7 ms·

This is a government that believes in thought crimes. They will likely arrest people for having illegal memes on their phones or for texting messages to friends

This is a government that believes in thought crimes. They will likely arrest people for having illegal memes on their phones or for texting messages to friends of which the government does not approve. If there was prequal to 1984, it would look something like this.

hnlmorg 2y ago
I really don’t like the UK governments stance on cyber security / counter-terrorism / et al either. In fact, as a UK citizen I’ve actively campaigned against a great many of their policies. However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme. What actually happened was people were arrested for instigating riots. This is no different to what happened in the US regarding the Capital Hill riots — people who helped organise it online were arrested too. The UK has a long history of shitty policies invented to “protect people” but we need to be clear on what’s actually fact and what’s fiction. Otherwise you end up wasting energy protesting against things that are imaginary.
- gruez 2y ago
  >However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme. >What actually happened was people were arrested for instigating riots. This is no different to what happened in the US regarding the Capital Hill riots — people who helped organise it online were arrested too. According to: https://news.sky.com/story/jordan-parlour-facebook-user-jailed-for-riot-related-social-media-posts-13193894 https://news.sky.com/story/jordan-parlour-facebook-user-jail... One of the "instigators" was sent to prison for tweeting "every man and his dog should smash [the] f** out of Britannia hotel (in Leeds)". While I agree such tweet might be illegal under US law (it plausibly meets the "imminent lawless action" standard), it's a stretch to equate that to "organise [the Capital Hill riots] online" (whatever that means). A tweet by a nobody who got 6 likes isn't "organising". It's shitposting.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    Did you actually read that article. In there it even stated there was a pattern of behaviour and that his comments on Facebook had been shared with thousands and directly resulted criminal damage. Not only that, that his comments were intended to cause criminal damage and result in physical attacks against immigrants. What you’ve done is selectively quoted a small subset of portions from that article to misrepresent the full trial. Which is exactly why I had to write my comment defending the UK government earlier. Believe me, I really don’t want to defend the government. The UK government get a lot wrong when it comes to legislation regarding technology. In fact they get nearly everything wrong and I’ve frequently had to have words my MPs about it (not that that’s done any good). But they categorically do not lock people up just for shitposting. At best that’s just an exaggeration. At worst it’s an out right misrepresentation of the facts.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >Did you actually read that article. In there it even stated there was a pattern of behaviour and that his comments on Facebook had been shared with thousands Are you talking about this? "The initial post received six likes. However, it was sent to your 1,500 Facebook friends and, because of your lack of privacy settings, will have been forwarded to friends of your friends." "shared" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and likely used in a misleading way. Given how facebook uses algorithmic timelines, and the wording (the judge was seemingly unwilling to use a stronger word like "seen" or "read"), my guess is that was the upper bound of people who could have seen his post, not how many people actually seen it. It certainly doesn't mean 1,500 people actually clicked the shared button next to his post (or otherwise make a conscious effort to disseminate the post), as "his comments on Facebook had been shared with thousands" implies. > and directly resulted criminal damage. Is there any evidence that people who has committed crimes even seen his post? Or are you simply claiming that because he made such tweets, such tweets called for riots, and riots happened, that those tweets "directly resulted criminal damage"? >Not only that, that his comments were intended to cause criminal damage and result in physical attacks against immigrants. This doesn't contradict my prior comment, which specifically admits his behavior is illegal under even US law. My complaint was with the characterization that his tweets counts as "organising".
- graemep 2y ago
  You are focusing on one set of incidents. There are lot of others not connected to any violence at all. People arrested for standing still because of what they admitted thinking and their motive for doing so. Police investigations of 'non-crime incidents'. Hate speech laws that can be very widely interpreted. Increasingly restrictive laws on public protests.
  - foldr 2y ago
    Just link to a report of an incident that you think proves your point. It’s impossible to have a sensible discussion about this issue when comments are so vague.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- parasense 2y ago
  >However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme. Are you for real? These accusations are not merely memes. While I don't endorse terrible people, it is note worth sometimes awful people are the target of even more awful laws. For example, you can do research into a person named "Adam Smith-Connor" who was literally convicted for standing in public while introspectively praying silently. The conduct of standing while appearing to pray was deemed as a form of illegal protest too near an abortion clinic. The same exact thing happened to another person "Isabel Vaughan-Spruce" who was not convicted. There are also well documented incidents in the UK involving the prosecution of people making remarks online, which could arguably cross into thought-crime territory. I'll leave it to you to actually research these incidence, Google is your friend.
  - foldr 2y ago
    The event you’re referring to is actually a bit of a non-story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9kp7r00vo.amp https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9kp7r00vo.amp You’re not allowed to protest right outside an abortion clinic: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/abortion-service-protection-zones-in-place-in-england-and-wales#:~:text=From%20today%2C%20a%20150%2Dmetre,a%20'safe%20access%20zone'. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/abortion-service-protecti... You can protest against abortion as much as you like. Someone spent a long time trying to politely get this man to leave the protected zone, but he refused, which is why he was then arrested. As usual in these HN threads on the UK, there’s a reasonable point that could be made about whether or not this restriction correctly balances the right to free speech against women’s right to access healthcare. But instead we see a lot of wildly exaggerated talk about “thought crimes”, etc. etc. The concept of restricting the time and place of protests is not exactly unknown in the US either: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
  - card_zero 2y ago
    So, loitering with intent, like this guy was arrested for 120 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering#/media/File:Gilbert_Wheatley,_arrested_for_loitering_with_intent_to_commit_a_felony_(23627265035).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering#/media/File:Gilbert_... Or in fact a specific crime of hanging around abortion clinics.
- impossiblefork 2y ago
  People have been arrested for perfectly legal anti-royalist propaganda, and threatened with arrest for such things as protesting by holding a blank sheet of paper, so I don't agree.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    Citation needed
    - inejge 2y ago
      Several examples, including blank piece of paper: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62883713 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62883713
      - foldr 2y ago
        Nothing actually happened to the guy with the blank sheet of paper (or at least, if it did, that’s not reported in the article). Certainly you can find examples of the British police overpolicing protests, and that’s something that people rightly get angry about. It’s just that there’s a huge distance between that kind of thing (which happens pretty much everywhere from time to time - do US police forces have an exemplary record of policing protests?) and the kind of wild claims you can see in this discussion that the UK has become an Orwellian police state.
        impossiblefork 2y ago
        Perhaps, but I am not comparing it to American forces. I'm Swedish and while I have some things to do with America, mostly indirectly, it's not my centre of reference.
        hnlmorg 2y ago
        Sweden’s got its own fair share of problems at the moment too. Arguments around citizenship. Problems with gun violence (which the UK and most of countries solved decades ago). It’s not like you couldn’t draw a Mad Max parallel just by looking at the headlines in Swedish news.
cowfriend 2y ago
By "thought crimes", would you mean firing people for holding positions responsible for DEI policies which were assigned to them and which there was a legal obligation to enforce? Because that would NEVER happen in the US, certainly no government agency would fire its own people for having following legally enacted government policy just because that policy was no longer in fashion (though still legal government policy, because Congress hadn't yet changed the law).
- beeflet 2y ago
  those are government workers
- karatinversion 2y ago
  The people in the UK actually go to prison though
tim333 2y ago
It's not that bad. I think the demanding a backdoor from Apple is over the top / stupid. But I haven't heard mention of thought crimes yet (brit here).
- cassianoleal 2y ago
  Where would you have expected to see that?
Jigsy 2y ago
> They will likely arrest people for having illegal memes on their phones or for texting messages to friends of which the government does not approve. It's a country that raids people over "illegal" anime artwork on anime artwork websites.

hnlmorg 2y ago

I really don’t like the UK governments stance on cyber security / counter-terrorism / et al either. In fact, as a UK citizen I’ve actively campaigned against a great many of their policies. However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme. What actually happened was people were arrested for instigating riots. This is no different to what happened in the US regarding the Capital Hill riots — people who helped organise it online were arrested too. The UK has a long history of shitty policies invented to “protect people” but we need to be clear on what’s actually fact and what’s fiction. Otherwise you end up wasting energy protesting against things that are imaginary.

gruez 2y ago
>However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme. >What actually happened was people were arrested for instigating riots. This is no different to what happened in the US regarding the Capital Hill riots — people who helped organise it online were arrested too. According to: https://news.sky.com/story/jordan-parlour-facebook-user-jailed-for-riot-related-social-media-posts-13193894 https://news.sky.com/story/jordan-parlour-facebook-user-jail... One of the "instigators" was sent to prison for tweeting "every man and his dog should smash [the] f** out of Britannia hotel (in Leeds)". While I agree such tweet might be illegal under US law (it plausibly meets the "imminent lawless action" standard), it's a stretch to equate that to "organise [the Capital Hill riots] online" (whatever that means). A tweet by a nobody who got 6 likes isn't "organising". It's shitposting.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  Did you actually read that article. In there it even stated there was a pattern of behaviour and that his comments on Facebook had been shared with thousands and directly resulted criminal damage. Not only that, that his comments were intended to cause criminal damage and result in physical attacks against immigrants. What you’ve done is selectively quoted a small subset of portions from that article to misrepresent the full trial. Which is exactly why I had to write my comment defending the UK government earlier. Believe me, I really don’t want to defend the government. The UK government get a lot wrong when it comes to legislation regarding technology. In fact they get nearly everything wrong and I’ve frequently had to have words my MPs about it (not that that’s done any good). But they categorically do not lock people up just for shitposting. At best that’s just an exaggeration. At worst it’s an out right misrepresentation of the facts.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >Did you actually read that article. In there it even stated there was a pattern of behaviour and that his comments on Facebook had been shared with thousands Are you talking about this? "The initial post received six likes. However, it was sent to your 1,500 Facebook friends and, because of your lack of privacy settings, will have been forwarded to friends of your friends." "shared" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and likely used in a misleading way. Given how facebook uses algorithmic timelines, and the wording (the judge was seemingly unwilling to use a stronger word like "seen" or "read"), my guess is that was the upper bound of people who could have seen his post, not how many people actually seen it. It certainly doesn't mean 1,500 people actually clicked the shared button next to his post (or otherwise make a conscious effort to disseminate the post), as "his comments on Facebook had been shared with thousands" implies. > and directly resulted criminal damage. Is there any evidence that people who has committed crimes even seen his post? Or are you simply claiming that because he made such tweets, such tweets called for riots, and riots happened, that those tweets "directly resulted criminal damage"? >Not only that, that his comments were intended to cause criminal damage and result in physical attacks against immigrants. This doesn't contradict my prior comment, which specifically admits his behavior is illegal under even US law. My complaint was with the characterization that his tweets counts as "organising".
graemep 2y ago
You are focusing on one set of incidents. There are lot of others not connected to any violence at all. People arrested for standing still because of what they admitted thinking and their motive for doing so. Police investigations of 'non-crime incidents'. Hate speech laws that can be very widely interpreted. Increasingly restrictive laws on public protests.
- foldr 2y ago
  Just link to a report of an incident that you think proves your point. It’s impossible to have a sensible discussion about this issue when comments are so vague.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
parasense 2y ago
>However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme. Are you for real? These accusations are not merely memes. While I don't endorse terrible people, it is note worth sometimes awful people are the target of even more awful laws. For example, you can do research into a person named "Adam Smith-Connor" who was literally convicted for standing in public while introspectively praying silently. The conduct of standing while appearing to pray was deemed as a form of illegal protest too near an abortion clinic. The same exact thing happened to another person "Isabel Vaughan-Spruce" who was not convicted. There are also well documented incidents in the UK involving the prosecution of people making remarks online, which could arguably cross into thought-crime territory. I'll leave it to you to actually research these incidence, Google is your friend.
- foldr 2y ago
  The event you’re referring to is actually a bit of a non-story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9kp7r00vo.amp https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9kp7r00vo.amp You’re not allowed to protest right outside an abortion clinic: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/abortion-service-protection-zones-in-place-in-england-and-wales#:~:text=From%20today%2C%20a%20150%2Dmetre,a%20'safe%20access%20zone'. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/abortion-service-protecti... You can protest against abortion as much as you like. Someone spent a long time trying to politely get this man to leave the protected zone, but he refused, which is why he was then arrested. As usual in these HN threads on the UK, there’s a reasonable point that could be made about whether or not this restriction correctly balances the right to free speech against women’s right to access healthcare. But instead we see a lot of wildly exaggerated talk about “thought crimes”, etc. etc. The concept of restricting the time and place of protests is not exactly unknown in the US either: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone
- card_zero 2y ago
  So, loitering with intent, like this guy was arrested for 120 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering#/media/File:Gilbert_Wheatley,_arrested_for_loitering_with_intent_to_commit_a_felony_(23627265035).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering#/media/File:Gilbert_... Or in fact a specific crime of hanging around abortion clinics.
impossiblefork 2y ago
People have been arrested for perfectly legal anti-royalist propaganda, and threatened with arrest for such things as protesting by holding a blank sheet of paper, so I don't agree.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  Citation needed
  - inejge 2y ago
    Several examples, including blank piece of paper: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62883713 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62883713
    - foldr 2y ago
      Nothing actually happened to the guy with the blank sheet of paper (or at least, if it did, that’s not reported in the article). Certainly you can find examples of the British police overpolicing protests, and that’s something that people rightly get angry about. It’s just that there’s a huge distance between that kind of thing (which happens pretty much everywhere from time to time - do US police forces have an exemplary record of policing protests?) and the kind of wild claims you can see in this discussion that the UK has become an Orwellian police state.
      - impossiblefork 2y ago
        Perhaps, but I am not comparing it to American forces. I'm Swedish and while I have some things to do with America, mostly indirectly, it's not my centre of reference.
        hnlmorg 2y ago
        Sweden’s got its own fair share of problems at the moment too. Arguments around citizenship. Problems with gun violence (which the UK and most of countries solved decades ago). It’s not like you couldn’t draw a Mad Max parallel just by looking at the headlines in Swedish news.

cowfriend 2y ago

By "thought crimes", would you mean firing people for holding positions responsible for DEI policies which were assigned to them and which there was a legal obligation to enforce? Because that would NEVER happen in the US, certainly no government agency would fire its own people for having following legally enacted government policy just because that policy was no longer in fashion (though still legal government policy, because Congress hadn't yet changed the law).

beeflet 2y ago
those are government workers
karatinversion 2y ago
The people in the UK actually go to prison though

tim333 2y ago

It's not that bad. I think the demanding a backdoor from Apple is over the top / stupid. But I haven't heard mention of thought crimes yet (brit here).

cassianoleal 2y ago
Where would you have expected to see that?

Jigsy 2y ago

> They will likely arrest people for having illegal memes on their phones or for texting messages to friends of which the government does not approve. It's a country that raids people over "illegal" anime artwork on anime artwork websites.