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I 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 communicati

I 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.

pdonis 4y ago
> A law exists in the UK about using public communications networks to send grossly offensive or indecent communications. Why? Why is this any of the government's business?
- notavalleyman 4y ago
  One purpose of government in the UK is law writing, so the Communications Act 2003 is absolutely their business. As to why the behaviour needs legislating: because the British social contract required it, because in British society they're willing to trade the right to say grossly offensive things to people, for protection against hearing grossly offensive things. Lots of reasons, it's fine for them, you don't often hear clamour to repeal the law, they don't have the same issue with it that you do. So who are you to tell Brits that they shouldn't have a law?
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > it's fine for them, you don't often hear clamour to repeal the law, they don't have the same issue with it that you do. Why make all of this up? Just so you can call someone a meddling busybody for having an opinion in a thread that you're also posting an opinion in?
    - notavalleyman 4y ago
      The question was - why is (this legislated behaviour) any of the government's business? That's not an opinion. Ultimately it's a question of consent and the social contract. My answer, which you're critical of here, is that ultimately the government have consent of the people to enforce this law and therefore it's the government's business. It's consented by the Brits, there is not democratic clamour to rewrite that law, and it's not for other countries to impose their values here. I hope you don't think I'm being pedantic, I'm just trying to answer the question that was put to me; why, in the UK, is this a regulated behaviour
  - xdennis 4y ago
    > because in British society they're willing to trade the right to say grossly offensive things to people, for protection against hearing grossly offensive things I doubt it represents British society's desire. It's more likely a case of "when you're a hammer everything looks like a nail". MPs feel that their job is to always legislate. Let's not forget that since the 90s raves have been illegal in the UK.
    - undersuit 4y ago
      >MPs feel that their job is to always legislate. Would you rather pay them to do nothing at all, or maybe adopt the US model where they spend a year of their term campaigning on the public's dime?
      - maxehmookau 4y ago
        This is an underrated comment that made me laugh. Thank you.
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    > So who are you to tell Brits that they shouldn't have a law? Probably most people in Iran agree with the laws that gay people should be executed. Based on your "social contract" theory, that's just fine? I mean, who are you to tell the Iranians that they shouldn't have a law? Right?
    - notavalleyman 4y ago
      No, not right. UK is democratic and the elected reps' body is sovereign over law. An Iranian cannot stand for election in her region on the platform of: I am going to repeal "Islamic" law. A person can stand for election in the UK saying: vote for me and we'll repeat the 2003 Communications Act. I don't think that you didn't know this, so I don't understand why you asked it really
      - Turing_Machine 4y ago
        What you are calling "democratic" and a "social contract" others call "mob rule". Sorry, no.
- hengistbury 4y ago
  For the same reason that it's the governments business if you are grossly offensive or indecent in person. Shouting abuse at someone in public can see the law involved, and that is the same if the public space is online.
  - pdonis 4y ago
    > For the same reason that it's the governments business if you are grossly offensive or indecent in person. Ok, so why is it the government's business if you are grossly offensive or indecent in person? Why can't the normal tools people always use in social interaction handle this? > Shouting abuse at someone in public Is not what the person who was arrested in this case was doing. His tweet was not directed at any particular person. The law does recognize assault as a crime, and shouting abuse at someone in public can rise to the level of assault if the person being shouted at could reasonably believe that the shouter was threatening actual harm. But the crime in this case is not speech; the shouting isn't a crime because it is expressing an offensive opinion. It's a crime because it's a threat of actual harm.
- gchamonlive 4y ago
  Isn't the government through law and police the entity that encodes and enforces the current set of moral values of a society? When same-sex relations were deemed imoral in less refined times the police would arrest people for that. Now we understand as a society that we can't tolerate repressive ideologies like fascism and so it falls upon the government the burden of repressing and regulating the use of symbols in the context of promoting such ideologies. What other institution would do this instead of the government? Because having no form of regulation is in my opinion not viable. Just think of it for a second. No regulation is a double edge knife. Yes, maybe it would make for a less repressive society, but you would be opening ways for any sort of expression, not only those that don't bother you directly but also those that do. So lacking a better option, the government fills this gap. If that is not acceptable to you, you should come up with alternatives other than unlimited freedom.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    > Yes, maybe it would make for a less repressive society, but you would be opening ways for any sort of expression, not only those that don't bother you directly but also those that do. Yep, I get all kinds of really mean things said to me. Sometimes I even get upset by them. I don't feel a need to arrest and jail the people saying those mean things.
    - gchamonlive 4y ago
      You get just "upset" with fascism?
      - vorpalhex 4y ago
        By fascism do you mean some guy on the internet posting things? What, precisely, do you mean here?
      - bakugo 4y ago
        Someone posting a meme on the internet is not fascism. Please go outside.
- daveoc64 4y ago
  Because the UK's elected parliament has decided that it should be. The UK's elected parliament is free to repeal or amend the law at any time - it has chosen not to. If this is a matter that concerns the electorate, they can ask their MP to raise the point in parliament.
andrewclunn 4y ago
I would be surprised by this head in the sand denial of the obvious patterns in how laws are selectively enforced, but people seeing nothing about the world other than the filter bubble that funnels to their screens means there will always be willfully ignorant apologists for tyranny.
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  Yes; it's the old fallacy of "well, I'm not currently inconvenienced by this law, so therefore it's fine."
pessimizer 4y ago
> grossly offensive or indecent communications. If the way you determine what fits this description is by knowing it when you see it, you're enforcing ideology. There is no way that you need to interview a person to figure out whether a communication is illegal. You're interviewing the person to see if the person is illegal. edit: https://www.college.police.uk/article/protecting-freedom-expression-updated-guidance https://www.college.police.uk/article/protecting-freedom-exp...
nsv 4y ago
I and many other believe that the government should not have the power to interview, detain, or do anything else to a person based on the contents of "offensive tweets". Just because something is codified in law doesn't make it right.
- notavalleyman 4y ago
  Then I suggest you run for parliament in your constabulary. Because the current UK government is not making noises about changing this law.
  - nsv 4y ago
    Well, no luck there, I'm an American. But I'm sympathetic to those across the pond that hold similar ideals as me.
- davisoneee 4y ago
  I'm generally on the side that the side that this kind of stuff is generally nonsense, but I also think that you're being a bit narrow minded in your interpretation of "offensive tweets". Can you honestly not think of any "offensive" tweets that you think would constitute harrassment and benefit from someone telling you to get your shit together? (edit: by which I mean police attention). e.g. "I hope your {{family member}} gets {{offensive act}}'d" Replace with favourite family member, and most offensive act you can think of.
  - Tsukiortu 4y ago
    At that point I believe it would be more beneficial to just have them banned from the site or block them if it's continuous harassment not police intervention. If they go further, then it's not an offensive tweet that would become threats, which is a completely different topic from offensive tweets. I don't like the idea of being put into jail because of what someone else finds offensive. Being banned from Twitter won't make it harder to get jobs and live your life, like jail time / a record will. Saying I hope something happens to someone is nowhere near as bad in my opinion as saying you're planning to do something and giving a detailed layout of someones house and daily plan.
zozbot234 4y ago
> A law exists in the UK about using public communications networks to send grossly offensive or indecent communications. Such a law used to exist in the U.S. as well. It was ruled unconstitutional, because the U.S. actually has meaningful protections for free speech (or 'freeze peach', as it's also sometimes known). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act : "...[I]t attempted to regulate both indecency (when available to children) and obscenity in cyberspace".
- catgary 4y ago
  - dang 4y ago
    Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic or religious flamewar. Last things we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
mytailorisrich 4y ago
The point is that in that particular case the police could simply have looked at the tweet to decide whether an offense had likely been committed. They didn't need to visit the person, and they certainly didn't need to arrest him. I believe that the original tweet by Laurence Fox did not receive a police response, and neither did the likely thousands of retweets. The police grossly overreacted. Even their PCC criticised them and everyone seems to agree that no crime was committed (well, apart from a fringe who were the actual target of the original tweet).
- pvaldes 4y ago
  > the police could simply have looked at the tweet to decide whether an offense had likely been committed The receiver is also important here. The same text can be innocuous in adult to adult communication but worrying if sent to a minor, specially if spammed repeatedly to somebody living at the same street. I can see several cases in what the interview would be a reasonable first approach. In any case it feels like the societies are slowly waking-up to the dangers of ciberwar; and that the age of puppet masters being allowed to roam free, brainwash and destroy the lives of people online is dying for good.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    This is a tweet. It is not sent to anyone. Police overreacted. No need to try yo find justifications.
    - pvaldes 4y ago
      > Police overreacted ... in your opinion. In many (most?) places Police has the right to ask informally anybody when investigating a situation of concern. People have a different way to interact with Police in Europe than in US when the excuse to "lie to the police" can't be used as mass destruction weapon against you. (If he was really arrested) he had to behave like a moron to escalate the situation to the point of being arrested. And what he was expecting? Police are really motivated to investigate anything related with hate crime online now, after seeing in the last years how efficient became the pupetry. We only need to remind how the Qanon movement started (and ended), or how very young and very naive adolescents in the western countries had been radicalized to join the Islamic State.
homonculus1 4y ago
You and I are UK citizens for the moment. I assert that your comment here is grossly indecent and offensive to me. Will the UK government summon you for mandatory interrogation due to my complaint, or will they dismiss me out of hand? Obviously the latter, therefore the content itself is held to some standard. Show me that standard, and I'll show you an ideology.
- notavalleyman 4y ago
  > Obviously the latter Not obvious at all. If you can explain to the cops why you found it offensive, it's conceivable to me that I'd be interviewed about it
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Then British citizens should be absolutely terrified of their government, because they've given their government the power to arrest them for literally no reason at all. The idea that the police can have the authority to detain someone because they have a reasonable belief that they hurt someone else's feelings is... well, if y'all don't see the obvious problem with that, I'm not sure how else to explain it.
    - notavalleyman 4y ago
      > should be absolutely terrified of their government, because they've given their government the power to arrest them for literally no reason at all Would this opinion change if you learned that in the UK people are generally trusted to make correct and true police crime reports? Say you lived in a place where actually 100% of reports to the police, were truly people who felt like a crime had taken place. In that case, wouldn't we be fine with cops following up all reports? So if people in the UK generally trust each other to be making true reports when they feel like a crime has taken place....why wouldn't brits empower the police to follow up on serious reports?
      - kelnos 4y ago
        > Would this opinion change if you learned that in the UK people are generally trusted to make correct and true police crime reports? No, not at all, because "generally trusted" is not "100% of the time people will do things in good faith". And I don't agree with your assessment in any case; the article in question is a clear counter-example. And another comment somewhere here claims that the UK deals with quite a large amount of these sorts of reports where the police investigate and decide there's nothing to pursue. > Say you lived in a place where actually 100% of reports to the police, were truly people who felt like a crime had taken place. In that case, wouldn't we be fine with cops following up all reports? That depends on what you mean by "following-up". If tweeting something that made someone "anxious" means that you can expect the police to show up at your door and demand to interview you (or else you will be arrested), I think that's incredibly heavy-handed. In this case, the police should have been able to look at the tweet in question, think "hmm, well, that's a shitty thing to post, but I don't see anything criminal here", and leave it at that. > So if people in the UK generally trust each other to be making true reports when they feel like a crime has taken place....why wouldn't brits empower the police to follow up on serious reports? I've already pointed out that I don't believe this is true in general, but there's more to it than that. People change. Governments change. The law often does not. If you give one government the power to do something, because you believe that government is good and will not abuse it, you must consider that the next government may not be one that you trust as much, but will also get to have that power.
matrix_overload 4y ago
Imagine for a moment that the situation was reversed. An LGBT activist would retweet a meme comparing the Catholic church to the devil. A conservative churchgoer would get offended and would report the tweet. Do you think, the police response would be 100% identical? Selective enforcement of unenforceable rules is a century-old trick. Here's a relevant quote from Atlas Shrugged: You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt.
- notavalleyman 4y ago
  > Do you think, the police response would be 100% identical Yes I absolutely do. Do you have some examples of the opposite to share?
  - Jiro 4y ago
    "Examples of the opposite" being people who don't get arrested?
    - davisoneee 4y ago
      "Opposite" being opposite groups, not opposite action...being left/'woke'/social tweeting about something like the catholic church, and getting arrested for it. edit: Assuming the parent means that they think 'left' offensive tweets would equally dealt with by the Police. I'm from the UK (Scotland) and I cant remember a 'pro left' offensive tweeter getting arrested, but then again the number of arrests for social media posts is pretty damn small in the first place, so not exactly something I think ANYONE can reliably draw inferences from.
      - 4y ago
yieldcrv 4y ago
The police should have laughed at that perceived application of that law and moved on That would be the less foreign thing to me
stickyricky 4y ago
> grossly offensive or indecent communications Did a judge sign off on a warrant for his arrest? If I find your post grossly offensive should you be removed from your home and sent to a police interrogation room just in case you hurt my feelings? And how would the police be able to determine that outside a court? My feelings would have to be litigated which would require my filing suit. Any suit originating from a civilian is civil in its nature and is outside the scope of police action.
- daveoc64 4y ago
  A warrant would not have been needed for this arrest.
  - stickyricky 4y ago
    Did the police catch him in the commission of a crime? If not then, yes, they would need a judge to sign a warrant. Seeing as he was released without charges it seems the police grossly overstepped their authority. Edit: Let me caveat because I fired fast and loose with this reply. This is from an American perspective. I am not a UK lawyer so this could very well be perfectly legal. Though I do view it as "bad" and would oppose the introduction of these norms in America.
    - daveoc64 4y ago
      The Police and Criminal Evidence Act is the relevant legislation. This section covers it: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/24 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/24
      - stickyricky 4y ago
        > A constable may arrest without a warrant to prevent the person in question [from] committing an offence against public decency (subject to subsection (6)) I'm not sure of the specifics as to what "public decency" means in the UK but I believe your implication. I think subsection 6 supports my 'theory' (read: wild accusation)? Seeing as it was posted on the internet and could reasonably be avoided. Even if that's not so, this seems like a tort and should not be handled by the police. Just my opinion.
_-david-_ 4y ago
>grossly offensive or indecent communications. The tweet was neither of those though?
- notavalleyman 4y ago
  According the the person who reported a crime, it was...and that person has the right to be taken seriously
  - _-david-_ 4y ago
    Your reply is "grossly offensive" in my view. I have the right to be taken seriously. If the police do not interview you then they are not equally enforcing the law.
causi 4y ago
Picking ideologies is the only way you can define something as nebulously described as "grossly offensive or indecent". For example, I find material that claims to care about climate change while attacking nuclear power to be grossly offensive. Someone else might find a selfie of a woman in a bikini or at a topless beach to be indecent. Tell the complainant, sorry, you feel like you're a victim of crime Do people in the UK really wake up every day knowing that hurting someone's feelings is a crime and they're just ok with that? Of course society could not function if that were the case in practice. In practice, whose feelings matter is entirely political.
xdennis 4y ago
> So what do the police do? Focus on solving crimes like theft, not investigating meme retweets. Why would they even need to interview him to determine if it was a crime or not?
- notavalleyman 4y ago
  > solving crimes It is a crime in the UK to send a malicious message contrary to that Act of parliament... > Why would they even need to interview him to determine if it was a crime or not? Lots of reasons to interview him, and you've given one here. Generally in UK, if someone complains that you've broken the law, you're given an interview to present your side of the matter.
dvdyzag 4y ago
Like the cop said, his meme gave someone anxiety and that's why he is arrested. Not allegedly breaking a law.
voisin 4y ago
A bit off topic but: > it sounds like he wasn't willing to come voluntarily to the interview room. Is this against the law in the UK?
- pmyteh 4y ago
  If the police invite you for a voluntary interview then you're absolutely free to refuse. The police also have wide discretionary powers to arrest without warrant. One of those grounds is to allow "prompt and effective" investigation of a suspected offence. And PACE Code of Practice G expressly suggests "won't come to be interviewed unless arrested" is one case when this might apply. So, in practice, if you refuse the 'voluntary' interview then you may well face a compulsory one, plus a bonus arrest record.
  - voisin 4y ago
    Can you come to an interview and refuse to answer questions? It seems crazy that the onus for an interview is on the person to attend and show they have done nothing wrong rather than the police to prove via other evidence that you meet some standard as to necessitate being interviewed.
    - pmyteh 4y ago
      You can, but it's not always a good idea. The 'caution' here (our equivalent to the US's Miranda warning) is "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention in questioning something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence". The intent is to prevent 'ambush' defences (introduce an alibi at trial, for example, giving no opportunity to investigate it) but it has the consequence that a "no comment" interview can be tactically risky. (And that we have no real right to silence, of course!) In principle they shouldn't be arresting you unless they have sufficient grounds for suspecting an offence, though there are the usual accountability problems in enforcing that. The recent case of ST is a good illustration of that[0]: a 14-year old was arrested at dawn on a flimsy case of participating in the robbery of a mobile phone at school. The arrest was mostly to search his room, as well as to ensure attendance at interview, which is legal under PACE, but he was willing to attend voluntarily, as well as to agree to the search, and the timing of arrest and decision to hold in custody rather than immediately bail were also probably unlawful. He sued for false imprisonment. He lost the case because the first instance judge decided that 'whilst the arrest and detention were "reprehensible", the way the police powers had been exercised "lamentable" and it was doubtful that the actions would be "justified in the court of public opinion", there had nevertheless been reasonable grounds to suspect the Appellant of an offence of robbery and there had been reasonable grounds to believe that the arrest and detention were necessary.' (This was overturned on appeal to the High Court, but it does show what a high bar there is for holding to account the use of powers of arrest). [0]: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2022/1280.html https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2022/1280.html
prvc 4y ago
>Tell the complainant, sorry, you feel like you're a victim of crime Being the victim of a crime is a different thing than having the feeling of being the victim of a crime.

pdonis 4y ago

> A law exists in the UK about using public communications networks to send grossly offensive or indecent communications. Why? Why is this any of the government's business?

notavalleyman 4y ago
One purpose of government in the UK is law writing, so the Communications Act 2003 is absolutely their business. As to why the behaviour needs legislating: because the British social contract required it, because in British society they're willing to trade the right to say grossly offensive things to people, for protection against hearing grossly offensive things. Lots of reasons, it's fine for them, you don't often hear clamour to repeal the law, they don't have the same issue with it that you do. So who are you to tell Brits that they shouldn't have a law?
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > it's fine for them, you don't often hear clamour to repeal the law, they don't have the same issue with it that you do. Why make all of this up? Just so you can call someone a meddling busybody for having an opinion in a thread that you're also posting an opinion in?
  - notavalleyman 4y ago
    The question was - why is (this legislated behaviour) any of the government's business? That's not an opinion. Ultimately it's a question of consent and the social contract. My answer, which you're critical of here, is that ultimately the government have consent of the people to enforce this law and therefore it's the government's business. It's consented by the Brits, there is not democratic clamour to rewrite that law, and it's not for other countries to impose their values here. I hope you don't think I'm being pedantic, I'm just trying to answer the question that was put to me; why, in the UK, is this a regulated behaviour
- xdennis 4y ago
  > because in British society they're willing to trade the right to say grossly offensive things to people, for protection against hearing grossly offensive things I doubt it represents British society's desire. It's more likely a case of "when you're a hammer everything looks like a nail". MPs feel that their job is to always legislate. Let's not forget that since the 90s raves have been illegal in the UK.
  - undersuit 4y ago
    >MPs feel that their job is to always legislate. Would you rather pay them to do nothing at all, or maybe adopt the US model where they spend a year of their term campaigning on the public's dime?
    - maxehmookau 4y ago
      This is an underrated comment that made me laugh. Thank you.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  > So who are you to tell Brits that they shouldn't have a law? Probably most people in Iran agree with the laws that gay people should be executed. Based on your "social contract" theory, that's just fine? I mean, who are you to tell the Iranians that they shouldn't have a law? Right?
  - notavalleyman 4y ago
    No, not right. UK is democratic and the elected reps' body is sovereign over law. An Iranian cannot stand for election in her region on the platform of: I am going to repeal "Islamic" law. A person can stand for election in the UK saying: vote for me and we'll repeat the 2003 Communications Act. I don't think that you didn't know this, so I don't understand why you asked it really
    - Turing_Machine 4y ago
      What you are calling "democratic" and a "social contract" others call "mob rule". Sorry, no.
hengistbury 4y ago
For the same reason that it's the governments business if you are grossly offensive or indecent in person. Shouting abuse at someone in public can see the law involved, and that is the same if the public space is online.
- pdonis 4y ago
  > For the same reason that it's the governments business if you are grossly offensive or indecent in person. Ok, so why is it the government's business if you are grossly offensive or indecent in person? Why can't the normal tools people always use in social interaction handle this? > Shouting abuse at someone in public Is not what the person who was arrested in this case was doing. His tweet was not directed at any particular person. The law does recognize assault as a crime, and shouting abuse at someone in public can rise to the level of assault if the person being shouted at could reasonably believe that the shouter was threatening actual harm. But the crime in this case is not speech; the shouting isn't a crime because it is expressing an offensive opinion. It's a crime because it's a threat of actual harm.
gchamonlive 4y ago
Isn't the government through law and police the entity that encodes and enforces the current set of moral values of a society? When same-sex relations were deemed imoral in less refined times the police would arrest people for that. Now we understand as a society that we can't tolerate repressive ideologies like fascism and so it falls upon the government the burden of repressing and regulating the use of symbols in the context of promoting such ideologies. What other institution would do this instead of the government? Because having no form of regulation is in my opinion not viable. Just think of it for a second. No regulation is a double edge knife. Yes, maybe it would make for a less repressive society, but you would be opening ways for any sort of expression, not only those that don't bother you directly but also those that do. So lacking a better option, the government fills this gap. If that is not acceptable to you, you should come up with alternatives other than unlimited freedom.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  > Yes, maybe it would make for a less repressive society, but you would be opening ways for any sort of expression, not only those that don't bother you directly but also those that do. Yep, I get all kinds of really mean things said to me. Sometimes I even get upset by them. I don't feel a need to arrest and jail the people saying those mean things.
  - gchamonlive 4y ago
    You get just "upset" with fascism?
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      By fascism do you mean some guy on the internet posting things? What, precisely, do you mean here?
    - bakugo 4y ago
      Someone posting a meme on the internet is not fascism. Please go outside.
daveoc64 4y ago
Because the UK's elected parliament has decided that it should be. The UK's elected parliament is free to repeal or amend the law at any time - it has chosen not to. If this is a matter that concerns the electorate, they can ask their MP to raise the point in parliament.

andrewclunn 4y ago

I would be surprised by this head in the sand denial of the obvious patterns in how laws are selectively enforced, but people seeing nothing about the world other than the filter bubble that funnels to their screens means there will always be willfully ignorant apologists for tyranny.

nathanaldensr 4y ago
Yes; it's the old fallacy of "well, I'm not currently inconvenienced by this law, so therefore it's fine."

pessimizer 4y ago

> grossly offensive or indecent communications. If the way you determine what fits this description is by knowing it when you see it, you're enforcing ideology. There is no way that you need to interview a person to figure out whether a communication is illegal. You're interviewing the person to see if the person is illegal. edit: https://www.college.police.uk/article/protecting-freedom-expression-updated-guidance https://www.college.police.uk/article/protecting-freedom-exp...

nsv 4y ago

I and many other believe that the government should not have the power to interview, detain, or do anything else to a person based on the contents of "offensive tweets". Just because something is codified in law doesn't make it right.

notavalleyman 4y ago
Then I suggest you run for parliament in your constabulary. Because the current UK government is not making noises about changing this law.
- nsv 4y ago
  Well, no luck there, I'm an American. But I'm sympathetic to those across the pond that hold similar ideals as me.
davisoneee 4y ago
I'm generally on the side that the side that this kind of stuff is generally nonsense, but I also think that you're being a bit narrow minded in your interpretation of "offensive tweets". Can you honestly not think of any "offensive" tweets that you think would constitute harrassment and benefit from someone telling you to get your shit together? (edit: by which I mean police attention). e.g. "I hope your {{family member}} gets {{offensive act}}'d" Replace with favourite family member, and most offensive act you can think of.
- Tsukiortu 4y ago
  At that point I believe it would be more beneficial to just have them banned from the site or block them if it's continuous harassment not police intervention. If they go further, then it's not an offensive tweet that would become threats, which is a completely different topic from offensive tweets. I don't like the idea of being put into jail because of what someone else finds offensive. Being banned from Twitter won't make it harder to get jobs and live your life, like jail time / a record will. Saying I hope something happens to someone is nowhere near as bad in my opinion as saying you're planning to do something and giving a detailed layout of someones house and daily plan.

zozbot234 4y ago

> A law exists in the UK about using public communications networks to send grossly offensive or indecent communications. Such a law used to exist in the U.S. as well. It was ruled unconstitutional, because the U.S. actually has meaningful protections for free speech (or 'freeze peach', as it's also sometimes known). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act : "...[I]t attempted to regulate both indecency (when available to children) and obscenity in cyberspace".

catgary 4y ago
- dang 4y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic or religious flamewar. Last things we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

mytailorisrich 4y ago

The point is that in that particular case the police could simply have looked at the tweet to decide whether an offense had likely been committed. They didn't need to visit the person, and they certainly didn't need to arrest him. I believe that the original tweet by Laurence Fox did not receive a police response, and neither did the likely thousands of retweets. The police grossly overreacted. Even their PCC criticised them and everyone seems to agree that no crime was committed (well, apart from a fringe who were the actual target of the original tweet).

pvaldes 4y ago
> the police could simply have looked at the tweet to decide whether an offense had likely been committed The receiver is also important here. The same text can be innocuous in adult to adult communication but worrying if sent to a minor, specially if spammed repeatedly to somebody living at the same street. I can see several cases in what the interview would be a reasonable first approach. In any case it feels like the societies are slowly waking-up to the dangers of ciberwar; and that the age of puppet masters being allowed to roam free, brainwash and destroy the lives of people online is dying for good.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  This is a tweet. It is not sent to anyone. Police overreacted. No need to try yo find justifications.
  - pvaldes 4y ago
    > Police overreacted ... in your opinion. In many (most?) places Police has the right to ask informally anybody when investigating a situation of concern. People have a different way to interact with Police in Europe than in US when the excuse to "lie to the police" can't be used as mass destruction weapon against you. (If he was really arrested) he had to behave like a moron to escalate the situation to the point of being arrested. And what he was expecting? Police are really motivated to investigate anything related with hate crime online now, after seeing in the last years how efficient became the pupetry. We only need to remind how the Qanon movement started (and ended), or how very young and very naive adolescents in the western countries had been radicalized to join the Islamic State.

homonculus1 4y ago

You and I are UK citizens for the moment. I assert that your comment here is grossly indecent and offensive to me. Will the UK government summon you for mandatory interrogation due to my complaint, or will they dismiss me out of hand? Obviously the latter, therefore the content itself is held to some standard. Show me that standard, and I'll show you an ideology.

notavalleyman 4y ago
> Obviously the latter Not obvious at all. If you can explain to the cops why you found it offensive, it's conceivable to me that I'd be interviewed about it
- kelnos 4y ago
  Then British citizens should be absolutely terrified of their government, because they've given their government the power to arrest them for literally no reason at all. The idea that the police can have the authority to detain someone because they have a reasonable belief that they hurt someone else's feelings is... well, if y'all don't see the obvious problem with that, I'm not sure how else to explain it.
  - notavalleyman 4y ago
    > should be absolutely terrified of their government, because they've given their government the power to arrest them for literally no reason at all Would this opinion change if you learned that in the UK people are generally trusted to make correct and true police crime reports? Say you lived in a place where actually 100% of reports to the police, were truly people who felt like a crime had taken place. In that case, wouldn't we be fine with cops following up all reports? So if people in the UK generally trust each other to be making true reports when they feel like a crime has taken place....why wouldn't brits empower the police to follow up on serious reports?
    - kelnos 4y ago
      > Would this opinion change if you learned that in the UK people are generally trusted to make correct and true police crime reports? No, not at all, because "generally trusted" is not "100% of the time people will do things in good faith". And I don't agree with your assessment in any case; the article in question is a clear counter-example. And another comment somewhere here claims that the UK deals with quite a large amount of these sorts of reports where the police investigate and decide there's nothing to pursue. > Say you lived in a place where actually 100% of reports to the police, were truly people who felt like a crime had taken place. In that case, wouldn't we be fine with cops following up all reports? That depends on what you mean by "following-up". If tweeting something that made someone "anxious" means that you can expect the police to show up at your door and demand to interview you (or else you will be arrested), I think that's incredibly heavy-handed. In this case, the police should have been able to look at the tweet in question, think "hmm, well, that's a shitty thing to post, but I don't see anything criminal here", and leave it at that. > So if people in the UK generally trust each other to be making true reports when they feel like a crime has taken place....why wouldn't brits empower the police to follow up on serious reports? I've already pointed out that I don't believe this is true in general, but there's more to it than that. People change. Governments change. The law often does not. If you give one government the power to do something, because you believe that government is good and will not abuse it, you must consider that the next government may not be one that you trust as much, but will also get to have that power.

matrix_overload 4y ago

Imagine for a moment that the situation was reversed. An LGBT activist would retweet a meme comparing the Catholic church to the devil. A conservative churchgoer would get offended and would report the tweet. Do you think, the police response would be 100% identical? Selective enforcement of unenforceable rules is a century-old trick. Here's a relevant quote from Atlas Shrugged: You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt.

notavalleyman 4y ago
> Do you think, the police response would be 100% identical Yes I absolutely do. Do you have some examples of the opposite to share?
- Jiro 4y ago
  "Examples of the opposite" being people who don't get arrested?
  - davisoneee 4y ago
    "Opposite" being opposite groups, not opposite action...being left/'woke'/social tweeting about something like the catholic church, and getting arrested for it. edit: Assuming the parent means that they think 'left' offensive tweets would equally dealt with by the Police. I'm from the UK (Scotland) and I cant remember a 'pro left' offensive tweeter getting arrested, but then again the number of arrests for social media posts is pretty damn small in the first place, so not exactly something I think ANYONE can reliably draw inferences from.
    - 4y ago

yieldcrv 4y ago

The police should have laughed at that perceived application of that law and moved on That would be the less foreign thing to me

stickyricky 4y ago

> grossly offensive or indecent communications Did a judge sign off on a warrant for his arrest? If I find your post grossly offensive should you be removed from your home and sent to a police interrogation room just in case you hurt my feelings? And how would the police be able to determine that outside a court? My feelings would have to be litigated which would require my filing suit. Any suit originating from a civilian is civil in its nature and is outside the scope of police action.

daveoc64 4y ago
A warrant would not have been needed for this arrest.
- stickyricky 4y ago
  Did the police catch him in the commission of a crime? If not then, yes, they would need a judge to sign a warrant. Seeing as he was released without charges it seems the police grossly overstepped their authority. Edit: Let me caveat because I fired fast and loose with this reply. This is from an American perspective. I am not a UK lawyer so this could very well be perfectly legal. Though I do view it as "bad" and would oppose the introduction of these norms in America.
  - daveoc64 4y ago
    The Police and Criminal Evidence Act is the relevant legislation. This section covers it: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/24 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/24
    - stickyricky 4y ago
      > A constable may arrest without a warrant to prevent the person in question [from] committing an offence against public decency (subject to subsection (6)) I'm not sure of the specifics as to what "public decency" means in the UK but I believe your implication. I think subsection 6 supports my 'theory' (read: wild accusation)? Seeing as it was posted on the internet and could reasonably be avoided. Even if that's not so, this seems like a tort and should not be handled by the police. Just my opinion.

_-david-_ 4y ago

>grossly offensive or indecent communications. The tweet was neither of those though?

notavalleyman 4y ago
According the the person who reported a crime, it was...and that person has the right to be taken seriously
- _-david-_ 4y ago
  Your reply is "grossly offensive" in my view. I have the right to be taken seriously. If the police do not interview you then they are not equally enforcing the law.

causi 4y ago

Picking ideologies is the only way you can define something as nebulously described as "grossly offensive or indecent". For example, I find material that claims to care about climate change while attacking nuclear power to be grossly offensive. Someone else might find a selfie of a woman in a bikini or at a topless beach to be indecent. Tell the complainant, sorry, you feel like you're a victim of crime Do people in the UK really wake up every day knowing that hurting someone's feelings is a crime and they're just ok with that? Of course society could not function if that were the case in practice. In practice, whose feelings matter is entirely political.

xdennis 4y ago

> So what do the police do? Focus on solving crimes like theft, not investigating meme retweets. Why would they even need to interview him to determine if it was a crime or not?

notavalleyman 4y ago
> solving crimes It is a crime in the UK to send a malicious message contrary to that Act of parliament... > Why would they even need to interview him to determine if it was a crime or not? Lots of reasons to interview him, and you've given one here. Generally in UK, if someone complains that you've broken the law, you're given an interview to present your side of the matter.

dvdyzag 4y ago

Like the cop said, his meme gave someone anxiety and that's why he is arrested. Not allegedly breaking a law.

voisin 4y ago

A bit off topic but: > it sounds like he wasn't willing to come voluntarily to the interview room. Is this against the law in the UK?

pmyteh 4y ago
If the police invite you for a voluntary interview then you're absolutely free to refuse. The police also have wide discretionary powers to arrest without warrant. One of those grounds is to allow "prompt and effective" investigation of a suspected offence. And PACE Code of Practice G expressly suggests "won't come to be interviewed unless arrested" is one case when this might apply. So, in practice, if you refuse the 'voluntary' interview then you may well face a compulsory one, plus a bonus arrest record.
- voisin 4y ago
  Can you come to an interview and refuse to answer questions? It seems crazy that the onus for an interview is on the person to attend and show they have done nothing wrong rather than the police to prove via other evidence that you meet some standard as to necessitate being interviewed.
  - pmyteh 4y ago
    You can, but it's not always a good idea. The 'caution' here (our equivalent to the US's Miranda warning) is "You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention in questioning something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence". The intent is to prevent 'ambush' defences (introduce an alibi at trial, for example, giving no opportunity to investigate it) but it has the consequence that a "no comment" interview can be tactically risky. (And that we have no real right to silence, of course!) In principle they shouldn't be arresting you unless they have sufficient grounds for suspecting an offence, though there are the usual accountability problems in enforcing that. The recent case of ST is a good illustration of that[0]: a 14-year old was arrested at dawn on a flimsy case of participating in the robbery of a mobile phone at school. The arrest was mostly to search his room, as well as to ensure attendance at interview, which is legal under PACE, but he was willing to attend voluntarily, as well as to agree to the search, and the timing of arrest and decision to hold in custody rather than immediately bail were also probably unlawful. He sued for false imprisonment. He lost the case because the first instance judge decided that 'whilst the arrest and detention were "reprehensible", the way the police powers had been exercised "lamentable" and it was doubtful that the actions would be "justified in the court of public opinion", there had nevertheless been reasonable grounds to suspect the Appellant of an offence of robbery and there had been reasonable grounds to believe that the arrest and detention were necessary.' (This was overturned on appeal to the High Court, but it does show what a high bar there is for holding to account the use of powers of arrest). [0]: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2022/1280.html https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2022/1280.html

prvc 4y ago

>Tell the complainant, sorry, you feel like you're a victim of crime Being the victim of a crime is a different thing than having the feeling of being the victim of a crime.