2 ms·

> The UK police arresting thousands per day for speech crimes is crazy to me. Good thing that's not happening, then.

by slater 1y ago

like_any_other 1y ago
There were 140k recorded hate crimes in 2024 [1]. The government only gave the breakdown by type of crime if they are against Jews or Muslims (figure 2.2), so we will have to assume they are representative of hate crime overall. ~47% were "public fear, alarm, or distress" (that is what the person the article is about was charged with for burning a Quran), and ~12% were "malicious communication". For just the 47% category, that works out to 180 recorded hate crimes per day, that presumably someone was arrested for (the report doesn't say). So you are correct, "thousands" is an exaggeration. It should also be noted that merely viewing "far-right propaganda" carries an up to 15 year prison sentence in the UK [2], but I'm not aware of any cases of this law being used to this extent yet. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-year-ending-march-2024/hate-crime-england-and-wales-year-ending-march-2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-viewers-of-online-terrorist-material-face-15-years-in-jail https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-v...
- incomingpain 1y ago
  >There were 140k recorded hate crimes in 2024 [1]. That's just hate crimes and not the totality of speech crimes. In addition, repeat offenders count for more than 1. >So you are correct, "thousands" is an exaggeration. I'm not in the UK, happy to be wrong; but im pretty sure i wasnt exaggerating is the scary thing.
  - like_any_other 1y ago
    That's possible. The statistics are unhelpful, since the crimes themselves are nearly obfuscated - e.g. "malicious communications" covers both "indecent of grossly offensive" messages, and threats. Putting such disparate acts into the same legal category seems designed to mislead the public.

> The UK police arresting thousands per day for speech crimes is crazy to me. Good thing that's not happening, then.

by slater 1y ago

> The UK police arresting thousands per day for speech crimes is crazy to me. Good thing that's not happening, then.

There were 140k recorded hate crimes in 2024 [1]. The government only gave the breakdown by type of crime if they are against Jews or Muslims (figure 2.2), so we will have to assume they are representative of hate crime overall. ~47% were "public fear, alarm, or distress" (that is what the person the article is about was charged with for burning a Quran), and ~12% were "malicious communication". For just the 47% category, that works out to 180 recorded hate crimes per day, that presumably someone was arrested for (the report doesn't say). So you are correct, "thousands" is an exaggeration. It should also be noted that merely viewing "far-right propaganda" carries an up to 15 year prison sentence in the UK [2], but I'm not aware of any cases of this law being used to this extent yet. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-year-ending-march-2024/hate-crime-england-and-wales-year-ending-march-2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-viewers-of-online-terrorist-material-face-15-years-in-jail https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/amber-rudd-v...

incomingpain 1y ago
>There were 140k recorded hate crimes in 2024 [1]. That's just hate crimes and not the totality of speech crimes. In addition, repeat offenders count for more than 1. >So you are correct, "thousands" is an exaggeration. I'm not in the UK, happy to be wrong; but im pretty sure i wasnt exaggerating is the scary thing.
- like_any_other 1y ago
  That's possible. The statistics are unhelpful, since the crimes themselves are nearly obfuscated - e.g. "malicious communications" covers both "indecent of grossly offensive" messages, and threats. Putting such disparate acts into the same legal category seems designed to mislead the public.