illegal? Even when they send you to jail, they won't tell you exactly what is and isn't illegal to say! Meanwhile newspapers and academics and employers can disparage and discriminate against whites as much as they want, and it's never "hate": Images of whiteness: can we imagine a world without white eyes? - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/dec/11/images-... The Psychosis of Whiteness by Kehinde Andrews review – provocative but problematic - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/17/the-psychosis-... 'Abolish whiteness' academic calls for Cambridge support - https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/25/abolish-wh... How white women use strategic tears to silence women of colour - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/08/how-wh... The invention of whiteness: the long history of a dangerous idea - https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/20/the-invention-o... UK Gov Welcomes in Muslim Who Urged “White Genocide” - https://www.frontpagemag.com/uk-gov-welcomes-in-muslim-who-u... The Labour Party candidate for Clacton, who is standing against Reform Party leader Nigel Farage, once described white man tears as his “favourite drink.” - https://www.thepublica.com/uk-labour-party-runs-anti-white-w... * Wanting to hire ‘fewer white men’ for a job is not discrimination; An employment tribunal dismissed an unsuccessful jobseeker’s claim that he was rejected because he was a white man* - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/19/wanting-to-hire-... > We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066 I'm not sure why you included this one. I don't think any of them should be banned, especially in the wake of the estimated 250k predominantly-British victims of predominantly-Muslim rape gangs, but this one is a simple statement of fact, the best estimate given current trends: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/white-briton... > Maybe you've conveniently forgotten WW2 We fought WW2 so that we could continue to exist as a people. It's the lessons of WW2 (not that they should be needed) that teach us how dangerous such censorship is. And the men who fought in WW2 for the Allies were pro-segregation and against interracial marriage, maybe you should have talked to your grandparents instead of getting your history from Hollywood: https://www.afhra.af.mil/Research/Military-Integration/ How do I feel about the country today? My two uncle’s gave their lives for this country, my father’s health was broken from gas in WW1. I did my little bit, my brother did his national service in the Canal Zone in Egypt. What has been our reward? EVERYTHING we fought for has been taken from us and given to foreigners, we are now third rate citizens in our own country. Our enemies rule us from Brussels and we are being colonized by ** and *** in this country. There is not one political party that is prepared to stand up and fight for our country and indigenous population. The holocaust is now being carried out on us. What are my main regrets? That I didn’t fight for Hitler, at least he was for his own people.* - https://archive.org/details/the-unknown-warriors (out of all the testimonies in that book, only about two are positive) ‘Greatest Generation’ runs counter to its wholesome image in survey on race, sex and combat during World War II - https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/12/20/greatest-g... | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 8 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Isn't it great how the judge didn't clarify which ones were illegal? Even when they send you to jail, they won't tell you exactly what is and isn't illegal to say! How many times do I have to reference the Equalities Act 2010 before you actually bother to read it? > Meanwhile newspapers and academics and employers can disparage and discriminate against whites as much as they want, and it's never "hate" It's not my fault you don't know what the definition of "whiteness" actually is. I appreciate its not a useful choice of word to use in the modern era, but you need to appreciate it was coined in the 1920s. I trust I don't need to explain to you how that world looked. That a segregated underclass might choose language to describe their oppression that doesn't take into account the feelings of their oppression. However I do believe that children today use these concepts in a more malicious fashion. The most ugly of which is misunderstanding the sociological idea that "racism without power isn't relevant" and failing to understand it ONLY applies to structural racism and not interpersonal racism. But hey, racist ideas are tempting to everyone I guess, which only goes to show how alike we all actually are. > I'm not sure why you included this one. Cos its bullshit and shows people can't count I guess. Also I love how "plurality" is an alien concept that is lost on everyone that talks like that. > I don't think any of them should be banned Well tough shit, they are banned because this is a European country and we're not as soft as the yanks are on this, we thankfully still have dread for the spectre of Nazism. > And the men who fought in WW2 for the Allies were pro-segregation and against interracial marriage, maybe you should have talked to your grandparents instead of getting your history from Hollywood: Hollywood, do you realise I'm British? Here's[0] the relevant part of history that you clearly have no understanding of. Its an informational film shown to American soldiers when they came over to the UK to prepare for Normandy. I've timestamped the relevant section for you.
There's also the "Battle of Bamber Bridge"[1] which shows it play out in real life. There was a stark difference between the US and the UK at that time around the subject of segregation that you are entirely blind to. What's laughable about Americans is that they're weird about race. Like _really_ weird and they have zero self awareness about it. Nazism is a scourge and if you understood European history and its post war cultural context you'd appreciate that the lessons we took from the war are very different from the ones you've seemed to fixate upon. Freedom is about not being killed because you're different, not about being free to harass and abuse minority groups. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyYSBBE1DFw&t=1520s [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bamber_Bridge |
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| ▲ | ImJamal 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Don't whitewash this shit. You know full well what we're talking about is specifically going to a place that you know you're not allowed to be in, doing a protest you're not allowed to do. Playing with the line is still taking the piss and the UK believe in the spirit of the law to avoid all this mucking about with the specification. Otherwise I can block traffic all day and make up some bullshit excuse as to how I'm somehow innocent. These are feeble excuses that Palestine in Action would be proud of. I don't think you know what happened. At least one case was a person standing quietly outside on a public sidewalk while not impeding traffic or people walking. At best you can say it is loitering. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | within the range of an abortion clinic. The UK has the spirit of the law. We don't tolerate people dicking about with the definition. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce is the campaign director of 40 Days for Life Birmingham, which organises prayer vigils near abortion clinics, and a leader of March for Life UK. She wasn't just "standing and praying". There's significant context. | | |
| ▲ | ImJamal 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | First, she was not, at the time of arrest, holding a prayer vigil. She was by herself. Second, if it was a legitimate arrest why was she was paid out by the government for a settlement? Also, this has happened to multiple people who haven't organized prayer vigils in the past, not that it would matter if they had. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome an hour ago | parent [-] | | Isabel Vaughan-Spruce is an anti-abortion campaigner who is playing with the line that intends to prohibit what she does. This is theatre, its artificial news. Its someone intentionally going out into the world to play victim. Focusing on people like this is not a healthy way to understand the world. DON'T PROTEST ABORTION NEAR OR OUTSIDE ABORTION CLINICS. Its that simple. If you're an anti-abortion campaigner, don't do your shit near abortion clinics. I think the prosecution failed as it transpired the clinic had actually closed. Which demonstrates the issue. She was trying to get arrested so it didn't even matter that the clinic was operational. | | |
| ▲ | ImJamal 30 minutes ago | parent [-] | | You are only focusing on one person not the others because you think it is the strongest case. Second, you support thought crimes and I am opposed to them. She was not yelling or holding a sign. Literally just thinking. That is the very definition of a thought crime. We have such a fundamental difference of an opinion on the thought crime issue that focusing on this specific case isn't going to go anywhere so continuing this conversation is just going to be a waste. I hope your thoughts don't get you arrested. |
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| ▲ | weatherlite 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Hate speech and incitement to racial/religious hatred or violence are crimes here Unless it's hate speech against "Zionists" and/or Jews , then it's tolerated, often celebrated. Not all hate speech is created equal. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Shallow dredge of people arrested for anti-semitism in the UK: * 19 May 2026 - John Haynes - Arrested after incidents of threatening behaviour; convicted of racially aggravated harassment involving antisemitic abuse and threats. * 9 May 2026 - Dylan Ossei - Arrested after shouting threats at Jewish people in Enfield and assaulting a man; pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, fear of violence, and harassment. * 7 May 2026 - Adam Bedoui - Arrested after filming and verbally abusing a Jewish man in Hackney for social media; pleaded guilty. * 7 May 2026 - Abdelkader Bousloub - Arrested in the same Hackney incident; pleaded guilty to a religiously aggravated public order offence. * 6 May 2026 - Wayne Kelly - Arrested after shouting antisemitic abuse and threats at Jewish men walking to a synagogue in Salford; pleaded guilty. * 1 May 2026 - Unnamed 57-year-old man - Arrested on suspicion of threatening a Jewish man while using racially offensive language in London; police reported he was released on bail. * 23 April 2026 - Shafiq Rahman - Arrested after shouting antisemitic abuse and threatening a Jewish man in Slough; pleaded guilty to offences involving words, assault, and damage. * 5 April 2026 - Munir Saleh - Arrested after reports of shouting antisemitic abuse and spitting at people in London; charged with aggravated threatening behaviour and assault offences. * 24 March 2026 - Jean Charles Tavius - Arrested after reports of shouting antisemitic abuse and throwing a rock at a moving car; charged with threatening behaviour and damage offences. * By 23 December 2025 - Unnamed 28-year-old woman - Arrested on suspicion of an aggravated public order offence over alleged antisemitic comments in a Manchester protest speech. The police announcement did not report a conviction. * 3 October 2025 - Aiden Stanley - Arrested over a social media post about Jewish people following the Manchester synagogue attack; pleaded guilty to sending a grossly offensive message. * September 2025 - Thomas Webster - Arrested over social media posts that included antisemitic messages; pleaded guilty to offences involving material intended to stir up hatred. * July 2024 - Lee Cole - Arrested after investigators found antisemitic and other hateful social media posts; pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred offences. * 3 April 2024 - Damion Bennett - Arrested over antisemitic videos posted on Gab; pleaded guilty to distributing recordings intended to stir up racial hatred. * March 2024 - Zakir Hussain - Arrested after police linked him to an X account posting antisemitic comments and support for proscribed groups; pleaded guilty to public order and terrorism offences. * November 2023 - Elliot Jackson - Arrested following reports of antisemitic social media messages; pleaded guilty to malicious communications. * February 2023 - Robert Taylor - Arrested following an investigation involving verbal abuse of Jewish people, antisemitic material, and other conduct; pleaded guilty to public order and terrorism offences. * February 2022 - Jaden Milne - Arrested over a conference speech containing antisemitic and other hateful material; pleaded guilty to public order and aggravated behaviour offences. * 12 October 2021 - Oliver Riley - Arrested after posting extremist material, including antisemitic content, online; later admitted communications and terrorism offences. > Not all hate speech is created equal. This victim cosplay is rancid btw. It's painfully transparent. It's ugly to listen to two awful sides claiming the other is the _real_ problem and how their side is so victimised. These are the mannerisms of teenagers in social care. Please develop some level of responsibility and self-respect. |
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| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | nullbio 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | https://www.foxnews.com/world/blogger-arrested-sharing-anti-... So this is normal in your eyes? | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | reading fox news to understand the uk is not normal at all. You should seek help or better sources than "entertainment news". | | |
| ▲ | nullbio 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | You're too dumb to understand how media works in the year 2026, and I'm the one who needs to seek help. Hilarious. Fox News didn't break this story bud, the entire internet reshared it from UK sources. Please don't lock me up for saying you're dumb by the way. I know that's probably a serious hate crime in your eyes. | | |
| ▲ | devilsdata 31 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, but if the information exists elsewhere, why not find a better news source? Fox News, and any company derived from Newscorp/News Limited are bad enough that I would say more than half of their articles are entirely false. Find the same article on AP news, or Reuters or something. |
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| ▲ | fragilerock 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > they already arrest over 30 people a day for speech that offends the prevailing political orthodoxy. This is completely false and comes from a commonly misrepresented statistic; '30 arrests a day' is plainly the arrests made under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 which includes things like online stalking and harassment. I hope you're just mistaken and not willfully implying that those issues are merely offensive to the prevailing political orthodoxy. |
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| ▲ | 468854259853 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | How convenient for the terrorist regime in the UK that wrongthink falls under Malicious Communications. | |
| ▲ | gib444 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can't argue with data that doesn't exist, either. The arrests are not broken down, so nobody really knows. Both sides can argue their opinion You can argue it's highly improbable that all arrests are over 'hurty words online', definitely – but anyone claiming zero arrests seems improbable too. I do also feel it's quite convenient that the lack of breakdown allows people to clap back with accusations of encouraging stalking and harassment. | | |
| ▲ | fragilerock 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | No one is encouraging you to argue with data that doesn't exist and no one is claiming that no arrests are being made over political speech online. I don't disagree with your third paragraph but it seems clear to me that my original statement stands and it's quite suspicious that you responded it to with these strawmen. | | |
| ▲ | gib444 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > no one is claiming that no arrests are being made over political speech online Just very heavily implying it, thinking they're being clever | | |
| ▲ | fragilerock an hour ago | parent [-] | | Nothing I said implied that. I just pointed out that the original claim was false, it's utterly moronic and devoid of nuance for you to think that by doing so I'm implying that the opposite of the claim is true. |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | crimsoneer 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If they'd wanted the data, they could have submitted an FOI and asked for it, but the journalists far preferred to just run "30 people a day arrested for hurty words" rather than "this is quite complicated but potentially problematic and we should dig into it" | | |
| ▲ | dboreham 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes but anyone who posts something about "loads of innocent people arrested for just voicing their opinion (man)" is implicitly disingenuous. I say that because the first time I heard someone say this (a friend who lives in the UK no less) I thought "that doesn't seem right" and so did a few minutes of Google searching. And of course it isn't right. People have been arrested for being threatening a.holes which seems perfectly fine. For comparison here in the middle of the US we have a lady in town who liked to send death threats (via mail) to the town manager, based on his chosen policies for street crossings, or something. Well she was arrested and put in jail for a while. She said she really didn't mean it, it was all a joke. Still in jail. |
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| ▲ | foldr 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well, the breakdowns are according to the offences the arrests come under. The police can't really release official figures for "arrests that would seen unjustifiable to libertarian-leaning HN readers", or "arrests for things that would not be a crime in the US". |
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| ▲ | sdcfgy 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think this is mostly being misrepresented. There is speech and there are consequences for speech. If I incite or state that I am going to commit violence, stalking, rape or murder, should I face consequences? Yes. That's what is happening. There are outlying cases which will be used to discredit this perspective but reality is there are a hell of a lot of very not nice people out there making active threats and inciting hatred and violence. And everyone gets their day in court. |
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| ▲ | gadders 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You can get arrested for making a joke that might offend someone in a private whatsapp group. Doesn't even have to be political. I think this is the link where the chap asks for legal advice: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1vxkcic/poli... |
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| ▲ | amiga386 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Reddit often contains completely made up but believeable bullshit, so I wouldn't cite anything you see there. Every single post or comment could be a creative writing exercise to gain karma or sow discord. However, if you want hard evidence what that post was claiming, I can give you a real citation from 2018: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46106224 > A house linked to an "offensive" video showing a model of Grenfell Tower being burned on a bonfire has been searched by police. Six men [...] were arrested on suspicion of a public order offence and have been released under investigation. A video shared on social media shows a cardboard model of the tower being set alight by a laughing crowd. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46112026 > Can I be offensive in my own home? > Basically, yes. [...] if you make offensive comments in your home and they are recorded and posted online, it might be possible that you could be prosecuted. | | |
| ▲ | amiga386 an hour ago | parent [-] | | And in case you wondered what happened next, one of the six men charged went on to be tried in 2019, was found not guilty, and was acquitted. However, the CPS appealed against his acquittal, and it was quashed in 2021: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58054431 He was retried in 2022, where this time he pled guilty and was given ultimately a minor slap on the wrist: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61160971 Ultimately, everyone is happy: - people who saw the video and were offended by it are happy "something was done" - the CPS is happy because they gott'im - the courts are happy because they got paid double - the guy accused of offending people is happy this multi-year ordeal where the CPS won't stop hounding him until he confesses his guilt is finally over - MPs are happy they didn't need to change any laws no matter how unreasonable they were All good, right? Are we also going to spend years prosecuting someone who mockingly reenacts the sinking of the Titanic? Or is that somehow water under the bridge? |
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| ▲ | someonebaggy 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Since Reddit is now login-walled, can you share what it says? | | |
| ▲ | gadders 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Does this work? ---- Police have arrested and questioned 3 of my mates from our private WhatsApp group chat. They're asking to speak to me too, but I'm working abroad. They've all been arrested and had interviews under s127 of the Communications Act. There's 4 of us in a group chat on WhatsApp where we chat and also make some edgy jokes and stuff. We're two white, an Indian and a black guy who studied at uni together. All three of them have been arrested and interviewed today. I don't know anyrhing more than this. This info comes from their gf and fiance. I'm working abroad but I have received a WhatsApp message and attempted call from a UK officer who identified himself wanting to speak to me about an ongoing enquiry into a reported issue. My mate's fiance says it was reported by another guy's ex who he dumped 4 weeks ago. I'm inclined to believe that as the officer's message said he was acting on a report. The thing is, we shared a lot of edgy jokes beteen us - but it was literally just the 4 of us in a private fucking chat. Some of the jokes we made were racisr, but they were all banter directed at each other. Others were just taking the piss out of the major news events like saying "Who needs people flying planes when our own shitty buildings just burn themselves down?" about Grenfell. It's crass, but it's literally just us talking shit in private. These messages arent public or anything. I can't get through to any of the guys. Is this something the police are actually going to try and prosecute?! At this point should I just not come home? I'm dual Austrian-British and Austria doesn't extradite to the UK. | | |
| ▲ | PorciiVorbesc 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I'm dual Austrian-British How so? Since Austria doesn't (typically) allow dual citizenship. > Austria doesn't extradite to the UK. With what guarantee? In 2013 Austria forced the landing of the plane of the Bolivian president on orders from the US because they had intelligence Snowden might be on board. So if you think Austria will hesitate to ship your ass to the UK if you piss off the wrong elites, just because there's no official bi-lateral extradition agreement, you're kidding yourself. If needed, they'll just make up a spin story that you're some major child molester or something, to justify their actions in the media and reassure the public on why the violation of your rights was justified and they'll never ever do it again to anyone else as long as they behave, pinky promise wink-wink. In short, the people with guns can break the rules at will with little to no accountability. |
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| ▲ | makingstuffs 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Anyone old enough to remember the London riots should remember the fact that the acting government issued a D notice to all broadcasters, preventing them from reporting the issue. This is part of what started the death of BBM and proliferation of news via social media. You’d go on Twitter and see all the reports or riots and burning buildings then go to the BBC and… nothing. All of this is to say that successive British governments, over a span of decades, have been actively destroying freedom of speech and a right to privacy for its citizens. With AI and the rise of populism combined with the absolute decimation of the average person’s attention span it is going to get a lot worse. |
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| ▲ | sdcfgy 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is wrong. The BBC were reporting on it in detail both online and on TV news. I know this because I was actually working on contract for them at the time. What we have is a lot of people changing the narrative since to discredit the BBC and divide everyone further. | | |
| ▲ | makingstuffs 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | The BBC started reporting after the riots were in full swing and social media was already awash with information. The point at which the BBC started reporting was the same as all other major news outlets: after the point that they just looked daft for not reporting it. I know this as my videos of the riots took my little blog from 50 - 100 views a day to thousands per minute… |
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| ▲ | Quarrelsome 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Mark Duggan was a gangster, so people trying to frame it as some sort of execution seemed to not understand that the police were seemingly doing their job. Chris Kaba's death also resulted in protests and demonstrations despite the evidence[0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1ydQg9NbsQ |
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| ▲ | rich_sasha 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I’d say it is a very low quality article. There is very little detail about what the offending speech actually includes. For example: > The wife of a conservative politician was sentenced to 31 months in prison for what police said was an unacceptable post. What did she say? The article does not elucidate. Inciting violence for example is not legal. I believe spaces around abortion clinics are also to be free from demonstrations. US free speech absolutists seem to vehemently disagree until you say something unkind about Charlie Kirk or ICE. The low point might be quoting Elon Musk. This is true in any context, but in particular here. The scandal is real, but none of it is about people being arrested for non-politically-correct speech. There’s plenty of otherwise real stuff to poke the UK about. |
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| ▲ | ljf 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't have time to dig up her post - but she was calling on people to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers - she had around 10,000 followers, and her post was read 300,000 times: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yl7p4l11po | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | oh and in court she rested her entire defence on the tragic death of one of her children a decade prior. However her device had been confiscated and her WhatsApp messages to a friend included "if I end up in court I'll play the mental health card". | |
| ▲ | ctjr 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I am disappointed in most reporting on this case. I wish they would include what she actually said. Here is the full tweet: > Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the
bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government
and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these
families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it [0] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Connolly... | | |
| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | mschuster91 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 31 months for that is ridiculously low, especially with the rising prevalence of stochastic terrorism. | | |
| ▲ | dgroshev 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | To add to this, she only served 40% of her sentence before being released. | |
| ▲ | AlexandrB 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | "Stochastic terrorism" accusations and charges only seem to flow in one direction. > “Kill those motherfuckers. Let the streets soak in their red, capitalist blood, dude.” - Hasan Piker on landlords | | |
| ▲ | ozlikethewizard 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That Hasan guy is American right? Unsurprisingly British laws need not apply. I don't think that statement would go down too well here, but even then context is very important for incitement to violence. Considering people were and did set fire to hotels I think it was worthwhile investigating. | | |
| ▲ | AlexandrB 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | > context A guy Hasan didn't like got shot in the neck during a public debate. A pair of Jewish embassy workers were gunned down while walking to a museum. A health insurance company CEO was shot outside of a hotel. I could go on. In the UK there was an attempted murder when someone attacked a protestor burning a Koran, but luckily the UK authorities convicted the victim of the attack with "asking for it"[1] so justice was served. [1] https://www.gbnews.com/news/london-muslim-man-spared-jail-tu... |
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| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | alexfoo 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > What did she say? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2910vrrygo | |
| ▲ | lemmetellya 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | She advocated to burn refugees alive. | |
| ▲ | graemep 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | UK abortion clinic laws go a lot further than banning demonstrations. 1. Holding up a sign offering help to any women being coerced into an abortion is illegal.
2. Standing silently on the road near one can be illegal.
3. parking a car with a bumper sticker near one can be illegal. The whole paragraph about Musk and rape gangs is nonsense, of course. The biggest rape gang ever convicted in the UK was entirely white. Musk and his ilk only care about rape when the rapists are not white. On average immigrants are slightly less likely to commit sexual assaults (obviously averaging across many different groups). > What did she say? The article does not elucidate. She called for hotels housing asylum seekers to be burned. I think she is a nasty racist but I also think the sentence was excessive and I am not convinced it was a serious incitement to violence (and that was not what she was convicted of). > US free speech absolutists seem to vehemently disagree until you say something unkind about Charlie Kirk or ICE. Not American, and I entirely support the right of anyone to make unkind comments about anyone else. You are right that many people apply different standards to their own side, but right wing Americans are are from alone in that. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I also think it was excessive but the judges sentencing remarks[0] add some context. The primary issue is that the categorisation of the offence was high, but she could have done a better job of showing remorse. She didn't clock that they'd be able to read her WhatsApp messages. [0] https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/R-v-Lucy... | |
| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Musk and his ilk care about dog whistle topics that can be used to trigger people into supporting them. The emphasis on 'rape gangs', 'immigrants' and 'asylum seekers' isn't just objectively untrue, it's cynically manipulative. It's fundamentally a toxic and calculated form of marketing and branding. And also a cynical distraction from - for example - the Epstein story and Musk's appearances in it. There was a lot of this around Brexit. Many supporters voted to 'stop them coming over here'. The government then ramped up immigration - a lot. For some reason the press failed to report this. | | |
| ▲ | someonebaggy 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I would have thought immigration was mainly a factor of the immigrants, not the government. Do people not support free movement? In China you're assigned to a city or rural zone and you can't leave that area. |
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| ▲ | gadders 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >>The whole paragraph about Musk and rape gangs is nonsense, of course. The biggest rape gang ever convicted in the UK was entirely white. Musk and his ilk only care about rape when the rapists are not white. They only care when the rapists are coming from outside the UK, and being protected by the authorities. >>On average immigrants are slightly less likely to commit sexual assaults (obviously averaging across many different groups). I think that is called picking your sample carefully. No-one is worried about EG the Chinese or the French. |
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| ▲ | IslandRebel 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The British Government has be consistently violating people's rights for decades and probably well before that. Recently I saw a clip on GB News where one of their analyst said that anyone that opposes a war and/or conscription with Russia will need to put in prison. The show host, Jacob Rees Mogg and Lord Redwood saw nothing wrong with the statements. None of these people have been in the armed forces and are too old to be called up for conscription. |
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| ▲ | RobotToaster 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > and probably well before that. 319 years, 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days to be exact. | | |
| ▲ | IslandRebel 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why would I or anyone else care about the exact duration? It doesn't add anything. Generally this applies to all governments anyway. The British state is just the most blatant at it currently, as they are losing control. |
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| ▲ | crimsoneer 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Sigh, this is an absolute bullshit figure and people need to stop parroting it - it's 30 arrests under the mal comms act which might include for example, phoning your ex girfriend to say you're coming to stab her. Or phoning in a bomb threat via telephone. Or any number of pretty terrible things it's perfectly reasonable to get nicked for. Or posting on Facebook telling everyone we should set the local migrant hotel on fire. These are not political prisoners. https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/select-communications-off... |
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| ▲ | maxehmookau 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > The wife of a conservative politician was sentenced to 31 months in prison for what police said was an unacceptable post. Pretty sure she called for the murder, by arson, of asylum seekers although the article missed that bit out. |
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| ▲ | someonebaggy 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What was the speech? I can't read beyond the paywall. |
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| ▲ | timhh 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yeah come on, that figure has been widely debunked. |
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| ▲ | clarkmoody 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Subjects, not citizens. |
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| ▲ | rorylawless 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is a deeply deranged opinion piece. The author ties himself into knots to conflate a tiny number of high profile instances involving social media posts with harassment and other negative behavior involving electronic communication. |
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| ▲ | cjrp 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| How many of those 30 are unarguably "bad" posts though? Threats of violence and so forth. |
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| ▲ | erkt 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 250 years ago some people made some bad posts about throwing some tea into the harbor. Calling for revolution isn't a bad post. | | |
| ▲ | _verandaguy 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This comment is remarkable in its lack of nuance. There's a huge spectrum of, let's call it, aggressive speech, ranging from trying to organize against an oppressive figure or class, to just punching down against people and groups who have either done nothing to the author of that speech which warrants an aggressive response, or where the target of that speech is already a victim. My opinion is that free-speech absolutism is a policy position that causes much more harm than good, and which erodes social cohesion. There should be perpetual debate about where we as a society accept where the line is between speech which is allowed and that which is disallowed. And to wit, on the tea party analogy: how's that working for the US now? | |
| ▲ | monkey_monkey 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Big fucking difference between saying you want to throw some tea into a harbor vs inciting that hotels containing asylum seekers should be burnt down. | | |
| ▲ | enedil 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's charitable to say that nobody was saying anything except for "let's drown that tea". | | |
| ▲ | monkey_monkey 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Weird that you think it was legal for people to say "kill the king" back then. | | |
| ▲ | UpsideDownRide 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Diffrence being state did not have control to stop disgruntled people from organizing. And it might be that preventing such formations is actually detrimental long run. | | |
| ▲ | someonebaggy 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | The state did everything they could to prevent it back then, just as they do right now. | | |
| ▲ | iamnothere 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Using this line of argumentation, you might as well start enslaving (sorry, “impressing”) people into your navy again. | |
| ▲ | cucumber3732842 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Everything they could was a lot less back before the fruits of industrial productivity allowed people to have their basic needs met while giving a huge fraction of their surplus to the state to do what it pleases with. |
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| ▲ | Catloafdev 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Buddy you aren't addressing the comments that are replying to you. You gotta stay on-topic. You keep coming up with random things to compare to that make no sense to anybody but you. Who said it was legal to say "kill the king"? |
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| ▲ | djha-skin 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I mean, in terms of property damage, the Boston Tea Party was a pretty big deal. Probably in arson territory in today's dollars. |
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| ▲ | wooger 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'd argue that nothing is "inarguable" | | | |
| ▲ | liveoneggs 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If 27/30 meet the bar for "bad" is that an acceptable level of policing speech? 19/30? | |
| ▲ | PowerElectronix 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I dislike harassing, threats, hate speech and everything wrong that people yell to other people. But I dislike even more that we decide that the solution to it is to pass laws prohibiting speech, and even more that the ones in charge of passing those laws are very incentivised to prohibiting criticism to themselves or their policies or their ideologies. | | |
| ▲ | someonebaggy 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why is speech a specific, precise red line? Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre (and I'm aware that the case which coined this phrase was completely stupid, but the phrase itself stands) should probably not be legal, even though it is speech. | | |
| ▲ | iamnothere 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why not? If shouting “fire” causes no harm, what’s the issue? And if it causes harm, isn’t that adequately served by civil lawsuits? Not everything on earth needs to be a criminal matter. |
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| ▲ | testfrequency 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The chronically online anti-uk folks like to turn a blind eye to anything that’s justifiable for matter of principal. It’s why the US has such a problem with gun control and laws. I could argue everyone should have guns, and it’s just bad people, right? | | |
| ▲ | WmWsjA6B29B4nfk 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Right. Switzerland has 100x guns per capita than UK and 2x less intentional homicides than UK. | | |
| ▲ | testfrequency 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why are we comparing Switzerland? Do you want to try again with the United States? Let me give it a go; Switzerland has higher gun homicides than the UK. |
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| ▲ | nullbio 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | GJim 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Considering they arrest people for saying "there are only two genders" Citation please. (EDIT: Citation of an arrest just for saying that, not an arrest for incitement.) | | |
| ▲ | tredre3 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | He's clearly quoting the Graham Linehan case where a group of police officers arrested him for his tweets that did include the only-two-gender thing. However, as you suspected, that's not all he said. Linehan suggested in another tweet that people should punch transwomen in the face if they refuse to leave the female bathroom. | | |
| ▲ | dspillett 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It was the balls: 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.
By inference he thinks that if someone makes you feel uncomfortable, by doing nothing illegal nor immoral (in the mind of a right-thinking person), punching their genitalia is acceptable. If I ever meet him I think I might feel quite uncomfortable, which would be unfortunate. | |
| ▲ | nullbio 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm not actually. How did you get "arrested for tweets" from my post where I said it was a video of a 20-something year old having a debate with someone at a pub? I'll take that as confirmation that it happens all the time though - since this was evidently not an isolated case, as you have pointed out. | |
| ▲ | failbuffer 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Unpopular opinion: your right to free speech includes the right to advocate for violence, so long as it's not imminent (as in inciting a riot). That includes your right to support Hamas or Israel, your right to support abortion, your right to support defensive gun use, your right... well actually your right to support a lot of things given how readily innocuous things are described by opponents as "violence" or "assault". Fortunately in the U.S. this is recognized under Brandenburg v. Ohio. |
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| ▲ | Quarrelsome 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Considering they arrest people for saying "there are only two genders" Can we please stop using a country you clearly have limited understanding of, as a prop in your morality play for your own activism? Bear in mind that these "takes" are often sensationalised with useful context removed in order to better sell the message to yank markets. If you're gonna chat shit about my nation, please afford it some level of respect in doing some research of conflicting views instead of parroting whatever twaddle the demagogue du jour is bleating. | | |
| ▲ | nullbio 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I can't help it if facts about your country offend you. Maybe if you cry some more, you'll feel better. What I said is no secret, there are thousands of videos of police in the UK arresting people for saying the most trivial benign things. Perhaps that is what you should have issue with, not the people who mention it in passing. > please afford it some level of respect in doing some research of conflicting views There are no "conflicting views" to research. You're just upset that reality doesn't align with your dogma. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | You said: > Considering they arrest people for saying "there are only two genders" I invite you to come try that out. You'll be fine unless you're a complete penis about it. What you should probably clock is that Graham Linehan doxxes and harasses people online with his followers brigading. If you recall the bail conditions when he got arrested was that he had to stop posting on twitter for its duration. THAT'S the headline issue, he's a publisher with a big audience. He's not just saying it at the back of a pub, and he's one of those obsessives that posts about it all the time. Do you see the difference between what you said and what he gets in trouble for? Reducing it to just saying "there are only two genders" is taking harassment, brigading and doxxing and putting it in a nice frock so you can pretend its a victim. I've lived in my country for decades and have added nuance to this subject. What gives you the confidence that makes you think you're better informed about my nation that I am? | | |
| ▲ | nullbio 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The fact that you're quite clearly either ill-informed, or blinded by your own biases. I'm not sure why you keep mentioning this Graham person when I had never mentioned them. Seems like you're trying to reframe using a cherry-picked example. https://www.foxnews.com/world/blogger-arrested-sharing-anti-... Do you think someone should be arrested for sharing a meme that says f** Hamas? Or did you not know about this? It's common knowledge that the UK is arresting people on the daily for harmless things that no one actually cares about. Should someone go to jail for saying "fuck serial killers"? Is that a hate crime too? | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Do you think someone should be arrested for sharing a meme that says f* Hamas? If you had an idea about our laws you'd realise that's not the problematic part. The issue is under the Equalities Act 2010 religion and ethnicity are protected characteristics. So its the "fuck Islam" and "fuck off to a Muslim country..." that is problematic here. FYI using Fox News to try to understand the UK is like trying to run air traffic control with a Fischer-Price chatter telephone. Stating that I am ill-informed or blinded by bias when citing a yank source (who by their own definition are "entertainment news") as opposed to a serious broadcaster from the UK is quite the look. | | |
| ▲ | nullbio 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | You didn't answer the question. Do you not know how media works in the 21st century? They're republishing from UK sources. It was just the first hit on the SERPs because they have better SEO. Go find the original sources if you really want to. The point is that your country is putting people in prison for the dumbest reasons, and you apparently see no issue with it. | | |
| ▲ | Quarrelsome an hour ago | parent [-] | | > You didn't answer the question. Maybe don't use a source from the 1960s then. Victim cosplay is gross, so its no surprise I don't respond to it. Find me a contemporary source if you want to compare apples to apples. You want me to respond with some mostly irrelevant reference to ancient Greece or something? Cleon probably has a couple of tangential quotes we could explore. Yeah I know the source. Its the Torygraph. Once a mighty broadsheet but these days they print any old shit to get those boomer clicks and make them all upset. Tell them the world is falling apart to soften the blow of impending death. You're treating hospice fare as actual news you spanner. Anybody that is worth listening to doesn't focus on the Hamas part like that source does. They focus on the parts that violate the Equalities Act 2010 because they know what they're talking about. |
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| ▲ | DavidNielsen 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | On TERF island, I seriously doubt that. |
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| ▲ | DiogenesKynikos 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't know, but the UK has criminalized expressions of support for Palestine Action. They're dragging grannies off to prison just for holding up signs, and literally accusing them of supporting terrorism. | | |
| ▲ | 4ndrewl 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Well they proscribed PA, and showing support for a proscribed organisation _is_ a crime. | | |
| ▲ | NetMageSCW 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | But should that be possible? | | |
| ▲ | roryirvine 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Many (perhaps even most) countries ban public acts of support for what they consider to be terrorist organisations. For example, the USA maintains a list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and penalities for providing support to those organisations are rather more severe than the in the UK. Whether or not Palestine Action should be proscribed is a different matter - their most serious action to date has been simply damaging military aircraft. Personally, I'd tend to say that proscription is too harsh a response for property damage with no violence against a person. I guess in the US that anyone doing something similar would simply have been killed, rather than their organisation being banned. That's not exactly great either! |
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