2 ms·
People are certainly being arrested *in the USA* for speech (e.g. opinions) that are theoretically protected by the first amendment. Unfortunately, last I trie
by ben_w 9mo ago
People are certainly being arrested *in the USA* for speech (e.g. opinions) that are theoretically protected by the first amendment.
Unfortunately, last I tried to look this up, I found that there simply do not exist useful and easy to find stats for "malicious communications" in the UK such that stalkers and people making death threats can be separated from mere political correctness.
And even with actual death threats, there's stuff like this, where I don't myself have a single sustained state of my own mind about how I would respond to such a tweet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_joke_trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_joke_trial
- Argonaut998 9mo agoIt’s bad now and not perfect for sure, but I doubt these instances would be upheld by the higher courts.
- ben_w 9mo agoKinda irrelevant, given that the go-to examples I see on Hacker News of this happening in the EU and UK are either actual death/violence threats etc. (which are also not protected speech in the USA) or also not upheld in higher European courts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
- dmm 9mo agoIncitement is only illegal when "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action".
- ben_w 9mo agoAnd? I didn't say anything about "incitement", I said "actual death/violence threats", because I meant people making actual threats of violence up to and including death, are the actual things tweeted in the most commonly seen examples given on Hacker News (besides the aforementioned "also not upheld" that the commenter I was replying to tried to use to justify when Americans get arrested for tweets).