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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 pap

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.
    - kennysoona 2y ago
      > the kind of wild claims you can see in this discussion that the UK has become an Orwellian police state. It feels like it's always slowly getting closer to that. It certainly seems one of the least free developed or 'allied' countries.
      - hnlmorg 2y ago
        Every country is moving in that direction. Thats just how politics is shifting at the moment. I’m not happy about it but you can’t really single the UK out for it.
        kennysoona 2y ago
        It feels like the UK is in many ways leading the charge, though. The only other country that would be a contender is Australia. It was the UK for example that introduced that barbarian law that conceivably allows imprisoning people that genuinely forget the passwords to their encrypted volumes, and that was I think over a decade ago.
        foldr 2y ago
        How many people have been imprisoned for that? If we’ve had a decade of being an Orwellian police state, it should be quite a few people, no?
        kennysoona 2y ago
        The fact that you have the law itself is pretty troubling. And some of the protestors at the coronation of Charles were pretty blatant. And all the examples of police showing up because of a tweet, often not even hateful just not falling in line sufficiently with rightthink.
        foldr 2y ago
        Lots of things are troubling. I am complaining about wild exaggerations, not saying that there is nothing to worry about or that the UK is perfect. Unfortunately a lot of people are getting their news from Twitter, from accounts that are obsessed with painting a particular picture of the UK. Have you spent any time in the UK yourself? The impression of it that you’d get from reading HN is unrecognizable to anyone who lives here.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    That’s not really the same as what’s being discussed though it’s still troubling. Thankfully common sense prevailed and those people weren’t convicted. meanwhile in other “less Orwellian” counties people are getting charged for similar actions: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/protester-interrupted-trump-rally-face-misdemeanor-charges-rcna169130 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/protester-int... Where’s your freedom of speech there? I’m not saying I agree with Met. But I also don’t agree it proves the UK are charging people for posting internet memes. Which was the original claim.
    - inejge 2y ago
      > That’s not really the same as what’s being discussed though it’s still troubling. GP mentioned anti-royalist protester arrests and threats of arrest, you asked for a citation, I provided a link to a BBC article discussing those. How is it not "what's being discussed"? (At least in the context of this subthread.)
      - hnlmorg 2y ago
        Fair point. But as I said, there was more to that story. And under relatively similar circumstances people are charged for protesting under similar laws in other countries too. Including ones that have freedom of speech written directly into their constitution. So while I don’t agree with the UK arrests, it doesn’t prove that the UK is any more Orwellian than any other country.
    - kennysoona 2y ago
      > Thankfully common sense prevailed and those people weren’t convicted. meanwhile in other “less Orwellian” counties people are getting charged for similar actions: > https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/protester-int https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/protester-int... Jumping over a barricade and disrupting a speech doesn't seem remotely comparable to holding up a blank piece of paper.
- doublerabbit 2y ago
  > In London, a barrister who held up a blank piece of paper in Parliament Square was asked for his details by Metropolitan Police officers, and told that he would be arrested under the Public Order Act if he wrote "Not My King" on the paper. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_paper_protest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_paper_protest
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    Already commented on here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43040546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43040546 In short, he wasn’t charged yet when similar protests happen in the US (for example) then people do get charged.

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.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    > the kind of wild claims you can see in this discussion that the UK has become an Orwellian police state. It feels like it's always slowly getting closer to that. It certainly seems one of the least free developed or 'allied' countries.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      Every country is moving in that direction. Thats just how politics is shifting at the moment. I’m not happy about it but you can’t really single the UK out for it.
      - kennysoona 2y ago
        It feels like the UK is in many ways leading the charge, though. The only other country that would be a contender is Australia. It was the UK for example that introduced that barbarian law that conceivably allows imprisoning people that genuinely forget the passwords to their encrypted volumes, and that was I think over a decade ago.
        foldr 2y ago
        How many people have been imprisoned for that? If we’ve had a decade of being an Orwellian police state, it should be quite a few people, no?
        kennysoona 2y ago
        The fact that you have the law itself is pretty troubling. And some of the protestors at the coronation of Charles were pretty blatant. And all the examples of police showing up because of a tweet, often not even hateful just not falling in line sufficiently with rightthink.
        foldr 2y ago
        Lots of things are troubling. I am complaining about wild exaggerations, not saying that there is nothing to worry about or that the UK is perfect. Unfortunately a lot of people are getting their news from Twitter, from accounts that are obsessed with painting a particular picture of the UK. Have you spent any time in the UK yourself? The impression of it that you’d get from reading HN is unrecognizable to anyone who lives here.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  That’s not really the same as what’s being discussed though it’s still troubling. Thankfully common sense prevailed and those people weren’t convicted. meanwhile in other “less Orwellian” counties people are getting charged for similar actions: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/protester-interrupted-trump-rally-face-misdemeanor-charges-rcna169130 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/protester-int... Where’s your freedom of speech there? I’m not saying I agree with Met. But I also don’t agree it proves the UK are charging people for posting internet memes. Which was the original claim.
  - inejge 2y ago
    > That’s not really the same as what’s being discussed though it’s still troubling. GP mentioned anti-royalist protester arrests and threats of arrest, you asked for a citation, I provided a link to a BBC article discussing those. How is it not "what's being discussed"? (At least in the context of this subthread.)
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      Fair point. But as I said, there was more to that story. And under relatively similar circumstances people are charged for protesting under similar laws in other countries too. Including ones that have freedom of speech written directly into their constitution. So while I don’t agree with the UK arrests, it doesn’t prove that the UK is any more Orwellian than any other country.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    > Thankfully common sense prevailed and those people weren’t convicted. meanwhile in other “less Orwellian” counties people are getting charged for similar actions: > https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/protester-int https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/protester-int... Jumping over a barricade and disrupting a speech doesn't seem remotely comparable to holding up a blank piece of paper.
doublerabbit 2y ago
> In London, a barrister who held up a blank piece of paper in Parliament Square was asked for his details by Metropolitan Police officers, and told that he would be arrested under the Public Order Act if he wrote "Not My King" on the paper. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_paper_protest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_paper_protest
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  Already commented on here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43040546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43040546 In short, he wasn’t charged yet when similar protests happen in the US (for example) then people do get charged.