| ▲ | gambiting 3 hours ago |
| I mean in a broad sense if you read any news about the UK it might looks like a dystopian surveillance state where you get arrested for criticising the king(I kid you not - I've had multiple American coworkers ask me if this is true). And yes, UK has some awful laws around this. Yes it has put people in jail just for planning a protest before. Yes you can go to jail for not disclosing your passwords. But what you read on the internet is almost laughably out of proportion - no, you won't get arrested for posting a meme about the king. |
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| ▲ | nostrademons 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| FWIW the same applies to flying in the U.S. as long as you're not a person that the government cares about. I haven't had any issues with either TSA or CBP since 2011 (when, apparently, being multiracial with facial hair made me look Middle-Eastern and looking Middle-Eastern is a cardinal sin at U.S. ports of entry). Neither has anyone I've observed at the airport, and that's thousands of people per flight, and I fly about 3-4 times per year. There's plenty of stories on the Internet, and I don't doubt the stories are true, but the Internet can easily make a 1-in-a-million occurrence happen every day (indeed, given the sheer numbers, a 1 in a million occurrence does happen every day, it's just that it's unlikely to happen to you). |
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| ▲ | subscribed an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yeah, it's true, you should go back to your coworkers and straighten it up. 6 people got arrested for trying to say "Not my king!" BEFORE his coronation: https://londondaily.com/not-my-king-anti-monarchy-protesters... Before they had a chance of protest. After months of discussing the planned protest in details and getting a green light from the Met Police: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65542558 It's not like Republicans in the UK are a violent group, unlike far right coddled by the same Met police. 52 people were arrested DURING the coronation, for example for holding a placard "not my king": https://londondaily.com/over-52-anti-monarchy-protestors-arr... Police arrested despite KNOWING it's baseless and frankly illegal: https://novaramedia.com/2025/03/11/police-officer-who-arrest... Tell me some more how it isn't arresting for criticising the king. Oh, well, technically he wasn't a king yet.... but that's even worse to be fair. |
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| ▲ | dmitrygr 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > news about the UK it might looks like a dystopian surveillance state where you get arrested for criticising Might it "seem" that way because it is that way? https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-a... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/22/britain-has-beco... https://freespeechunion.org/news/more-than-62-000-people-hav... Oh, and your government itself openly states it on record, too: https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2025-07-17/debates/F807C... |
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| ▲ | gambiting 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | How many of those people got arrested for criticising the king? Not that this is some kind of great bar to clear, but if you're going to argue with what I said, argue with what I actually wrote. | | |
| ▲ | dmitrygr 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ok then. Soviet Union had free speech too. Nobody got arrested for criticizing Reagan or Churchill. Clearly the point is clear. Why nitpick pointlessly? | | |
| ▲ | gambiting 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | You've missed my point entirely, by a country mile. Someone above asked me how it was nonsense. I responded that people parotting the point about getting arrested for criticising the king is nonsense - like for instance, my American coworkers asking if that's true, because they read it somewhere on the internet. That is nonsense. If you want to argue with this point please do, but also please observe the rest of my comment and especially the parts that I haven't actually said. | | |
| ▲ | subscribed an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Let me repeat reports about these arrests here as well, for your convenience. 6 people got arrested for trying to say "Not my king!" BEFORE his coronation: https://londondaily.com/not-my-king-anti-monarchy-protesters... Before they had a chance of protest. After months of discussing the planned protest in details and getting a green light from the Met Police: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65542558 52 people were arrested DURING the coronation, for example for holding a placard "not my king": https://londondaily.com/over-52-anti-monarchy-protestors-arr... Police arrested despite KNOWING it's the member of public doesn't commit any offence: https://novaramedia.com/2025/03/11/police-officer-who-arrest... I'm afraid you unwittingly misled your coworkers. | | |
| ▲ | Dylan16807 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | They already said you can get in trouble for [planning] protesting. They said you won't get in trouble for online criticism. Your links about protests aren't proving anything. | | |
| ▲ | subscribed 37 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It's not in the comment I'm responding to, >> Someone above asked me how it was nonsense. I responded that people parotting the point about getting arrested for criticising the king is nonsense Protesting against the king is criticising the king IMO. I didn't see his quantifier, since I would agree that online critique of the king in particular is not yet penalised. Not surprising you're implying bad faith though, if we're splitting the hair this thin. (and this specific planning of the protest was so heavy handed, because it belong to one of the two naughty protests, environmental. The second naughty one is protesting against the genocide. The rest is okay) |
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| ▲ | gambiting an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm aware you are still going to twist what I said to prove your point, but I really don't fancy repeating the exact same point for the third time just so you can say something unrelated. |
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| ▲ | 2ahg7 38 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, and no one mentioned parroting the king in this thread. Journalists under known observation from the state, which the UK does arrest from time to time, were mentioned however. You can use other European countries like The Netherlands, which is a lawless police state with a liberal cover, as well. |
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