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Irishman arrested in UK for 'causing anxiety' by retweeting meme
- groffee 4y agoIt's this kind of overreaction by the police that's actually 'radicalizing' people.
- lampshades 4y agoIt needs to radicalize people. This is the beginning of tyranny.
- xdennis 4y agoI wouldn't say it's the beginning. There's nothing new about it. Apparently the police have recorded over 100000 incidents of 'non-crime hate crimes'. I like Andrew Doyle quote on this: > In this new woke era, our law enforcement agencies are not content to police crime, but also non-crime. This is a huge relief, because for a long while now too many citizens have been not breaking the law and getting away with it.
- maxehmookau 4y agoNon-hate hate crimes are the latest cause celebre of the GBNews lot. It's their latest grift and HN would do well to see past it.
- xdennis 4y agoI don't agree with being harassed by the police over something that's literally not a crime. But I'm not sure why GBNews would be grifting with it. Conservatives have been in power in the UK for 12 years now and they've done nothing about it.
- notavalleyman 4y ago> the police have recorded over 100000 incidents I just think it's worth rebutting, that the police are not combing twitter for anything borderline. These are complaints that the public are making to the police. There is a relevant law about malicious comms, so the police are obliged to open a case. > this new woke era Give me a break. Members of the public are taxed to provide a police service. If they feel like they're a victim of malicious communications, they're allowed to go to the police. Nothing to do with being "content to police non-crime" or being "woke".
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago>These are complaints that the public are making to the police. There is a relevant law about malicious comms, so the police are obliged to open a case. >Give me a break. Members of the public are taxed to provide a police service. If they feel like they're a victim of malicious communications, they're allowed to go to the police. Nothing to do with being "content to police non-crime" or being "woke". And you act as though that's a good thing? 100k people going through the work of reporting what is likely mostly unfunny boomer memes and thinly veiled trolling is a much stronger indictment of the current state of affairs than 100k instances of bored cops going looking for violations of some broad law from the comfort of their desks.
- notavalleyman 4y agoYou don't know that at all. For all you know, 99% are legitimate targeted harassment or part of a larger course of offending behaviour. It's snap uninformed judgements like yours that are the problem, imo
- throwaway0a5e 4y agoI might not know but it seems like a very fair default assumption given the history of anti-nuisance laws in meatspace.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y agoPolice were already enforcing non-crime for a long time. They get called when there are black and brown people in spaces that makes the neighbors nervous. I don’t think police being used as an enforcement mechanism for non-crimes should be critiqued as if it’s a new phenomenon. It’s old and it sucks and it should be critiqued on that.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoI would say that tyranny has already begun, we are long past its beginning. It has been a slow creep.
- dmitryminkovsky 4y agoIt's as if the standards of what is and what is not acceptable are slowly shifting...
- Overtonwindow 4y agoTouché. Would that not mean in acceptance of the tyranny? I think a large segment of the American public sees that something is wrong, and that the creep has become too much. If anything that might be our saving grace, so I hope we are not trapped in an Overton window.
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- ohgodplsno 4y ago
- bobsmooth 4y agoYou know, it was only a few decades ago that promoting gay rights was considered obscene speech and illegal. Remember that the laws used to arrest meme posters can also be used to arrest civil rights activists.
- lampshades 4y agoJust take a step back and listen to yourself man.
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- kelnos 4y agoThe problem in this case is that the people it's radicalizing are transphobic assholes. I wish someone who didn't suck was responsible for poking at this terrible law.
- felurx 4y agoI don't know if radicalization is the right word or the process that should be happening, but there is something important to note here: The radicalization that happens in circles like the one that image comes from, in addition to or instead of the one (I hope) you mean, is not one against undemocratic practices, abuse of power etc. It is one against people who are trans (or queer in general). And that radicalization does harm. It leads to shame and discrimination. It leads to violence. And yes, it _kills_. Please make sure you (and others) know what radicalization you mean, and make sure that the one that is happening is correct.
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- bergenty 4y agoCompletely disagree. It’s echo chambers online that are radicalizing people.
- eloisius 4y agoPartially true, but this kind of police overreaction is definitely giving the Alex Jones' of the world ammo. When those characters go on about the thought police of the new world order or whatever, it's not without a little truth.
- bergenty 4y agoThose characters will lie if they have to create content. This should not deter people from putting reasonable measures in place.
- undersuit 4y ago"It's not my fault I'm a Nazi, I had to become one to fight the government from cracking down on Nazis."
- vorpalhex 4y agoOne of the Nazi propaganda moves was to align Jewish people with pedophiles. "Well obviously pedophiles are bad. You wouldn't defend a pedophile! Unless.. you are a pedophile?" Of course you are going to label your opponent in unfavorable terms. But here's the thing - why do you need to? If your opponent is actually a murderer, you don't need to talk them up as a Sig Heiling murderer who hates gay people. You can just be truthful and call them a murderer. If the only offense you have is to slander your opponent... you might be making up the outrage.
- cloverich 4y agoI think you are saying it is bad to equate some undesireable behavior with nazism, because its equivalent to he nazi's equating Jews with Pedophiles, then labeling people as pedophiles to push an agenda. If that's right I think its also relevant in this case the person's tweet was of an actual swastika.
- vorpalhex 4y agoIs Wikipedia a Nazi organization for having swastikas depicted on their entry? Clearly the meme was not pro-Nazi.
- undersuit 4y agoAre we Nazis for talking about swastikas? What was the meme. Context is key to understanding complex thoughts, even ugly bigoted ones, I'm concerned that you aren't including it. Lawrence Fox is not an LGBT ally in any way, and his tweet and the retweet of this news story were not funny, they were attacks. 'Haha so funny, it's not pro-Nazi, it's just saying other people are Nazis.'
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- icare_1er 4y agoProbably explains why <1% of bike and car thefts are solved in UK's big cities.
- moffkalast 4y agoAnd why the 'glas' in Glasgow refers to what you'll be shanked with.
- lb1lf 4y agoI thought all those cameras were supposed to curb that kind of crime? Even on the short walk from my hotel to $CUSTOMER in Southampton (hardly a metropolis), I counted more than forty surveillance cameras - and those were only the ones I could casually spot during a ten-minute walk...
- mytailorisrich 4y agoI think thieves quickly realised that public CCTVs do not actually prevent them from stealing and don't really increase their chance of being caught, either... In many (most?) cases public CCTVs are scarecrows.
- sebzim4500 4y agoThe cameras aren't put up by police. Almost all of them are put up by businesses in order to lower their insurance premiums.
- switch007 4y agoThere are loads of council-run cameras all over the UK, and they cooperate with/escalate to the police. A map of them in Southampton: https://www.southampton.gov.uk/council-democracy/council-data/data-protection/cctv-map https://www.southampton.gov.uk/council-democracy/council-dat... ("Comprises over 300 cameras, covering car parks and public spaces in the city and district", "Control room staffed 24 hours per day, 365 days per year") 320 in Plymouth: https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/crimepreventionandantisocialbehaviour/cctv https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/crimepreventionandantisocialbeha...
- Semaphor 4y agoI guess the UK are having their pimmelgate [0]. That was quick, it took 3 years in Germany. [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-german-politician-police-raid/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-g...
- xnorswap 4y agoUK is a decade ahead of you there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_joke_trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_joke_trial
- Semaphor 4y agoThat was for the last law, doesn’t count ;)
- notahacker 4y agoWe've had this stuff for decades; the law is a 2003 one based on a 1988 one. People have been jailed under the relevant law for tasteless jokes about murder victims, fined for sharing a pictures of a police officer with a penis drawn on his head and held in cells overnight for sharing material offending the memory of dead soldiers. The difference is this time the person indirectly insulted gay people, so people get to shoehorn "anti-woke" talking points into it.
- jscipione 4y agoThere is no longer any freedom of speech in the UK.
- zimpenfish 4y ago> There is no longer any freedom of speech in the UK. Where was it ever guaranteed in the first place?
- mnd999 4y agoIm my experience most people that complain about free speech are, like the guy in the article, wanting to use it to be an asshole. As such, it’s hard to have much sympathy for them. I’m certainly not going to stand up for his right to share homophobic nazi propaganda.
- proffeatur8 4y agoWhat has more in common with nazis? 1) Cancel culture, pronoun politics, militarized political correctness 2) retweeting a meme that highlights the connection those things have with nazis
- krapp 4y ago2. Cancel culture is mostly concerned with giving a voice and power to the set of marginalized groups that the Nazis despised. The Nazis could not have cared less about pronouns and would have murdered trans people on sight, and they were anything but politically correct for the time, which is why the world went to war against them. Meanwhile, they would easily have retweeted a meme (in other words, engaged in propaganda) meant to disparage and slander homosexuals, although obviously they wouldn't not have associated homosexuality with Nazism or used the Swastika, as they considered homosexuality to be abhorrent. They most likely would have used a Star of David or other Jewish symbol instead.
- davb 4y agohttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-62352502 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-62352502 > Hampshire Constabulary said, after initially visiting the property, officers agreed to return on Thursday. > When they returned they were prevented from entering so arrested the 51-year-old suspect so they could interview him about the alleged offence. > He has since been released and will face no further action.
- _-david-_ 4y agoWhile it is good he was released, the police never should have been there in the first place. There was no reason to question a person over a tweet like that.
- nibbleshifter 4y agoIts an offense under the Mal Comms laws (which are daft). If there's a report, they have a duty to go interview the person, and usually its closed as NFA. In this case, he arranged for a voluntary interview (which would have leas to NFA), then reneged, which creates the conditions under PACE that necessitate an arrest so interview can be done quickly. All of which would have been explained to him. He wanted to get arrested, or had a room temperature IQ. Or both.
- _-david-_ 4y agoAre you suggesting that the police have an obligation to interview every person accused of hate speech? If that is the case can I report a person of hate speech every day they speak or make a post and the police would be required to interview them every time? As for him wanting to be arrested. So what? He was trying to prove a point that the trans ideology is authoritarian and the police obliged.
- dmix 4y agoSounds like a great way to harass someone legally.
- 4y ago
- throwaway98797 4y agomessed up the future is here, it’s not evenly distributed
- NotYourLawyer 4y agoThe First Amendment is pretty unpopular with progressives in the US these days, but I’m not sure this is the result we really want.
- edmcnulty101 4y agoI have a sneaking suspicion a huge portion of the U.S. population would back police arresting people over social media posts that disagree with their values.
- NotYourLawyer 4y agoA huge proportion of the Twitter blue checkmarks, maybe. I like to think the population at large is a little more sensible and circumspect. It’s great to arrest those other people for saying things one doesn’t like. But in 30 years, different thoughts may be out of fashion.
- dmix 4y agoMajor threads on Reddit typically have ~5-10% of comments removed. Anything political and it goes to ~25% [1]. When pushback gets [removed], not just downvoted, you start to think certain topics have unquestioned support. So it's easy to forget that what's mainstream or controversial on Reddit and Twitter can be very different than real life.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI disagree. I’m calling the police.
- albatross13 4y agoI think you're wrong- a huge portion of the US population just wants to be left alone. What you see on social media is just the vocal minority.
- tonmoy 4y agoYet it is the conservatives who seem to be banning books
- mixtur2021 4y agoIn the Anglosphere, it feels that many of our institutions have been captured by activists. A small minority who push an agenda and are able to silence (consciously or subconsciously) mainstream thinking.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoThe “long march through the institutions” have finally come to fruition.
- eckesicle 4y agoTyranny of the minority. It's all over society, not just in politics. A group with a small but strong preference for a choice will force the masses into that choice, even if it's worse for the majority. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Examples: you're not allowed peanuts on a plane if someone has an allergy; almost all meat on sale is halal etc.
- dmix 4y ago"It's okay when we do it" is so rampant on political forums. They instinctively react against anyone bringing up 'Whataboutisms' and 'slippery slope', like they are taboo arguments. People are far too willing to take significant risks just to get emotional gratification and appease their own outrage. Usually it's delivered with a blind trust in the system (the sort of trust you'd normally never hear re the police), that it will somehow be used mostly for good, the scope won't expand indefinitely, and the false positives are just a cost of doing business.
- nathanaldensr 4y agoYou can sum up that last paragraph as "an amazing ignorance of history and hubris."
- stjohnswarts 4y agoThe far left "progressive" movement does have control over and the ears of a lot of these large corps. They are probably less than 10% but are great at organizing. Yet one more reason to split up the megacorps in silicon valley, some other regions and more moderate parts of the US can gain some traction. This is coming from a progressive, but a progressive who also balks at controlling free speech when it isn't calling for specific violence. I also support the right of corps to kick hatemongers off their platform.
- prvc 4y agoHe should base his defense on having posted merely a regime-approved flag, and make them argue that the putative offense is constituted by displaying it in apposition to itself.
- wheybags 4y agoThe mirror is a garbage newspaper, it shouldn't be on hn. (Source: am Irish)
- tripile 4y agoSurely you’re not as Irish as the Irishman in the article…who lives in Britain…and served for 30 years in the British Army…?
- s_dev 4y agoYeah -- that was the first thing I thought. Probably has Irish ancestry but a British passport/accent.
- kevinh 4y agoUnfortunately, HN users tend not to care about the quality of news sources when it comes to "culture war" issues. This'll just turn into a platform for people to air grievances and repeat their ideological stance. If it makes you feel better, most people won't actually read the article.
- ziddoap 4y agoThis thread has several different people commenting that the source is questionable, posting other sources, explaining why this source isn't great, etc. Which is what I see, quite often, in posts that have questionable sources. Your view of "HN users" (excluding yourself from that group, presumably?) doesn't seem to align with my experiences.
- kevinh 4y agoDespite the criticism, this post is currently #4 on the front page.
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- nailer 4y agoThis seems to be the particular image in question: https://twitter.com/CygnusAmerica/status/1554654611868368902?s=20&t=dvsqxXHISghejtvTu7bXMA https://twitter.com/CygnusAmerica/status/1554654611868368902...
- wolframhempel 4y agoThe more worrying underlying problem is that western governments feel increasingly emboldened to pick and enforce ideologies again- and that's a problem regardless of the ideology. The 20st century is filled with examples of what happens when governments extend beyond their administrative mandates.
- WilTimSon 4y agoI'm more worried about how easily media spins stories that have a smidge of sense into a scandal by cutting out details and making the headline sensational. While the police overstepped in this case, the article clearly wanted this specific take to be posted to spur discussion and clicks. And we all keep falling for it.
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- itsoktocry 4y ago>While the police overstepped in this case, the article clearly wanted this specific take to be posted to spur discussion and clicks. Good to know some people are more concerned about the reporting on overstepping than the overstepping itself.
- WilTimSon 4y agoThat's not what I said. The overstepping should be dealt with, decisively. But that doesn't excuse the fact that The Mirror is a deplorable rag and absolutely does not belong on HN, considering how paltry their journalistic standards are.
- yibg 4y agoWhat is the non spun version and what details were cut out?
- notavalleyman 4y agoI don't agree that that's what's happening. A law exists in the UK about using public communications networks to send grossly offensive or indecent communications. Somebody complained to the police that this chap had maybe broken that law, and from the embedded video, it sounds like he wasn't willing to come voluntarily to the interview room. So what do the police do? Tell the complainant, sorry, you feel like you're a victim of crime but the alleged offender wasn't willing to be arrested? Nobody is picking ideologies to enforce. I don't see how the content of the supposed offensive tweet, is relevant to the decision to interview this chap under caution.
- tripile 4y agoWorth pointing out: 1. The Mirror should not be trusted. There are few trashier newspapers in the country. It’s is definitely not the sort of “source” that should be getting any airtime on HN. 2. The article is littered with inconsistencies.
- pessimizer 4y agoWorth pointing out that the mildest bit of research would show that this incident isn't even particularly unusual, that the UK College of Policing has recently issued updated guidance on the issue, and that it is a major point of discussion during the Tory leadership race. https://www.college.police.uk/article/protecting-freedom-expression-updated-guidance https://www.college.police.uk/article/protecting-freedom-exp... Writing FUD about the article just because it's in the S-n's little brother takes more effort than the googling.
- pjc50 4y agoSome actual crime for context, the UK's increase in anti-gay hate crime, including a murder: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60257602 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-60257602
- matrix_overload 4y agoThis is exactly the kind of manipulation that the elites use to divide the population: 1. Look at a large amount of violent crimes 2. Handpick the ones committed against a specific identity. 3. Declare that this makes a huge problem in the (not crime in general, not socioeconomic factors leading to crime, but a specific identity being allegedly targeted more than others). 4. Make the identity feel entitled to public attention and guilt. Give them preferential treatment and special rights. Voila! Now the public truly hates (as in doesn't like) the identity, so you can justify more identity politics, more spending, and keep the plebs distracted from the falling quality of life and other more tangible problems.
- midislack 4y agoAh the tolerant, progressive socialist left Europeans.
- Elinvynia 4y agoThere is no socialist government in Europe.
- switch007 4y agoPortugal is run by a center-left socialist government, and has in its constitution: "The Constituent Assembly affirms the Portuguese people's decision to defend national independence, guarantee citizens' fundamental rights, establish the basic principles of democracy, ensure the primacy of a democratic state based on the rule of law and open up a path towards a socialist society"
- moffkalast 4y agoAnd I with this statement affirm my decision to guarantee myself good income to open up a path towards being rich af one day. Wishful thinking.
- switch007 4y agoWell they have a socialist government, so not that wishful.
- xdennis 4y agoSpanish Socialist Workers' Party has been in power since 2018.
- kcartlidge 4y agoThis is the UK. The Conservatives have been in power for over a decade, and the previous Labour was almost Conservative in many ways. Been a long time since we had the socialist left in positions of authority.
- unixbane 4y agoWhen I hear something like this it's like when I visit a website and get a popup about cookies in my face and several banners taking up the page warning about pedantic bullshit.
- maxehmookau 4y agoThe number of people defending this guy is crazy. First off HN, don't post the Irish Mirror as a source, it's probably bullshit. Secondly, this guy posted literal swastikas made of pride flags. The Nazis killed and experimented on gay people. Tyranny is what happens when we don't confront this behaviour. Thirdly, this has been taken up as a cause celebre by such right-wing nutbags as Laurence Fox. Hacker News is better than this and if its not, I don't want to be here.
- sebzim4500 4y agoI'm sure we can all agree that the guy is an asshole but that doesn't mean he should be arrested.
- Veen 4y agoNothing that you have said, all of which I agree with, justifies police involvement. The tweeter is a moron and he is being used by right-wing ideologues like Fox to promote their agenda. But so what? Being a right-wing fool shouldn't prompt a visit from the police looking to "check your thinking," as a constable in a similar recent incident put it.
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- mytailorisrich 4y agoThe original tweet was not an insult to LGBT people in general but to a noisy fringe that is extremely intolerant and are forcing their ideology onto others. At least that's my personal interpretation. What many people object to, for instance, are things like JK Rowling being cancelled because she dared say that women may not feel safe in toilets with men. This is the sort of things that prompted the original tweet although it is obviously a provocation (being by Laurence Fox, who is notorious in the UK). Now, in any case, I don't believe that the original tweet or its thousands of retweets received a police response. And by and large the consensus seems to be that no crime has been committed. So the issue in this guy's case is that the police overreacted based on a single complaint, which they could have investigated simply by looking at the tweet...
- no-dr-onboard 4y agoI remember watching a documentary about Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to immigrate to the baltic states. The documentary talked about the effort to try to reduce the stigma of "middle east man terrorist" for the refugees because the stigma alone contributed to the mutual resentment of these people. To be clear, the doc purported that being exposed to the stigma actually encouraged violence and primed jihad-sympathy among the Islamic refugees. All this is to say that if you treat people like hateful bigots, they're likely to become hateful bigots. This overreaction seems to have the potential to do harm than good.
- xd 4y agoMakes you wonder what all the current anti-straight-white-male ideology will amount to in the long run. Hate should be called out for what it is no matter the group it's aimed at - to set a clear example of civil expectations but I don't see that happening in my lifetime if ever. Edit: I would love to have a dialogue with the downvoters - my email is in my bio.
- handsaway 4y ago
- unethical_ban 4y agoThe hell there isn't. I've had several people say things to me recently that, were the colors flipped, would be much less tolerated by the archetypical American liberal. One example was a Hispanic woman talking to me at the bar about renovating her grandma's house that she bought, and she was glad she did it. It is in an old "brown" neighborhood and she didn't want some white guy coming in and buying it. She said this without irony and also without any real anger, just as a matter of fact, to me, a white man who she presumably found decent enough to chat with.
- handsaway 4y agoThe idea that statements can have the "colors flipped" and be equivalent assumes a context where there exists racial and ethnic equality, which there isn't. A white person saying "I don't want brown people to move into this neighborhood" and a brown person saying "I don't want white people to move into this neighborhood" are only equivalent if you evaluate those statements without a social and historical context. In this example how do we think that a legacy of redlining, gentrification, and racial wealth inequality would impact the motivations of the speakers?
- upupandup 4y ago"When you do business with authoritarian states, you inevitably resemble them in some shape or form" - me
- Tao3300 4y ago> "Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. This is why you have been arrested." So I guess the UK police are going to try to arrest the entire Internet? Show me a social media post that doesn't cause anxiety.
- krona 4y agoI'm not a lawyer but my interpretation of section 127 is the 'message' which caused anxiety would not be able to be proven false or that the sender knew to be false (since it's not a definitive statement about anything in particular, or in fact a message), and so didn't break the law. The alternative avenue is the police itself thought the material is of 'grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character' which would be next-level stupidity if the CPS actually agreed with.
- basetwojesus 4y agoFirst they came for the succulent Chinese meal enjoyers and I did not speak out for I was not a meal enjoyer. Then they came for the pride swastika reposters and I did not speak out because I don’t care about shitty memes. idk the rest yet
- albatross13 4y agoYOU KNOW YOUR JUDO WELL
- elsonrodriguez 4y agoIt is noteworthy that the "meme" being shared was pride flags arranged in a swastika pattern, and that the person who originally made the image runs the Bad Law Project, whose webpage(https://www.badlawproject.com https://www.badlawproject.com) contains statements such as this: >Bad law is political ideology disguised as law. When we see police officers marching with demonstrators and waving political flags and chanting activist slogans - that is bad law. >Our Equality Act 2010 is bad law, because it does not treat all people equally and can be interpreted in such a way as to discriminate against people with certain views or beliefs. One of the people they feature on their website as oppressed by "Bad Law" is Calvin Robinson, who has this to say on twitter: >“No LGB without T” is a highly political statement. What does a mental health issue have to do with sexuality? >The trans movement is discriminatory towards women’s rights and female-only spaces. >Anime is degenerate. There’s a reason most trans activists use anime avatars. As far as I can tell it's an anti LGBT organization, and focuses on legal defense of people who engage in hate speech, and the repeal of anti discrimination laws. Whether or not an arrest is warranted is another debate, but the it's important to highlight the context of the group who made the image to understand their motivations behind creating the image, and what it implies about people who share the image.
- Veen 4y agoIt's not an anti-LGBT organization. It is an organization concerned that the police have embraced trans ideologies that don't have the support of most of the UK population. It is in many ways similar to the LGB Alliance, which has a similar position with regard to the T in LGBT. Many of its supporters are gay, including a large number of lesbian feminists who support its goals.
- nibbleshifter 4y agoThe LGB Alliance is funded by the Heritage Foundation, and are widely regarded in the UK as a thinly disguised hate group. Make of that what you will.
- gawbla 4y ago
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI see a lot of handwringing by conservatives and progressives on here about how the other “side” is coming for everyone. However my read of the relevant Irish law is that malicious communications via social networking are controlled and punishable by fines, arrest, forced removal of the posting, and forced apologies, which is a lot different than the standard here in the US. It reads like the police got a complaint that someone was posting threatening hate speech and they went to discuss it with the poster, were told to come back, then the gentleman refused to meet with the police on return. They arrested him to make him answer the questions they had because he otherwise wouldn’t. It does seem to me the law in Ireland allows for this, but the PCC argument is there are more serious crimes going uninvestigated. However I don’t see anything here that doesn’t conform with what I’ve read Irish laws are (which are different than the US, why are people discussing the first amendment here?). Is it a silly use of time? Yeah. Should the local police have done a better job prioritizing? Yeah. Is this the sign of the progressive apocalypse? No. To me this reads as “local police make visibly bad judgement call and ends up as a meme.”
- atourgates 4y agoI can't really find any better coverage of this, but this seems like a clickbait article in a highly suspect news source. One article [1] I found mentioned that there's an awareness course that "gives alleged offenders the chance to avoid prosecution." But I'm still not clear on what Mr. Brady would have been prosecuted for. Questions I have that don't seem to be answered anywhere: * What was the actual law that Mr. Brady was arrested under? * What was the actual reason that Mr. Brady was arrested? I know the officer said "for causing anxiety" - but I doubt there's a law on the books that makes "causing anxiety" a crime in the UK. * What are the actual relevant laws to arrest and detention of someone in the UK, and how are they differnet from the US? * Are there any laws about Nazi and similar hate symbols in the UK, similar to the ones that I believe exist in Germany? * I believe that free speech in the UK is generally subject to more restrictions than in the US, how does that affect this case? Whether It would be great to see an actual news article that answered some of these questions, and not just this clickbait "poor army vet arrested for memeing" stuff. [1] https://www.gbnews.uk/news/police-force-scraps-hate-crime-awareness-course-after-army-veteran-arrested-for-causing-anxiety-over-meme/350003 https://www.gbnews.uk/news/police-force-scraps-hate-crime-aw...
- nibbleshifter 4y agoTo answer your questions briefly: Communications Act (Malicious Communications) is the law he broke, it covers sending "offensive" messages online. Policing and Crime Act (PACE) is where you need to look for arrest/interview/search procedures. Very different to the US. Hate symbols usually come under Mal Comms (online), or Public Order. There is no constitutional (or any, really) guarantee of free speech in the UK.
- implements 4y agoThere’s Article 10 of the Human Rights Act: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1/part/I/chapter/9 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/42/schedule/1/part... Starts well: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.” But then: “The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to …” (lots of conditions!)
- xwdv 4y agoIt’s funny how the UK is already living the dystopian surveillance state nightmare that conspiracy theorists in America seem to dream of.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y agoThis never should have gotten to the top of HN. This paper is basically the NY Post but Irish, and this story is Facebook-feed-trolling outrage porn. @dang can you please push this off front page? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. We should add to the off-topic section: If it would feature prominently in a tabloid.
- kelnos 4y agoAlso in the guidelines you quote: > Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. So perhaps don't cherry-pick which guidelines should be followed? Please just flag the article and move on; no need to comment. Also: > Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something. Send it to hn@ycombinator.com. Your post is better served as an email.
- the_only_law 4y agoIf you can’t beat them, join them.
- everdrive 4y agoSeems to be a standard censorship case. Depending on your viewpoint, it's either irrelevant or highly relevant that the point of view being censored is an abhorrent view. Should the Nazis be allowed to march in Skokie? Should I be able to distribute my terrible views? Are views ever objectively terrible, or is it more of a matter of whether or not they clash with orthodoxy?
- civilized 4y agoI want to suggest a point to help us get past the stale "hate versus liberty" debate. This point is not directly on either side, but just needs to be a consideration. We want people to have freedom of belief, but if their beliefs lead to widespread social exclusion, that can be a problem. Like, if I have a belief that red-haired people are secretly Lizard Illuminati and must therefore be denied from jobs and public life lest they gain access to levers of power... well, if I am too successful at spreading this belief, it really becomes a problem for red-haired people. I don't know exactly how to negotiate this issue in a liberal society, but I think we need to recognize there is a real tradeoff between important liberal values here: freedom of belief versus inclusion for all in civil society. This isn't a place where you can just invoke one value or the other value and call it a day. Considerations for navigating this tradeoff would likely include 1. How common the belief is, and thus its exclusionary power 2. The factual or rational basis of the belief
- salawat 4y agoHaving looked at that meme that got retweeted, all I have to say is there are graphics designers somewhere wincing in pain and going >Ouch flag designer, you really should have seen that coming.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoMoral of the story: don’t use your real name on the internet.
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- faeriechangling 4y ago“You’re making me anxious!” Screams the policeman as he violently handcuffs the suspect, traumatized by the meme witnessed earlier.
- iepathos 4y agoPolice were concerned about the fascist-like symbol being posted so they decided to act as fascists in response. Problem solved, anxiety gone /s
- nathanaldensr 4y ago"You become what you hate."
- stjohnswarts 4y agoGod I hope the US never gets this soft. It's one thing to threaten someone in a tweet or incite violence, but this? lol
- pjfin123 4y agoAmerica is effectively the only country left with free speech/expression. Western governments had claimed for a long time to value free speech and democracy but once social media actually gave normal people the ability to compete with large media companies governments quickly changed their mind.
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- lishzen 4y agoReminds me of Karma Police: Karma police Arrest this girl Her Hitler hairdo Is making me feel ill And we have crashed her party This is what you'll get This is what you'll get This is what you'll get When you mess with us
- pvaldes 4y agoEqualing gays with nazis would fall in hate-crime land in many places. And my tolerance with this people that find pleasure in abusing of the time of random people on internet has ended long time ago. The man looks exactly like a solitary moron begging for attention (successfully). He could use his scarce and precious time in this planet in a more productive way.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y ago[flagged]
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- theknocker 4y ago
- foxes 4y agoHN and the media when some right wing scumbag gets arrested probably deservedly: NOoOo muuu freee speech aaa noo mih gubmintt rkfkdjd + countless mald posts + cope HN if its some LGBT person being oppressed by the police: Silence