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In the UK 30 people are arrested a day for social media posts online. Only about 10 percent resulting in convictions. Police don't face criminal charges for th
by okeuro49 5mo ago
In the UK 30 people are arrested a day for social media posts online. Only about 10 percent resulting in convictions.
Police don't face criminal charges for this.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages-zbv886tqf https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...
- Manuel_D 5mo agoThe UK has different speech laws than the United States. Presumably, the actions of the police making those arrests are within the scope of UK law. Even if 90% don't result in a conviction, the police may still be operating within the scope of their authority in those arrests.
- okeuro49 5mo ago[flagged]
- Manuel_D 5mo agoLinehan was arrested for making this post: > If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls This seems like a straightforward call to violence to me. And he was released after police ascertained that he had no intent to act on these statements. If someone made posts along the lines of "Christians are abusive, punch them" would it be surprising if CBP took them aside for further questioning?
- jvanderbot 5mo agoyes, actually, it would be suprising if CBP took them aside for further questioning. That's not really how it's "supposed" to work.
- Manuel_D 5mo agoEr, no, that's exactly how it's supposed to work: people who make violent threats have those threats more thoroughly assessed.
- jvanderbot 5mo agoAs a sign of how weakly I held that opinion I'll adopt yours. For the context of "incoming foreigner" your take seems correct
- owenmarshall 5mo agoCBP, maybe not - there’s a lot more leeway for things that happen at the border, for better or worse. But in general US law sets a high bar for claims of incitement. Your hypothetical statement would certainly be considered protected speech. That is, of course, not to say that you would not be a victim of vindictive prosecution ;)
- notahacker 5mo agoThe other context is also that Linehan was awaiting trial for harassment and criminal damage against a 17 year old transperson at the time. And that he ultimately didn't get charged for the tweets, and did get friends in high places to whinge at the police on his behalf
- hgappit 5mo ago[flagged]
- krige 5mo agoThe suggestion that the actions within UK happen everywhere in Europe is just as misleading.
- okeuro49 5mo agoI don't think so. This is an interview with the German authorities: https://youtu.be/-bMzFDpfDwc https://youtu.be/-bMzFDpfDwc
- soperj 5mo agoUK voted not to be a part of Europe. Well, at least the England part of the UK did.
- meta_gunslinger 5mo ago[flagged]
- Hikikomori 5mo agoSpeak for yourself. I'd rather them be outside Europe as well, Scotland, Wales and Ireland can stay though.
- meta_gunslinger 5mo agoYou are making a normative claim (what you want). Not a nominal one (what is). Completely irrelevant, the UK cannot be outside of Europe geographically because of your feelings.
- generic92034 5mo agoAt least you would need a sort of creative continental gerrymandering. ;)
- wizzwizz4 5mo agoNot with that kind of attitude! We have machines that can consume the Hambach Forest, and explosives powerful enough to crack landmasses. Sure, we might have to temporarily evacuate the populace near the border, so that they survive, but I'm sure we can evict England from Europe if we really put our minds to it.
- Hikikomori 4mo agoEasily done with a few bagger 288.
- adampunk 5mo agoThat’s not Europe. They had a whole vote about it and everything!
- giancarlostoro 5mo agoTelegram creator arrested for the crimes of his users on his platform. He did not commit any of these crimes, he's being held as complicit, when every other social media giant is not being held to this standard, and its ridiculous to hold most platforms like this liable, unless it's the only thing they host. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel_Durov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel...
- pixl97 5mo ago> when every other social media giant is not being held to this standard, and its ridiculous to hold most platforms like this liable, unless it's the only thing they host. My guess is there's a little bit of confusion on why this happened on your part. If the government wanted to, they can and will go after the other platforms. But you see the other platforms aren't end to end encrypted and gladly give up the data to law enforcement. If they keep giving over the data, there is no risk of prosecution.
- giancarlostoro 5mo ago> the other platforms aren't end to end encrypted This is false. Discord (Voice & Video), Facebook Messenger, iMessage (to the point law enforcement has to rely on "leaked" message contents from the phones notifications), WhatsApp, Signal, Viber, and plenty others. They all have end to end encryption in some way, shape or form. There's also Twitter / X that has this as well.
- ImJamal 5mo agoEurope is a continent which the UK is a part of.
- 5mo ago
- HDThoreaun 5mo agoThe UK doesn’t have free speech
- helsinkiandrew 5mo agoThose 30 aren’t arrested for just for writing “social media posts” but for possibly “harmful communication including incitement to terrorism and violence, online threats and abuse, and unwanted communication via email and other means” Of the 90% many will accept their fault and receive a caution or warning Edit: and none of those cases would involve pretrial remand/jail
- loeg 5mo agoThe vast majority of those arrested are just for mild insults, which are illegal under the censorious UK regime; not incitement to terrorism or threats.
- orwin 5mo agoI'm pretty sure it's threat of violence. Sure, in some of the cases, the threats are mild ('i will fuck you up'), but they are often repeated, which, to be clear, should be considered harassment in any case (and the fact that it still isn't in other countries is wild. Someone keeps sending me insults, I should be able to legally retaliate to make him stop, no?)
- kypro 5mo agoDo you live in the UK? This isn't true. Here in the UK it is illegal to be grossly offensive online. Racism for example will have you charged under the Communications Act 2003.
- Hikikomori 4mo agoHave the racists tried not being racists?
- kypro 4mo ago[flagged]
- 5mo ago
- kimixa 5mo agoNote that the quoted laws also cover things that would be restraining or harassment orders in the USA.
- joe_mamba 5mo ago[flagged]
- kimixa 5mo agoNo, that didn't happen. You're confusing two different events together. The guy who posted the photo of brown skinned people with the "imagine the smell" comment was American and lost his job. The UK wasn't involved in any way. [0] The comedian you might be thinking of is Graham Linehan - he was arrested for inciting violence against trans people and has a long string of twitter posts quoted as possible reasons. (and had a similar post with the comment of "a photo you can smell" but with a photo of a trans rights protest, so perhaps the origin of the confusion?). [0] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/indians-dogpiled-him-us-techie-behind-imagine-the-smell-comments-opens-up-amid-major-outrage/articleshow/125953009.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/indians-dogpile...
- joe_mamba 4mo ago[flagged]
- pembrook 5mo agoIt is similar in Germany, where you can be arrested for simply posting an insult (non-violent) to a politician. No police will face charges if you aren't convicted. And you will NEVER get a settlement. I don't know why HN has become full of authoritarian anti-free-speech apologists. The current political divisions are turning people insane.
- implements 5mo agoExcuse the whataboutism, but how many Americans are arrested for “disorderly conduct” each day? (Which from my YouTube police footage watching appears to be “being an annoying arsehole in public” [1] ie a broadly similar moral misbehaviour) > [1] An overt act or conduct in public (or affecting the public) that disturbs the peace, safety, morals, or order (e.g., fighting, making unreasonable noise, using obscene/abusive language or gestures, obstructing traffic, creating hazardous/physically offensive conditions, refusing to disperse). Our online laws which Americans often seem to view entirely through the lens of free speech are more about public (dis)order. It’s not ideas that are being censored, it’s personal conduct online which may be harassing, threatening, abusive or may create a breach of the peace.
- graemep 5mo agoSimilar in the UK, and there has been along history of the police misusing things such as "causing an obstruction" here
- ndesaulniers 5mo agoI find it ironic; George Orwell was English!
- andrepd 5mo agoWhat are these messages? Threatening your ex-wife? Plotting to commit arson? Or saying you don't like immigrants? They all fall under this umbrella, yet the vast majority of people would agree the first two are criminal in nature.
- newaccountman2 5mo ago[flagged]
- pipes 5mo agoWho cares? Well the grand parent post references Europe, it is presumably a response to that.
- EA-3167 5mo agoThe UK is famously no longer a part of the EU.
- alistairSH 5mo agoEU membership has nothing to do with being physically located in Europe. The UK, Switzerland, and most of the former Yugoslavian states are not in the EU. Same for Iceland.
- dkersten 5mo agoBut one European countries legal system also doesn’t constitute “most European legal systems”.
- eukara 5mo ago"most European legal systems" implies more than one system, they're most likely referring to the "European Union" and not the geographical continent of Europe, which the UK is not a part of anymore
- illiac786 5mo agoGenerous interpretation.
- throw-the-towel 5mo agoAlso, UK law was always very different from Continental legal systems, Brexit or no Brexit. I don't think any country on the continent has common law, relying on precedent more than on statute.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 5mo ago[flagged]
- something765478 5mo agoYou can't just say the statistic is false; you have to provide evidence.
- ben_w 5mo agoThey're almost quoting the headline from The Times that they linked to, which says: Police make 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages Now, I suspect many of these offensive messages are in the form of stalking or are of an explicitly sexual nature, but last time this came up I couldn't find any sign that anyone had statistics to look up for this either way.
- okeuro49 5mo agoI live in the UK and am citing an article based on Freedom of Information requests. The UK has a problem with free speech at the moment. This is why the https://freespeechunion.org https://freespeechunion.org exists.
- chelical 5mo agoThe source is linked in his post. Did you not read the article? You should provide another source or address the data in the article instead of just asserting it's false with zero argument.
- pbhjpbhj 4mo agoIt's very easy to find that this statistics is discredited, the figures aren't for "offensive messages on social media" they cover a range of crimes. If the OP is at all interested in the topic, which their comment suggests they are, then they already know this and posted in bad faith. I'm not going to prove fire is hot when the OP is asserting the equivalent of 'actually fire isn't hot the burn is caused by socialists'.
- OGWhales 5mo agoMy understanding is that saying anything "grossly offensive" is illegal there, so it's not clear those police were blatantly overstepping their authority like in the case from the OP.
- ToValueFunfetti 5mo agoI don't think GP is advocating that the US become more like europe by increasing the authority of police officers.
- rbanffy 5mo agoI see a huge problem in increasing the authority of US police officers. They need to be held to much higher standards than they are now.
- OGWhales 5mo agoRight, nor was that the suggestion of my comment. I just wasn't sure they were comparing how abuse of power is handled in different legal systems so much as how freedom of speech laws are handled.
- jim33442 5mo agoUK police aren't breaking laws by arresting people for those social media posts. They don't have free speech to begin with.